Justice Innovation
The SikhCoalition has put together an ingenious app out to crowdsource reports of discrimination at airports and on airlines. If the government and companies won’t release information about how many complaints they have received, then why not ask people to report their complaints themselves?
The app lets a person report an incident as soon as it happens, and the report will be filed with the TSA & the DHS — and it will also allow others to maintain counts of how many incidents actually occur.
The Immigration Legal Resource Center (ILRC) has put out a sketched-out (at least in part) guide for a young non-citizen audience — trying to equip them with some basic legal knowledge & set of strategies. Some excerpts are below. There are a lot of great starting points in the PDF — though I would advise moving away from the “Pamphlet Approach” ASAP. If it lived on a scrollable or sliding website, at least that would be a minor step in the right direction >> away from bulky online pamphlets, towards a lightweight and mobile-friendly interface to bring the target audience in contact with this info.
I’ve been searching around for pre-college legal curriculum. When is law taught to young people in America, other than in pre-law classes in university?
I took a Civics class in my public high school, which reviewed some basic First Amendment rights, and was oriented around the rights of young people. It was enjoyable enough, but also taught by the school’s gym coach and not taught with much rigor or expectation.
In my basic Internet searches, I’ve found there are a handful of new Legal-oriented charter schools popping up around the States. The schools’ websites are fairly limited, so it is difficult to pinpoint exactly what kind of legal curriculum they are teaching, or what methods and tools they use to do so. I’m excited by the promise of youth-oriented legal education.
California has two legal charter schools — Pacific Law Academy in Stockton, and Natomas Pacific Pathways Prep in Sacramento. The schools were created in partnership with University of Pacific Benerd School of Education and Pacific McGeorge School of Law. Natomas was founded in 2006, and some of its law courses are developed along with the McGeorge law professors, including topics on the foundations of law and criminal law.
Chicago’s Legal Prep Charter Academies is a legal-themed high school that opened in August 2012 with 200 freshman students enrolled. It’s located in South Side Chicago, in the West Garfield Park neighborhood. It will be adding a grade per year until it has 4 grades with 800 students.
Legal Prep’s mission is to prepare Chicago’s youth to succeed in college and in life. Through a rigorous curriculum and a culture of high expectations, Legal Prep will empower its students to achieve their full potential. Legal Prep will focus on the skills that all great lawyers possess: excellent written and oral communication, critical thinking, problem solving, and advocacy. While not all of our students will go on to be lawyers, all students will gain an appreciation and respect for the law. These “21st century skills” will prepare students for success in any number of postsecondary paths.
To help accomplish, Legal Prep is working with the entire Chicago legal community and other area businesses to provide the resources and exposure to our students so that they know that they can excel in college and pursue a legal education. There are numerous ways for corporate legal departments, law firms, bar associations, and individual attorneys to be involved so please let us know if you are interested in supporting Legal Prep or would like to learn more about the school.
It does not have an explicit list of the courses it offers, but the school says that it will prioritize legal topics in education.
Legal Prep will offer its students a college prep curriculum with legal topics infused into the core subjects, where appropriate. Legal Prep will also provide law-themed courses and extra-curricular activities. The legal content is a way in which students can learn and hone their writing skills and oral presentation skills, as well as apply logic, analysis, and critical thinking to legal issues. Law curriculum uses strategies that engage students in learning, foster civic participation, and promote meaningful relationships with professionals.
Diverse attorneys are vastly underrepresented in the legal profession – only 11% of attorneys are diverse, compared to 36% of the U.S. population. Legal Prep presents an exciting way to increase the pipeline of diverse students to the legal profession. Legal Prep will not only provide exposure to the legal profession and attorney support, but also prepare students for the rigors of college and professional life.
I am writing a paper on ways to bring good design to create new models of access to justice. I have been scouting out some such threads, to see what might be worth developing further.
In my browsing, I came across this pdf pamphlet from the State Bar of California. It is an overarching list, meant to apply to all kinds of common situations that might arise in a person’s life. It’s not about litigation as much as planning & abiding by regulations a person may not be aware of.
The list is a bit over-general — trying to cover everything from obligations on those turning 18, to those just having a baby, to those buying a home, to those stationed in California with the military. It also would do well not to be buried in a .doc/.pdf file, but rather live on the web, and more easily searchable and reachable.
I can’t really imagine the use case of who the Bar expected to be using this, or how. Perhaps they imagined that a person would print this out and just keep it around their home, and check back in periodically — o yes, I’m making plans to get married, and I know I should be doing something legal, but I don’t remember exactly what, let me go find that pamphlet!
I don’t envision myself or many others doing this — much more likely, they would type in a quick search “legal requirements getting married” and do their best to navigate the chaos that would result.
