This fall, Pro Bono Net is producing four national training webinars for public and public law librarians about free, online resources for people with legal needs. The Libraries and Access to Justice Webinar Series kicks off this Thursday, Sept. 13, with an overview of the legal information needs among low-income Americans and why libraries are essential partners in access to justice.

Additional topics in the series will include training on free legal information and self-help tools developed by the nonprofit legal aid community, referral resources for patrons looking for a lawyer, and successful models for legal-aid library collaborations to connect people with legal information.

Pro Bono Net is producing the series in collaboration with the Legal Aid Society of Louisville, Central Minnesota Legal Services and Legal Services State Support (MN), and with funding from the Legal Services Corporation’s Technology Initiative Grants program. The series builds on groundwork laid by the 2010 Public Libraries and Access to Justice Conference  hosted by the National Center for State Courts, the Self-Represented Litigation Network, and the Legal Services Corporation.

Why a training series for libraries? Today, legal aid programs are serving more clients with fewer resources and courts are struggling to help more people access self-help assistance. At the same time, many low-income individuals are turning to libraries to access online information, complete legal forms, and seek assistance with problems that have a legal dimension. According to a 2009 American Library Association study, “More people…are turning to libraries to file unemployment forms, apply for Food Stamps or find other government information or services. Eighty percent of libraries report helping patrons connect with government information and services online.”

For libraries, statewide legal aid websites available through LawHelp.org are essential tools in helping patrons understand the nature of their legal issue and how to access services. Through statewide websites, libraries are able to offer their patrons credible, attorney-reviewed, state-specific resources. Many statewide websites also provide court information, self-help forms, and multilingual content for LEP library patrons.

For legal aid programs, library systems provide a network for information dissemination that legal services programs simply cannot match on their own. Libraries are often the only source of free access to computers and the Internet in their community. Many libraries also provide computer training, help navigating websites, and printing options, all of which benefit patrons with legal needs. Librarians also can help ensure that those who are not able to be served by legal aid are aware of self-help resources and alternative services.

Why is Pro Bono Net involved in this area? As part of our program support, Pro Bono Net works to increase awareness of and access to LawHelp.org, LawHelp Interactive and related resources, facilitate collaboration and involvement by new partners, and support innovative, replicable models for bridging the justice gap. As free, equitable access points to information, government institutions, and computing resources, libraries are key partners in that effort.

The webinar series is free, and attendees are welcome to join for the entire series or attend individual webinars on topics of interest. Please help us spread the word to libraries in your area!

For more information, visit www.probono.net/librarywebinars or contact Liz Keith, LawHelp Program Manager, at lkeith@probono.net.

 

As an organization committed to justice, Pro Bono Net works to bring the power of the law to all and to make the law work for the many and not the few.

Hispanic Heritage Month runs from September 15th, which marks the independence days of many countries in Central and South America, through October 15th. This month celebrates “the histories, cultures and contributions of American citizens whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and South America,” according to the National Hispanic Heritage Month website.

In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, we’re thrilled to highlight our Board Chair, Betty Balli Torres, and an in-depth interview our LawHelp Interactive Program Manager, Claudia Johnson, recently conducted with Betty about Betty’s background as a Latiné leader, work as Executive Director of the Texas Access to Justice Foundation, view of technology’s role in expanding access to justice, and more. We’re so grateful for Betty’s leadership and support of our work, and for all of her tremendous accomplishments as a champion of justice. 

About Betty

Betty has dedicated her professional career to public interest work serving as an advocate for civil legal services for the poor. She has served as the Executive Director of the Texas Access to Justice Foundation, the largest funding source for legal services to the poor in Texas, since 2001. Betty started as a staff attorney at Legal Aid of Central Texas after graduating from the University of Texas School of Law. She has held various public interest law positions, including: Executive Director of Laredo Legal Aid Society, Inc., Legal Director of Volunteer Legal Services of Central Texas, Managing Attorney of Legal Aid of Central Texas and as a staff attorney at Advocacy, Inc.

Betty has served on many local, statewide and national committees, boards and task forces related to access to justice and the legal profession. She is a Past President of the National Association of IOLTA Programs, Immediate Past-chair of the American Bar Association’s (ABA)’s Commission on Hispanic Legal Rights and Responsibilities, Past Co-chair of the Board of Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees Past-Chair of the Hispanic Issues Section of the State Bar of Texas and Past Co-Chair of the ABA’s Working Group on Unaccompanied Minors.  She currently  serves on the board of Management Information Exchange (MIE), member of the Steering Committee of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association (NLADA)’s Latino Section, Co-Chair of NAIP’s Racial Justice Committee and member of the ABA’s Commission on Racial Justice and Ethnic Justice. She currently serves as Chair of Pro Bono Net.

Betty is a recipient of the Distinguished Lawyer Award (Austin Bar Association), Tower of Justice Award (Texas Legal Services Center), Outstanding Public Interest Attorney Award (Travis County Women Lawyers Association), the Regina Rogoff Award (Austin Bar Association), the “Nonny” Award for Outstanding Nonprofit Leadership in Austin, the “Star of Justice” Award (Texas Access to Justice Commission), the prestigious Harold Kleinman Award, the Community Service, Chair and Pro Bono Awards (Hispanic Issues Section-State Bar of Texas), Emily C. Jones Lifetime Achievement Award and the ABA’ s Grassroots Advocacy Award.


How do you identify? LatinX? Chicana? Hispanic? Latina?

