Give people a birds-eye view of what to do when appearing before a traffic court — and how to request relief from fines and fees

The Legal Design Lab team created these open-source designs in our class Design For Justice: Traffic Court, with our partners East Bay Community Law Center and NLADA. The visual designs for posters and handouts have been piloted in Alameda County, California. They were particularly created for courts that have recently introduced ‘Ability to Pay’ procedures.

If you would like to adapt these to your court or clinic, to help litigants understand their pleading options and how to request ‘Ability to Pay’ evaluation, please write to us. We will be happy to help you adapt these flowcharts and visuals to your context.

Remind people of key deadlines and events, so that they can navigate complicated court procedure

The Lab has created Wise Messenger, a platform to set up automated text messages from a court, Office of Public Defender, clinic, or other legal organization to users (clients, defendants, and litigants). It has been piloted with public defenders to send ‘countdown’ messages to defendants about their upcoming hearings. These messages include the dates, times, locations, and key contact information for the defendants to follow.

It has also been piloted with a court-based Self-Help Center, to give procedural updates to self-represented litigants going through divorce proceedings. The text messages automatically inform litigants about key hearings, filings, checkpoints, and deadlines.

If your court or office would be interested in sending automated text reminders and procedural notifications, please let us know here, and we’ll be in contact.