But regardless of the form of presentation and delivery, the checklist does have some interesting content. It includes a general ‘stay healthy’ protocol for any person.
The pamphlet also outlines some basic alternatives to getting a lawyer, should such a problem arise. Again, I ask, why is this buried in a .doc and not prominently on the web? This is a good first step to legal self-management for consumers — letting them know their options and plan out for themselves.
This info could be made more helpful it was all linked out to richer explanations, examples, and how-tos.
I love the concept of the pamphlet, and would like to see it (or make it) brought to life in a more linked, lively, and findable instantiation.
I just came across the company TrueOffice that is putting together (inspiring!) games for businesses to train their employees on ‘compliance’ issues. Think sexual harassment, information security, or ethical behavior in the office.
The issue is that these trainings are typically boring, unimpressive, without lasting impact — more of a burden on the employees than a lasting instructional session.
TrueOffice takes a ‘Gamification’ approach to the problem (with strong reliance on the attraction of narratives, comic books, and police procedural tv shows).
Their market is clear: businesses that are obliged to train employees about certain rules & policies, and then provide some assurance that the employees have digested the training. Their approach, though, holds lots of inspiration for a wider range of markets and possible products.
Though these game apps are marketed as enterprise solutions for ‘compliance’ — they are bordering on the world of law.
It uncovers a few insights that could be used for legal service delivery & legal education:
I have scouted around for some info on whether there is a market there for TrueOffice. They’re a fairly young venture out of Boston, and it seems in January 2013 they received $3mil in Series A funding from, among others, Rho Ventures, the Partnership for New York City Fund and Contour Venture Partners (as reported by Kyle Alspach in the Boston Business Journal).
True Office said the funding will be used to expand its business within the financial services sector, and to move into other highly-regulated markets such as health care.
In the release, Sodowick said there are currently few options for businesses to effectively help their employees understand regulatory and compliance issues. But, he said, “a well-designed game has the power to engage employees and at the same time, produce analytics that can help the banks identify and reduce operational and compliance risk.”
A short cartoon I made while listening to Professor Nora Engstrom’s talk on Legal Clinics & attorney advertising at Stanford Law School last month.
Law as an app – technology in legal education » VoxPopuLII.
Christine Kirchberger & Pam Storr offer a great overview of where ‘apps’ (as conceived of now — and as they may develop in coming years) may play a role in giving lawyers more fluid working experiences, law students more interactive education, and general consumers direct access to the law they care about.
Their article also does a great job at laying out Key User Research Insights into how law students want to be learning with tech — and spelling out some possible models that lawyer-designers should be building upon.
They focus in on the potential for pushing forward certain types of legal ed outcomes:
- managing risks is something that practicing lawyers and other legal service professionals must do on a daily basis. Law is not only about applying legal rules but also about weighing options, estimating possible outcomes and deciding upon which risks to accept. Legal education has not traditionally included this in the curriculum, and students have arguably very little experience of such training in their studies.
- interaction between different areas of law is often hard to incorporate in legal studies, which follow a block or module structure. Each course provides students with in-depth knowledge of that particular legal area. However, the interaction between such modules is lacking, with teachers often unaware of the content of preceding or succeeding courses. For students, a problem with this module structure can be that they forget the content of a course studied at an earlier stage in their education.
- problem-based learning is generally encouraged and applied in legal education. However, most problem-based learning (PBL) is reactive, asking students to evaluate the legal consequences of a scenario that has already played out, instead of training students purely in after-the-fact solutions, in other words “clearing up the legal mess.” PBL should be made more proactive, aiming to train students in identifying and counteracting problems before they arise. This can also be viewed as an implementation of the first aspect, managing risks.
After setting out these ideal outcomes, they explore what the current state of legal apps are — and what the future could look like. One possible way would be to have apps be the links and bridges between students’ various classes — which right now are taught like blocks rather than like a fluid whole.
Legal education, as mentioned, is traditionally taught in blocks or modules, with very few references and links between them. This setup clearly has its benefits, not least logistically. There are clear arguments in favor of such an approach; planning and studying becomes easier for teachers and students alike, time limitations mean that implementing an approach that makes connections between each subject is hard. This is where we believe that technology has the potential to play an important role. Technology is not bound to physical classrooms and attendance requirements of students or teachers. It has the ability to be accessed at a time of the student’s choosing, without placing additional demands on instructors.
A legal education app could provide the key in aiding students to make connections between their study areas; it could be made to fit alongside a law degree, assuming a student’s knowledge in sync with their level of study, by including content from both current and past courses. The app would offer an easy way to implement an interactive, problem-based learning approach. It could provide additional content, quizzes, exercises, social media functions etc. complementing the education and enabling a holistic perspective.