We kicked off the interview talking about identity. This month is Hispanic Heritage Month and thus the topic of identity, self definition, and personal identity are very much in our minds. Betty’s response was powerful and refreshing:

Betty: “Identity journey – who decides what we are called? Who made that decision? You get told what you are: Chicano, Hispanic, Latina, LatinX, etc. Somehow we continue to be labeled by the government, State, others, and why? I prefer plain American – born and raised in the US.”

Betty shared insights on how these labels given by others create controversy within the Latiné community. For her, the question of identity is more about her family background, thus she identifies as Mexican American. Why? Because her dad was born in the US and her mom was born in Mexico. So she is both. 

Betty would prefer that we skip these labels, and focus on our national identity – US born, but with immigrant mom roots and US dad roots. In effect, having others decide what box we fit in, and who they are is rather limiting. Over the course of her life and career, Betty has seen the labels come and go. It used to be that some of these labels were considered put downs, and then they became popular, like Chicano. Betty reflects, “what if the labels changed every year? I am still a US citizen with immigrant roots like most of us?” From Betty’s perspective, we should not allow anyone but ourselves to define us, because these labels help us, put us in a box and we are more than that label, whatever it is.

How long have you been leading the Foundation? What has been the hardest lesson you have learned as a funder in terms of funding innovative, game-changing projects and programs?

Betty shared that in the course of her experience, there has only been one other Latiné IOLTA director for the first 16 years of holding the position and  it is only in the past six years that there has been another Latina director. Her counterpart is from Puerto Rico, and in all this time, there has not been any other Latiné leading any other state ATJ funding foundation that funds the services often provided to the Latinx, Black, Native American, or Asian communities.

More disappointing is that there seems to be a nominal pipeline to ensure that the state ATJ funding foundations can eventually include other life experiences. Out of the 52 individual foundations, there are less than a handful of  people of color at the helm. To Betty, the fact that this has not improved in the past 20 years, when so many have graduated from law school, and are working and contributing in earnest and are excellent strategists, is disappointing. So she has made diversity a main area of focus of her volunteer and professional work. 

Betty’s background prior to leading the Foundation in Texas is exceptional. She shared that she has been a legal aid lawyer, Pro Bono Director, worked at the border as a director, and did work at Disability Rights, all in Texas. Her direct advocacy in different communities and always there for the monolingual Spanish speaking clients and the most vulnerable groups informs her funding priorities now. She does not come with a top down approach, or from wealth management of firm background, but from direct experience representing people with mental and physical disabilities and the most vulnerable among us. 

Betty joined the Pro Bono Net board because she sees and believes that tech can help be part of a solution, but is well aware that tech is not a silver bullet particularly to some of the most vulnerable in our communities.

Overlaying tech into an unnecessarily complicated system is not helpful. Betty strongly believes that “until we simplify the legal system, there has to be a human that works with certain populations. We have to make the technology that fits the communities. Technology has to be purposefully inclusive.” She believes that Pro Bono Net is centered on these values and beliefs, making it a unique tech nonprofit in this space. For example, she mentioned ¡Reclamo!, tackles the problem of stolen wages for immigrants, a real problem, with a very vulnerable population, immigrants and developing that tool with intentionality and community involvement.

In terms of her approach to funding, the Foundation likes to invest in what works and is effective, which isn’t necessarily what is “new”. For example, Texas Law Help helps millions per year and has for a long time. She is proud when resources can be shared for free to millions of people each year.

Another tool that she thinks is a good investment in the Access to Justice space is Live Chat, which has been around since 2015 in legal nonprofits. It is “old school” and that is ok by her. It is effective and provides good service in a reliable and high quality manner.  

That said, the Texas Access to Justice Foundation (TAJF) is willing and very open to investing in new strategies, including funding legal kiosks, and new kiosks in Texas. TAJF has funded 25 kiosks and put them not inside the traditional places, but really placing them where the community is, for example shelters, libraries, Native American areas, rural deserts. She likes that they are learning from each different location and design. Betty shared that while a press event was being conducted in deep West Texas, a community member with legal needs  showed up to use the new tool showing the need in remote areas. All the centers will be evaluated and then from there they will select how best to replicate them. Most importantly, the services and systems need to get out of the downtown buildings and go where the community is. “Get out to the community” as she shared.

TAJF is also focusing on ensuring all language groups are not left without legal information and services, and has made significant strategic investments in updating and modernizing in terms of language access and design, Texas Law Help

What drew you to Board leadership at Pro Bono Net? What’s something that excites you about PBN’s work and impact?

Betty pictured with PBN staff members (right to left) Jessica Stuart, Claudia Johnson and Megan Vizzini

Betty has been a long-standing member of the Pro Bono Net (PBN) Board and started serving in 2004, way before she became our Board Chair. She knew about LawHelp and then LawHelp Interactive, and saw that our technology, and not just one tool, were part of the solution. The one aspect of Pro Bono Net she finds thrilling, is that PBN always is innovating, improving, and coming up with new models that explore how and why technology can be impactful in empowering communities in need. She finds PBN innovative and dynamic and constantly improving or creating new approaches to a deep and hard problem. This is what keeps her involved.

She anticipates that PBN will improve at sharing the impact our tools make. She knows that we have a deep impact across the US, but she wants to see more of that impact story told. PBN’s constant innovation, not staying stagnant, is unique, special, and needs to be supported. Not all tech groups do this and she values and supports PBN’s growth mindset. IMMI, ¡Reclamo! – growth mindset.

