Justice Innovation
East Bay Stand Down is a project offered in California in which at-risk and homeless military veterans can access all kinds of service help over four days. It includes medical and dental care, housing, driver’s licenses, court services, hygiene, and more.
Legal Server has a project Houston.AI, a new set of tools that allows for smarter intake of people, finding of their issues, and referring them to the right support.
What?
Houston.AI is a web-based platform designed to help non-profit legal aid agencies more effectively serve those who cannot afford attorneys. Comprised of a series of micro-services leveraging machine learning, artificial intelligence and expert systems Houston.AI is designed to perform many of the simple and routine tasks that lawyers do throughout their day to serve clients.
Such services include:
- Legal Issue Spotting
- Entity Extraction
- Document Analysis (using Computer Vision)
- Tonal Analysis
- Expert Systems to Analyze potential defenses or potential remedies
- Attorney Necessity Scaling
- Predictive Analytics (time and outcomes)
- Intelligent Routing of Cases to Agencies or Attorneys (based on Open Referral)
Why?
In our war to provide meaningful access to justice, it is unrealistic to think that the current army of lawyers devoted to this cause could possibly address the overwhelming legal needs of the most vulnerable and underserved among us without a huge infusion of government funding, a highly unlikely scenario in today’s climate. As such, we must significantly change our strategy on the frontlines to exploit advances in technology.
Simply put: for many of the necessary but routine tasks that lawyers do every day, humans are too slow and too few compared to autonomous machines.
Achieving success on the (asymmetrical) battlefield requires careful coordination between generals (human lawyers) and a cavalry of autonomous foot soldiers (high-speed artificial intelligence applications, leveraging continuously advancing algorithms). In this sense, machine learning as envisioned by this project, is analogous to West Point, preparing and training Justice Bots to help individuals overcome access issues that so pervade the American judicial system.
In the end, these on-demand intelligent resources will allow lawyers to practice at the top of their license (i.e., in their highest and best roles as counselors and advocates) in a far more efficient and effective way, all the while empowering those in need through increased access and equipping them to make better choices, which is to everyone’s benefit.
Florida Pro Bono Matters is a website that allows for matching volunteer lawyers with cases.
It allows for legal aid groups to easily post cases from their case management system, to then be easily found, filtered, adn signed up for by lawyers.
The Robot Lawyer is a chatbot made to let people get legal options and screening — and even fill in documents by chatting through a messenger interface on a website.
Please note, since first posting about this project, it has now become the DoNotPay tool. This post was about the original version of the tool.
In its original form, the Robot Lawyer covered topics like traffic tickets, refugee asylum applications, and homeless benefits.
An Ohio hospital has created an internal navigation system through a mapping app. It lets anyone find their doctor or destination by putting it into the app, and getting step by step directions about where to go.
Mercy Health’s Jewish Hospital has created a customized mapping system to help patients or visitors find their way around the Kenwood facility.
The app is here for download on ios. It’s also available on kiosks in the hospital, where you can print out directions.
Source: Mercy Health’s Jewish Hospital creates smartphone mapping system: Cincinnati Business Courier
Namati has a program called Grassroots Legal Advocates. It has paralegals trained in the basics of local law, as well as complementary skills like community organizing, training, advocacy, and strategic mediation.
The paralegals and advocates can help empower local communities with legal knowledge and procedures. Namati intends them as a frontline that can be in touch with community needs, adjust legal training and advocacy to these local contexts, and empower people to know and use their rights.
Grassroots legal advocates in our global network tackle justice challenges across a wide variety of communities and issues, from women’s empowerment to prisoners’ rights. Namati’s specialist grassroots advocates work on land, health, citizenship and environmental justice, but we also support the work of generalist advocates who provide primary justice services where lawyers are rare and injustice common – such as in post-war Sierra Leone.
We are also overseeing a global research study into how paralegals operate in different contexts.
Project Homeless Connect, run by the Colorado Lawyers Committee brings together coordinated services on a single day for homeless individuals. Legal volunteers help people connect to legal assistance, as well as public benefits, medical care, housing, employment, and other needed services.
There is also a “Homeless Court” to allow people to resolve outstanding warrants if they have violated Denver’s City Ordinance.
The Colorado Lawyers Committee has assembled a list of community clinics that are around the state, to get legal resources to people.
There are “Legal Nights” in Denver and Greeley. At these nights, lawyers come to resource centers and churches in the community, with volunteer interpreters. They provide legal info and referrals to people who need help.
Some of the issues include consumer problems, immigration, housing, employment, and family law.
University of Georgia has a Street Law program. It holds sessions to train people, especially young people, on legal topics. Much of their work is focused on how young people can understand the criminal justice system and the social services system, to be smart when navigating them.
Street Law UGA conducts community outreach geared primarily towards familiarizing youth about prevalent legal concerns and basic rights. Our student-run organization is designed to educate youth about practical law topics — “Street Law” — and inspire youth to seek legal careers. Street Law UGA focuses on educating minority and low income youth and inspiring youth from backgrounds that are underrepresented in the legal profession.
They have law students get off campus and into community placements. The goal is to have continuing relationships, to build a channel of expertise and relevant resources.
The law students are placed in middle and high schools, youth detention centers, independent living programs, and church youth groups.
The topics covered included the rights of an arrestee, the foster care system, dealing with a criminal record, what a crime is, etc.
The Providence Public Library hosts lawyers who will answer questions for free.
It’s called “Lawyers in the Library.” No appointments are needed, and the series is free.
It’s run with a Presentation from a lawyer, and then an opportunity with people to speak to that lawyer about the presented topic.
For example, they’ve had presentations and open questions on Supplemental Security Income, disability benefit, tenant rights, employee rights, and special education.
There is one session every few months, and are held in evening hours.