Another insight they offer: law students may have to use the mental model of an interactive app (rather than a linear text approach) to analyze the law and consider how best to represent, analyze, and communicate the law to clients. Actually building an app could be a terrific learning exercise in the law school classroom.
In the exercise, students would look at law from a different perspective, i.e. how legal regulations affect the individual or organization. Going away from a linear text approach, students would have to translate law into a format that users or apps can read. In other words, law would have to suit the user/app, and not the other way around. Students would, therefore, have to go beyond text and translate rules into flowcharts, diagrams, mind maps and other visual tools in order for the app to be able to follow the law’s instructions.
Implementing legal rules into technology, therefore, not only encourages students to think proactively but it also motivates them to identify solutions for the application of the law and how rules could be transformed into practice. From a pedagogical point of view the exercise would allow the students to think about different aspects of law beyond the traditional case or contract. It would also encourage a wider viewpoint of law as a tool in society.
They call out the current model of using tech in legal study, which does seem to fall short of the model they’re advocating:
Legal apps have already been introduced to help lawyers study for qualifying exams, e.g. BarMax. (These are often, however, still very topic-specific.) Implementing the same kind of thinking at the educational level would start to prepare students for their future workplace, allowing them to be better prepared for helping clients with real-world scenarios dealing with complex and interrelating legal issues. If students begin such thinking at the beginning of their legal studies, it becomes normal, arguably allowing for better educated graduates.
This last approach is perhaps a little future-oriented (although not as much as, for example, grading by technology), and it is of course not easy to implement at the university level; academics must work together with app developers to produce a tool of real value to students. However, even a slimmed-down version of such an app can be a tool for helping students prepare for exams, test their knowledge of legal areas, or simply make sure that they have understood concepts covered in teaching. Some examples of such implementations in legal education are shown here
Some final notes: the article calls out how this may be done — perhaps through reformed curriculum, in which professors teach students how to build apps, perhaps through competitions or hackathons that push students to learn on their own.
Technical assistance is of importance, in order for students to know what aspects to take into account and what schematics developers need in order to be able to create an app. The exercise could be set up as a competition (Georgetown Law School – Iron Tech Lawyer) with an expert jury consisting of practicing lawyers and developers.
And perhaps just having students analyze apps could be a first step:
The students would –from the perspective of their expert area–firstly investigate possible legal issues with a specific gaming app, for example. They would analyze the application of the rules and norms within their field and identify potential conflicts or loopholes within these rules. Their investigation would include testing the app itself, as well as looking at possible end-user agreements and other applicable contractual agreements between the user, the app store and the developer of the app.
The next step would be to identify and discuss possible overlaps, discrepancies and conflicts between the different areas of law in relation to the app. The exercise should result in a written and/or oral report of the different legal issues involved and solutions to potential conflicts between the law and the app.
Adding another layer of real-life scenario, each group could be asked to present their findings to an imaginative client who is the producer of the app. This simulation would allow the students not only to develop a legal analysis based on correlating fields of law but also to present the analysis to non-lawyers, translating legal jargon into understandable everyday language.
The exercise–analyzing an existing app–very much fits into the idea often conveyed in legal education that law is applied after an incident occurs. In order to add a level of proactivity, students could be asked to analyze an app under production, before it is launched. This would guarantee more proactive thinking by the students asking them to foresee potential conflicts and avoid them, rather than discussing legal issues after they have arisen.
Usable law design from Legal Force, in the quick snapshot handouts it provides passersby at it store in Palo Alto.
Here’s an article by Jennifer Smith in the Wall Street Journal on new crops of apps that help clients find and monitor lawyers. It mentions Viewabill (tracking how much their lawyers are charging them, in real-time); Rocket Lawyer’s mobile app (create basic legal documents and buy plans for low-cost access to advice); Attorney Proz (lists area lawyers, who have paid to be listed); Ask a Lawyer (ask lawyers in Kalamzoo about basic legal questions and get free answers to your e-mail); and soon to be a LegalZoom app.
Now that people use apps to bank, order food and even monitor eBay auction bids, it was only a matter of time before they called in the lawyers.
Appearing in app stores are programs to help people keep track of their attorneys’ bills, draft legal documents and locate nearby lawyers.
Attorneys are doing more work on smartphones and tablets, and they have a whole host of apps at their disposal to help look up case law, track client calls and even assist with depositions and jury selection.
But until recently, few options existed for clients who wished to track cases or seek advice using mobile devices. This new crop of apps aims to add transparency, and a measure of convenience, to the process.
One new app, Viewabill, lets people track how much their lawyers are charging them in real-time. The idea is to head off sticker shock when business owners and company lawyers open up their monthly bills.