 Betty shared that time is a precious commodity. She is focusing all her energy where it is needed, and she is proud of contributing to PBN. She is now even more careful about where she spends her time, and her number one priority is to focus on the intersectionality of race and access to justice and supporting groups like PBN that make a real impact at scale.

One area she thinks needs more energy is in telling how nonprofit technology is having a huge impact on Access to Justice. There is an ecosystem of free high quality tools, like the ones that PBN focuses on, that are making a difference in the millions. How does that story become known? How does the ATJ ecosystem value those nonprofit contributions? We talked about how it will probably not be one tool to rule them all, but a group of tools all aligning along incentives and mission, to provide valuable and impactful tools for free for those in need. And how do we ensure that they are available to groups serving primarily POC and other systematically excluded communities.

How does the foundation decide priorities to fund projects? Who does it look for inspiration, for guidance? Are you focusing on reducing the court backlogs, for example, or are you looking more toward economic equality for systematically oppressed groups? If you had a magic wand, what projects would you fund? Think wild and outside the box.

Betty: “In the ATJ world, the biggest issue is that the legal system was not created for people. If I had a magic wand, we would reshape the system to create it for anyone, not just lawyers. We would have to make every area of the law so that anyone could go to represent themselves. Everything would be approachable, there would be people who speak your language and there would be multiple places to go for help, including online. There would not be a need to travel too far. Maybe you could go to a neighborhood court house, where you can do your own divorce, with support but not needing a lawyer.”

Betty wonders how we bring simplicity into the legal system. What we have is not for the people but for the system. We need to shift our thinking from “I need a lawyer” to “I need to get some guidance and support/orientation.” We need to help people resolve the issues with minimal time, stress, and resources. 

Betty observes that some progress has been made with providing one lawyer to one client in certain courts, like landlord tenant court in some cities; however, that is not enough. If legal aid groups can only help 8 percent out of a 100 people who qualify for services, then the system is broken. The way forward, in Betty’s opinion, is to simplify the system, and to start thinking of community-based solutions, not top down approaches. Go where the people are, and there you will find the needs and solutions to problems. Bring back community-based services, but don’t center on the lawyers. Simple, free, easy to use technology will be part of that solution.

The solution would be one where people don’t need a lawyer to get through a process.  

Betty speaking at Pro Bono Net Board and donor reception in March 2023

Thank you to Betty Balli Torres for taking the time to be interviewed and sharing your insights, energy, and wisdom. We are lucky to have you leading our board.  

Pro Bono Net is grateful for all Latiné staff and Board members, partners, advocates, and supporters’ contributions to our work. We are also grateful that as a technical solutions leader in the area of access to justice, we strive to serve the Latinx community in parity with national demographics, and we remain committed to creating and building tools and partnerships that serve all, regardless of language and national origin, race, ethnicity and religion.

The Commission to Reimagine the Future of New York’s Courts recently issued “New York Courts’ Response to the Pandemic: Observations, Perspectives, and Recommendations,” a report summarizing the challenges and opportunities associated with remote court operations. This Commission was created in June 2020 as the court system navigated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and its implications for the future. 

The Commission’s Pandemic Practices Working Group wrote and published the new report. According to the court’s website, the working group was established to “study and make recommendations that improve the delivery and quality of justice services, facilitate access to justice, and better equip the New York Courts to keep pace with society’s rapidly evolving changes and challenges.” 

The report provides details on both criminal and civil proceedings during the pandemic when the courts 1) suspended matters considered “non-essential” and 2) made proceedings virtual through the use of the video conferencing tool Skype and then Teams. 

Below are highlights for those working in civil legal aid and with unrepresented litigants. 

How did the working group seek input from court system users?

The working group collected information and insights from over 300 stakeholders, including court staff, judges, union leaders, legal aid organization staff, bar associations, private practitioners, and government staff, to present the fourteen (14) recommendations outlined in the report. Those interested in providing feedback to the working group had three ways of doing so: 

  1. At one of the three (3) full-day public hearings held between June and November 2022 in Albany, Buffalo, and New York City; 
  2. At one of the thirty (30) remote listening sessions held by the working group; or 
  3. By written testimony. 

During one of these hearings, Wantee Ramkaran, Pro Bono Net’s New York Justice Initiatives Program Manager, talked about how New Yorkers accessed legal help information during the pandemic through several of our tools. For example, our team saw increased usage of LiveHelp, an online real-time chat assistance program for LawHelpNY.org visitors seeking legal information. Chats increased between 40% to 75% weekly when the Governor of New York State ordered people to stay home in late March 2020. In February 2020 alone, there were about 200 chats per week, and by May 2020, there were about 400 chats per week. 

What were some of the challenges of virtual civil proceedings?

