Talking to Bonnie Hough of the California Judicial Council last week, she recommended checking out several great projects coming out of Canada — specifically British Columbia — for inspiration about how courts can be more user-friendly. Many of them are efforts of the Justice Education Society, which is a public-oriented organization that is developing new tech tools & new user-oriented approaches to delivering legal services.

One example is the Small BC platform online. It is an online dispute resolution system to at least get a person started with filing the forms & tackling the process to resolving a small claim.

Notice also the lady in the bottom right corner — she’s a virtual assistant who speaks in a friendly, conversational way to tell you what the site has to offer and get you started with using the services.

This page gives you the two main options they have to help you recover your claim — giving you a diagramatic view of what each has to offer & what you can start doing now. It’s action-oriented as well as informative.