The app acts as kind of a client nanny-cam. It captures information as law firms enter it into their billing systems and transmits it to clients’ mobiles and desktops. Users select how often they want to get updates, set alerts pegged to certain dollar thresholds and can mark questionable items. The app can also be used to track hours logged by accountants and other professional service providers.
The app is now being used by a handful of companies and law firms on a beta basis, with a wider launch planned this month, said Florida-based entrepreneur David Schottenstein, who co-founded the enterprise with an attorney friend, Robbie Friedman. Firms would pay an annual cost of $25 to $40 per matter, depending on volume, or $25,000 for unlimited use, said Mr. Schottenstein.
“It helps them to understand what we do,” said Brian Baker, a bankruptcy lawyer at Ravin Greenberg LLC in New Jersey, which has been testing the app.
Errol Feldman, general counsel for JPay Inc., a Florida company that provides payment transfers and other services to inmates at corrections facilities, has been using Viewabill to make sure firms working to resolve contract disputes do so in a timely fashion.
Legal consultant Susan Hackett said the app was the latest example of a push for greater communication between lawyers and clients, who increasingly want more involvement in the work they assign to outside law firms.
Some companies with big in-house legal departments have already invested in software programs that let clients track the progress of legal matters or monitor law firm bills from their desktop computers. Such systems don’t come cheap, and not many clients use them yet—fewer than 20% of general counsel, according to a 2011 poll by the Association of Corporate Counsel.
Not all law firms may welcome the additional element of client control on the legal side of things. For Viewabill to work, for instance, lawyers have to enter their hours in a timely fashion.
“These technologies may scare people,” Ms. Hackett said. “But they are all productive parts of the march towards clients and lawyers having conversations in real time.”
This month online legal services company Rocket Lawyer Inc. is debuting a mobile app tailored to its customer base: consumers and small business owners who log on to the site to create basic legal documents or buy plans that provide low-cost access to legal advice.
Charley Moore, Rocket Lawyer’s founder and executive chairman, said more site traffic is coming from tablets and smartphones these days, reflecting his customers’ increasingly mobile bent. Many are small business owners who spend much of their time on the road, he said.
“Their office is their dashboard, so we have to deliver the tools,” Mr. Moore said.
Customers can use the app to create a non-disclosure agreement (more forms will soon be available) or modify existing documents they have already created. The app itself is free, and users can access some functions gratis.
Users can also locate nearby attorneys from Rocket Lawyer’s network—the app is integrated with Google GOOG +0.53% Maps—and punch in basic legal questions, although the reply, which is supposed to arrive within one business day, may not be swift as some might hope.
A handful of other apps offer similar services. Attorney Proz also lists area lawyers, who pay to be included. Ask a Lawyer, an app linked to Kalamazoo, Mich., law firm Willis Law, also offers free answers to basic legal questions, with replies sent to users’ email addresses.
Not to be outdone, online legal services company LegalZoom.com Inc., a Rocket Lawyer competitor, also has an app in the works, a company spokeswoman said.
A version of this article appeared March 11, 2013, on page B5 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Apps Help Find Lawyers, And Keep an Eye on Them.
A USDOJ report on Law Schools’ Access to Justice programs:meaning, what pro bono & public service offerings the schools have.
The report allows schools to present what offerings they have, but it is a more a spotlight on programs, and less a detailed or critical summary of what’s working & what’s not.
Overall, it’s a nice school-by-school summary, but still a little too short and self-reported to be fully useful.
The description:
At the October 13 Champions of Change event, Stanford Law Professor Deborah Rhode noted that it is a “shameful irony that the country with the highest concentration of lawyers in the world does such an abysmal job of ensuring that they are available for the vast majority of low-income people who need them, and whose needs are greatest.” When millions of people in the United States cannot get legal help that is often critical to their wellbeing and freedom, all parts of the legal profession need to be engaged to address the crisis. There is no better place to begin than when future lawyers are at the very start of their careers – when they are still in law school.
Champion Martha Bergmark, President of the Mississippi Center for Justice, noted with some envy that when she was in law school, clinics were only just beginning. But as most Champions observed on October 13, times have changed and law schools now offer a wide range of opportunities for students to learn about legal issues involving poverty and equal justice, and get hands-on experience helping victims of domestic violence, or people with a criminal record get a second chance, or provide defender services for Native Americans.
What are law schools really offering? The U.S. Department of Justice Access to Justice Initiative asked participating law schools to discuss how they are institutionalizing their commitment to pro bono and public service. They were asked to address two questions: 1) What is your school doing to support a public service ethic in every student?; and 2) What new public service opportunities are you offering in the 2011-12 academic year?