  • Litigants were often left to figure out virtual proceedings on their own due to insufficient remote guidance from the court. There was no centralized “help desk” accessible to court users, meaning litigants had to rely on individual court clerks and other staff, who had varying degrees of technical knowledge. This differed from in-person interactions when a litigant could ask questions about their proceeding to court staff. 
  • In some cases, elderly litigants were averse to virtual proceedings and preferred to conduct court business in person despite having access to technology.
  • For domestic violence survivors, having to appear virtually from home could be unsafe because of the presence of an abuser in the room. In addition, it could prevent them from speaking candidly if they were being intimidated or coached. 
  • Court users who spoke a language other than English and individuals involved in their cases experienced longer virtual proceedings. 
  • This was because interpreters could not interpret simultaneously (interpretation happens as the speaker talks), only consecutively (interpretation happens after the speaker finishes talking). Consecutive interpretation doubled the time of a proceeding in one language. 
  • People who communicated using sign language or who needed to read lips needed to see everyone involved in the proceeding. This was not possible if some participants didn’t have a camera to join via video. In addition, litigants and lawyers with disabilities indicated a perceived stigma and prejudice when requesting or accessing accommodations from the court. 
  • Many lawyers said that virtual proceedings did not offer the opportunity to develop rapport and camaraderie with their colleagues in the profession as they could in in-person proceedings. 
  • Many court users could not access or afford the technology needed to participate in a virtual proceeding. To highlight this point, the report included information from the New York Legal Assistance Group’s report on COVID-19 and virtual proceedings. A study published in 2020 by the New York City Mayor’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer found that 40% of New York City households lack the combination of home and mobile broadband, including 18% of residents – more than 1.5 million people – who lack both. 

Despite these challenges, civil virtual proceedings were beneficial to court users.

  • According to the report, litigants with work responsibilities were less likely to take extensive time off from work to attend a proceeding. It was convenient, for example, to log in to a proceeding during a lunch break. Similarly, litigants living in rural areas did not have to worry about travel time to a court. Litigants with childcare responsibilities also did not have to make arrangements to attend a court proceeding, which meant they did not need to incur costs for childcare. 
  • Court users with limited mobility or disabilities did not have to experience structural impediments when attending proceedings in person. 
  • Having “time-certain” virtual proceedings proved to be more efficient and productive for all parties (as opposed to the in-person “cattle calls” or “calendar calls” when a large number of cases would be scheduled at the same time). This was especially beneficial to legal aid attorneys who could log in to appear in one county and then log in to appear in a separate county. Because traveling from one courthouse to another was not an issue, this meant that attorneys could represent more clients. 
  • In the early stages of the pandemic, when cases were high and the virus was spreading, virtual proceedings helped protect elderly litigants.
  • For domestic violence survivors, remote appearances were beneficial because they eliminated the possibility of seeing their abuser in person.

What does the working group recommend for the New York Court system moving forward?

The working group produced a total of fourteen (14) recommendations, which can be found here. Recommendations included:

  • Securing additional resources to develop and implement a comprehensive emergency plan for responding to future emergencies, including the creation of a standing task force available to advise on emergency preparedness; 
  • Expanding and supporting the use of virtual proceedings where appropriate by adopting guidelines that help identify whether a proceeding should be virtual or in-person and giving judges flexibility to decide on this; 
  • Fine-tuning virtual proceedings (e.g., allowing participants to test the platform before their appearance in court) to ensure a positive experience for the court user; 
  • Diversifying the way court users can access virtual proceedings. For example, to address the need of assisting court users with technology, the New York Courts created “kiosks” inside its courthouses to support litigants attending virtual proceedings. The courts also began partnering with government buildings, libraries, community centers, and churches to establish similar “kiosks” providing access to equipment and assistance to litigants. These community partnerships are part of the “Virtual Court Access Network,” or VCANs); 
  • Improving access to virtual proceedings and ensuring that court staff and judges receive comprehensive training on the accommodations available to court users with disabilities and court participants who speak another language; 
  • Redesigning the court’s website, www.NYCourts.gov, and making it accessible in other languages other than English (New York City’s 311 was cited as a model website on accessibility and searchability); and 
  • Creating a Permanent Commission to work with the court system on implementing and operationalizing the recommendations outlined in the report. 

The Future is Unfolding Before Us: Innovation To Expand & Ensure Access to Justice

The findings from this report confirmed what many of us have already seen during the pandemic: innovation and technology are key drivers to improving accessibility to the civil justice system. I look forward to seeing how the working group’s recommendations materialize over the next few months and years. 

I’m particularly interested in seeing the implementation of recommendations related to better virtual proceeding experiences for court users. Given many court users cited greater accessibility to the court when participating virtually, I see potential in more user-friendly and streamlined processes we can all learn from. Initiatives that were years in the making before the pandemic, such as the Family Offense Petition Program, Closing the Gap, and Family Legal Care Pro Bono (see page 16 here), are proof that technology can help ensure access to justice even during the most disruptive times. 

Some improvements in virtual proceedings will inevitably be tied to more significant community investment, such as New York’s initiative to expand broadband infrastructure and provide high-quality internet to 100,000 families and homes. But, hopefully, the fact that we’ve embraced technology in one way or another during the pandemic is a positive indication of future and better innovation in access to justice. Liz Keith, Pro Bono Net’s State and National Programs Director, and Rodrigo Camarena, Director of Justicia Lab, recently wrote about innovations to expand access to justice here

Finally, from what I’ve seen through our work in disaster response, the practice of preparing and anticipating challenges before an emergency happens can make all the difference in the outcome of an event. So, I’m glad the working group recommended developing and testing an emergency preparedness plan for future incidents. In the disaster response field, this proactive approach is often called “preparing during blue sky times” to ensure timely and organized responses to an emergency. 


Jeanne Ortiz-Ortiz is Pro Bono Net’s Senior Program Manager. She coordinates, develops, and grows state and national digital projects that strengthen the work of legal advocates and pro bono attorneys helping individuals with their legal problems. In 2021, Jeanne received the On the Rise 40 Top Young Lawyers award for her work in disaster relief and leadership in the American Bar Association. You can find her on LinkedIn or email her at jortiz@probono.net.

At Pro Bono Net, we’re always working to make our products and websites the best they can be. This means ensuring that websites are easy-to-use, and use the latest in responsive design. Last year we launched a new and improved LawHelp platform design, which is now rolled out to all 20 LawHelp sites across the country. Now we’re doing the same for the probono.net platform, our flagship product that supports more than 20 national and statewide justice networks and over 80,000 pro bono volunteers and nonprofit legal advocates working collaboratively to tackle pressing justice issues.

Introducing the JusticeHub design:

This new design, finalized in December, is the result of our efforts to re-think how probono.net sites are used by our partners, combined with our work to make all our sites beautiful, easy-to-navigate, and engaging. Built using Bootstrap, the industry standard for mobile-first and responsive design, the JusticeHub design brings a fresh and modern look to probono.net sites. 

With the new design, current and new probono.net partners will be able to choose from a variety of different layout options and four WCAG-AA accessible color palettes. Visit our demo site to explore these new layout options. The new design is bundled with other new probono.net features, including: 

  • Legal Server integration with the New Cases tool to facilitate posting of cases 
  • For states also using the LawHelp platform, seamless integration with your LawHelp directory to make referrals easier to find. See this example on TenantHelpNY
  • Native icon library for use in icon cards, flex pages and elsewhere  
  • Optional widgets, including AddThis social sharing and UserWay accessibility tools
  • Optional integration with G-Translate, a machine-assisted translation module 
  • Support for Google Analytics 4 (GA4), Google’s newest reporting suite, as well as an admin-only analytics dashboard.

As with all probono.net sites, our partners will still have the same set of pro bono and advocate support tools, as well as industry standard support and guidance from our team of in-house experts.

Through one one-stop access to pro bono opportunities, trainings, searchable libraries, and networking tools, the probono.net platform mobilizes pro bono volunteers, strengthens the work of nonprofit legal advocates, and promotes collaboration within justice communities working to tackle common issues. Recently released features also make it easier for programs to deliver essential legal rights resources and referral information for the public, alongside their advocacy resources. Visit our partner networks in Louisiana, Washington State, Georgia, and New York, along with the national Justice Impact Network, to see several of these new features and design upgrades in action. 

Interested in learning more about using the JusticeHub design in your community? Don’t hesitate to reach out to Sam Harden, Program Manager, at sharden@probono.net with any questions or if you would like more information.

Pro Bono Net would like to recognize the thousands of volunteer lawyers who make a huge difference for those in need and the incredibly important work of pro bono volunteers in building our capacity to meet the vast unmet need for civil legal services. 

This year, National Pro Bono Week’s theme is “Moving Forward in a Post-Pandemic World” The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed the delivery of legal services and pro bono across the country. It is important to celebrate the hard work and progress volunteer attorneys and organizations have made during the pandemic and will continue to make as we start to move towards a “post-pandemic” world. 

Below are some of the ways Pro Bono Net has been responding to COVID-19. These initiatives have been helping advocates as well as those affected legally by the pandemic since COVID-19 first became a threat. Legal issues caused by the pandemic, such as housing issues, unemployment, child support and family law issues, domestic violence, and more, will linger well into a “post-pandemic” world and Pro Bono Net programs will continue to support those affected. 

National Pro Bono Opportunities Guide

Pro Bono Net’s National Pro Bono Opportunities Guide is a joint project of Pro Bono Net, the ABA Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service, and its project the ABA Center for Pro Bono, in collaboration with probono.net network partners across the country. This year, we have continued to update the guide to reflect COVID-19 or remote pro bono opportunities. By visiting the opportunities guide, attorneys can learn more about an organization, opportunities available, and reach out to the organization’s contact about their interest in volunteering.

This Guide, which features detailed profiles of more than 1,000  organizations offering pro bono opportunities across the United States, has been viewed over 23,000 times since COVID-19 became a pandemic in March 2020. Pro bono does not have to slow down due to the pandemic. To visit the guide and volunteer, visit  www.probono.net/network/volunteer/.

Remote Legal Connect Platform

Pro Bono Net’s Remote Legal Connect Platform allows legal services providers, pro bono initiatives, courts and community partners to rapidly build and manage a remote legal support program to increase access to legal assistance for communities in need, regardless of location. The Remote Legal Connect technology was originally created to provide remote legal services in New York, and since the pandemic, has been adapted in three additional regions. The program has helped address a surge in legal needs related to COVID-19 pandemic, and continues to enable self-represented litigants to virtually connect with pro bono attorneys for legal advice and document preparation. To learn more, visit www.remotelegalconnect.org

LawHelp Interactive

LawHelp Interactive (LHI) is Pro Bono Net’s national document assembly program. If you cannot afford an attorney and have to represent yourself in court, filling out legal paperwork correctly can be a confusing and difficult process. LHI empowers people to create free and accurate court forms simply and easily, an essential step towards resolving a legal problem. LHI forms are created by expert legal aid and partner courts, and LHI serves the forms and provides the infrastructure that creates on average 2000 free documents per day. 

As the global COVID-19 pandemic and financial crisis exacerbated inequality and disproportionately affected people of color and low-income communities, it also increased the civil legal needs of millions.  By using LawHelp Interactive’s easy-to-use online forms, courts and nonprofits were immediately able to expand access to critical legal documents and empower those who the American legal system leaves to fend for themselves.  In 2020, LHI served one million interviews resulting in 710,378 legal documents to help put the power of the law into the hands of the people. Toward the end of September 2021, LHI has already served almost the same amount of forms with three months left to go. LHI usage continues to grow because it is a lifeline for those without access to legal resources in their regions.

Pro Bono Manager

For over 10 years, Pro Bono Manager™ has helped law firms run their pro bono programs more efficiently. Pro Bono Manager is a cloud-hosted SaaS application that securely integrates data from your firm’s personnel, billing, timekeeping, and docketing systems, and conforms to your firm’s brand and identity. Features can be configured to meet your unique pro bono management needs. Our web-based, mobile-responsive tools increase your firm’s capacity to manage pro bono work. 

Immigration Advocates Network

Immigration Advocates Network (IAN), a program of Pro Bono Net, welcomes pro bono lawyers to our Nonprofit Resource Center. It features a training calendar, alerts, libraries organized by topics, and more. Membership is free for pro bono lawyers and nonprofit staff. Helpful materials include:

To view IAN’s library, recorded webinars, and podcasts, join the Nonprofit Resource Center.  

To sign up for updates and receive our newsletter, scroll to the bottom of www.immigrationadvocates.org and enter your email address. Check back weekly for new library content, updated links, and more access to resources, to support your pro bono work.

Emergency Response & Recovery 

Pro Bono Net continues to support capacity-building efforts for emergency response and recovery related to climate-driven disasters and the pandemic. This year, we partnered with Equal Justice Works, the American Bar Association Disaster Legal Services Program, and Lone Star Legal Aid to co-host a program on strategies attorneys have used in responding to climate-related emergencies during the COVID-19 pandemic. The program, which was part of the first-ever Disaster Resilience Awareness Month, increased visibility about the role of legal aid and pro bono in disaster recovery and resilience efforts. 


For more more information about Pro Bono Net’s programs and initiatives, visit our website at: www.probono.net/programs

Josh joined Pro Bono Net as Legal Content and Network Support Assistant during May and June 2020, with a focus on supporting Pro Bono Net’s COVID-19 response efforts. Josh graduated from Brown in December 2019, where he majored in history. He has experience in policy research and advocacy at the Office of the Inspector General for the NYPD, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, NYCshootings.com (a now inactive website he founded to track NYPD crime data), and at the New York City Council. Josh has written a three-part blog series on the digital divide. Here is part two: 

The digital divide that has long hurt rural and tribal communities, Black and Latino households, and low-income households has garnered significant legislative attention during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

During COVID-19, internet providers agreed to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s “Keep Americans Connected Pledge” not to cut off customers’ service. This pledge lapsed on  June 30th. Now, millions of Americans are experiencing a gap in federal support with the expiration of CARES act benefits. With little to stop internet companies from cutting off service to those who miss bills, many have reason to fear that they will lose their internet service. 

But, the digital divide extends beyond the scope of this present crisis, and warrants legislative attention beyond short-term relief during the COVID-19 crisis. As NPR reports, internet companies often have little incentive to invest in high speed broadband in rural communities. Some municipalities have built their own broadband networks, but over a dozen states have passed Telecom supported legislation that keeps towns and cities from building broadband networks. New America, a public policy think tank, has its own plan to help communities build their own broadband networks: Community Broadband: The Fast, Affordable Internet Option That’s Flying Under the Radar. The plan advocates for communities to create their own broadband networks and urges policymakers to pass legislation including the Community Broadband Act, which would prevent states from creating laws that ban towns and cities from creating their own broadband networks.

Current Policy

The CARES Act provides significant support for telehealth programs. It provides $200 million for the FCC’s telehealth program, $180 million to the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) telehealth and rural health work, and significant funding to the Department of Health and Human Services ($27 billion), some of which went to telehealth. In April the FCC created the Connected Care Pilot Program that will spend $100 million over three years to provide connected healthcare to low-income Americans and veterans. 

The package also appropriated appropriated $50 million to the Institute of Museum and Library Services for its work increasing access to the internet, and $13.5 billion in formula grants to states for elementary and secondary schools, some of which went to enable remote learning, and provided $453 million to the Bureau of Indian Affairs and $69 million to the Bureau of Indian Education, some of which went to closing the digital gap that particularly hurts tribal communities. The stimulus package doesn’t add to Lifeline, the only federal program that subsidizes low-income families’ internet and cellphone bills, or E-Rate, which funds schools and libraries’ digital access efforts. 

Under the Trump administration, the Federal Communications Commission has invested in building more rural infrastructure, but the gulf remains wide, and the administration has cut subsidies that help low-income Americans get online. 

In January the agency launched a $20.4 billion implementation to build broadband in rural communities. The Trump Administration has also cut Lifeline, which supports families who make less than 135% of the poverty line with a $9.25 monthly subsidy towards their cell or internet bill (and an additional $25 discount for those who qualify and live on tribal land). Lifeline is the only federal program specifically designed to connect low-income people. As Larry Irving emphasized in an Aspen Institute webinar, there are more people living in cities who cannot afford broadband than rural Americans who don’t have the infrastructure for high quality broadband (though the latter problem remains a fundamental barrier to rural prosperity and digital equity). 

According to Gigi Sohn of Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy, only one in five people who are eligible for Lifeline are enrolled in the program. Under the Trump administration, applications have gone down by 40% as a result of Chairman Ajit Pai’s actions to make it harder for applicants and providers to participate in the program, and the program’s budget has gone down by half. However, in a step to make it easier to apply for Lifeline during the pandemic, the FCC temporarily loosened income documentation requirements kept Lifeline subscribers from being involuntarily removed from the program.

Legislative Proposals

With Congress in recess until September without passing a new round of fiscal relief, it’s unclear when we’ll see a next round of stimulus, let alone legislation that invests in closing the digital divide. Still, expanding access to the internet has garnered significant focus from members of Congress and looks to be a key priority for many going forward. 

On July 1, the House passed a $1.5 trillion infrastructure package, which would invest significantly in closing the digital divide. The bill would appropriate about $100 billion in broadband infrastructure and other programs to close the digital divide, including $80 billion in broadband infrastructure through competitive bidding systems, $5 billion for a new program, the Broadband Infrastructure Financing Innovation (BIFIA), “to help finance local governments and public-private partnerships’ broadband construction,” and $5 billion for E-Rate grants that provide support for schools and libraries setting up internet access. The package would also entitle “households with a member who qualifies for Lifeline, free/reduced school lunch, or are recently unemployed to receive a $50 benefit, or a $75 benefit on tribal lands, to put toward the monthly price of internet service.” And, it would require the FCC to automatically coordinate with the USDA to make sure that those on SNAP who qualify for Lifeline are enrolled. 

In May, the House passed the “Heroes Act,” which would provide $4 billion to help families afford service through the end of the pandemic and add $1.5 billion to the E-Rate program. 

And Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign recently released a proposal to close the digital divide that included support for increased spending on broadband construction and digital equity. It would add $20 billion for rural broadband and reform Lifeline by increasing the number of participating broadband providers and “reducing fraud and abuse.” Vice President Biden also announced support for the The Digital Equity Act, which would provide $1.25 billion over five years to create two digital equity federal grant programs that focus on underserved populations: one administered competitively on the federal level and one that provides grants to states. 

This is the second part of Pro Bono Net’s three-part blog series on the Digital Divide. To read part three, click here

Josh joined Pro Bono Net as Legal Content and Network Support Assistant during May and June 2020, with a focus on supporting Pro Bono Net’s COVID-19 response efforts. Josh graduated from Brown in December 2019, where he majored in history. He has experience in policy research and advocacy at the Office of the Inspector General for the NYPD, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, NYCshootings.com (a now inactive website he founded to track NYPD crime data), and at the New York City Council. Josh has written a three-part blog series on the digital divide. Here is part one: 

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised the stakes for a digital divide that has long disadvantaged low-income, Black and Latino, and rural households.* As Americans lose access to public internet sources at schools, libraries and businesses, those who most need the internet to access school and get the unemployment and SNAP resources they need to meet basic needs are getting hit hardest. 

With the expiration of CARES Act benefits, historic rates of joblessness, eviction moratoriums ending, continued spikes in COVID-19 cases, months of learning lost for students (especially low-income students), and the expiration of a voluntary FCC program that kept internet companies from cutting service to those who missed bills during the pandemic, the worst may be yet to come. 

In cities and towns across the country, millions are relying on parking-lot WiFi, according to FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. South Bend, Indiana, has sent WiFi-equipped buses around the city to sites that students can access. Similarly, San Antonio is setting up WiFi stations with over 100 feet range. And, a Nyack, New York, Library Director who set up parking lot WiFi service told Consumer Reports, “This library had been a place where kids without computers or access to broadband could do homework, but we now also have members of the public trying to do other things, such as file for unemployment or fill out census forms.”

The digital divide has long hurt Black, Hispanic, limited education and low-income, and tribal and rural households. While 79 percent of white households have broadband internet, only 66 percent of Black households and 61 percent of Hispanic households do. Native Americans, especially those who live on reservations, are sharply affected by the digital divide. Only two in three Native Americans have home broadband, according to a 2018 report from the Census Bureau. And only 52 percent of Native Americans who live on tribal land have a home broadband subscription. 

This disparity also falls along income. Over 9 in 10 households that make over $75,000 a year have home broadband, compared with only 56 percent of households that make under $30,000 a year.

Many Americans rely on smartphones as their only way of getting online. Black and Hispanic adults use smartphones at similar rates to white adults (about 8 in 10 adults), but 23 percent of Black adults and 25 percent of Hispanic adults are smartphone-only users, which means that they access the internet through their smartphone but do not have home broadband, compared to only 12 percent of whites. And one in five rural adults are smartphone-only internet users, compared to 17 percent of urban and 13 percent of suburban adults. About half of smartphone-only internet users report running out of data and they are far more likely to cancel or suspend their service due to financial constraint than people with at-home internet. 

According to a Pew survey from early April, at the beginning of stay at home orders and remote learning, about one in five households with children at home reported that it was at least somewhat likely that their children would not be able to do their schoolwork because they do not have access to a computer at home (21 percent) or because they rely on public WiFi for lack of stable internet at home (22 percent). 

This group of students who now lack internet access is disproportionately low income and Black. In 2018, 21 percent of Black teens reported using “public Wi-Fi to do schoolwork due to a lack of home internet connection,” compared with 11 percent of whites. And of teens whose families make less than $30,000 a year, 21 percent rely on public wi-fi to do homework compared to just 7 percent of those in households that make at least $75,000 a year, according to Pew. In California, the State Board of Education found that about 20 percent of students could not access the internet at home. 

As a result, many families reported worrying that their children would not be able to do their school work for lack of internet access during school closures and stay-at-home orders. Twenty-nine percent of parents report that it’s “at least somewhat likely their children will have to do their schoolwork on a cellphone.” And, many are worried about paying their internet bills: three in ten smartphone users are worried about paying for their smartphone service and 28 percent of at-home-broadband users are also worried about making payments. Hispanic adults are particularly concerned about paying their internet bills during the COVID-19 pandemic–54 percent of Hispanic broadband users reported being worried about paying their bill, compared with 36 percent of Black broadband subscribers and 21 percent of whites. 

The shift to remote education has had devastating impacts on many low-income and Black and Latino students. One study found that only 60 percent of low-income students regularly logged onto online classes, compared with 90 percent of high income students. Another study found that just 60 to 70 percent of Latino students logged on regularly to their online classes this spring. 

As remote learning and continued economic distress continue into the fall, the digital divide represents a national crisis that denies millions access to education, the benefits they need, job opportunities, and online legal help.

___________________

*Though lack of broadband is only one facet of the digital divide, it is a big part of the problem. According to the FCC’s 2018 numbers, 18 million Americans lived in an area without broadband, but BroadbandNow estimates that number at close to 42 million Americans. 


Helpful resources:

This is part of a three-part blog series on the digital divide. To read part two, click here

Celebrate Pro Bono WeekPro Bono Net would like to recognize the thousands of volunteer lawyers who make a huge difference for those in need and the incredibly important work of pro bono volunteers in building our capacity to meet the vast unmet need for civil legal services.  This year we are celebrating National Pro Bono Week by focusing on disaster resiliency in addition to pro bono work around the country. Throughout the week we will be sharing events, resources and highlights of the work being done to help people facing legal challenges post disaster. We are very proud to showcase this work and hope that it will inspire more people to get involved.

Volunteer attorneys make a big difference in the lives of disaster survivors. In order to help those volunteers with their work, Pro Bono Net partners with organizations around the US and its territories to develop resources, tools, and networks to better prepare and facilitate volunteering. In addition to the roundtables we discussed yesterday, Pro Bono Net offers access to news and alerts, listservs, trainings, libraries and volunteer opportunities specially designed for disaster legal aid advocates.

Continue Reading DisasterLegalAid.org Advocacy Center | Pro Bono Week

LHIIn 2016, Michigan Legal Help (MLH) partnered with expert developer Bob Aubin, and Pro Bono Net to create a tool that helps online form developers automate the identification of text that needs to be translated. When an interview for Pro Bono Net’s LawHelp Interactive (LHI) needs to be changed to plain language, or to any other target language this tool helps to minimize the time and effort required.

The inspiration for this project came about as Bob Aubin worked on creating Spanish forms for Michigan. After finding out how long it took to pull the text that needs translation and how much time it took to reinsert the translated text, the idea came about to develop a more error proof automated way to do this. The idea of creating a “Text Management Tool” (TMT) was born! Below is an interview with Angela Tripp (Co-Director and Project Director of Michigan Legal Help Program), and Bob Aubin.

How did the need to create this tool come up?

Angela: Michigan Legal Help (MLH), michiganlegalhelp.org, has a very complex divorce interview in HotDocs, and we wanted to translate it into Spanish. This process was laborious – Bob had to cut and paste each question, prompt, set of answer choices, help text, etc. from every cul de sac in this long interview, and it took a lot of time and effort.

Then once we had that translated, he had to put it all back together again. It took many hours, and we had to test for many more months to make sure everything was working as intended. In the meantime, over the year it took us to do this, we made multiple changes to the English interview, and had to go back and painstakingly make those same changes. Bob thought that there had to be an easier way to do this, so he created one.

Could you share some details of those interviews and how are they being used?

Angela: We have used the Text Management Tool (TMT) to speed up translation of interviews into Spanish, and to make major changes to interviews. We plan to use it in the near future to improve the plan language of our interviews – we anticipate making a lot of changes to the text when we review our interviews for plain language. We’re also going to use the tool to make our HD interviews more mobile friendly by shortening the questions as much as possible.

How did you develop the tool?

Bob: Knowing that the HotDocs Component File is an XML file, I figured we could develop a way to cycle through the XML and copy any instances of interview text found. All nooks and crannies that can contain interview text were identified. Then we hired HotDocs Corporation as a subcontractor to create the tool in C# to do what we had specified.

Since we created Ayuda Legal in 2014, there have been over 64,000 pages views, representing approximately 2.5% of all Michigan Legal Help visitors. Right now, we have 3 forms available in Spanish, all in family law, including a form to request and interpreter.

What other uses for the tool are there, besides the intended simplification of the process of pulling text from a HD interview and putting it back into it?

Angela: That’s what the tool does; the multiple uses come from the different goals you can accomplish by doing this. When same sex marriage (and divorce) became legal, we had to modify a lot of the language in our divorce interview; this helps do that. When you want to translate into another language, this helps do that.

Any time you need to modify a lot of text at once, this tool help – whether you want to translate, improve plain language, update legal information in the interview, or make more mobile friendly – this tool helps you do that and makes sure all the new text gets put back into the right place in the interview.

Bob: The tool has also proved to be a valuable troubleshooting tool for developers.  We had an interview with a lot of number computations in it, and one of them was misbehaving. The server error could not tell us which computation it was, so we used the tool to produce a report of the computations and all text was scanned. The error was quickly found and fixed.

Finally, we wanted to merge two separate but similar interviews with separate component files into one interview. The tool generated reports for each of the component files, and those reports were compared in Word to show the differences we had to address.

What type of response are you getting from the community?

Angela: People have been very excited. The response at the training and the survey has been uniformly positive, with one training attendee saying,

“This will be fabulous for debugging. And it has potential for managing translations is terrific”

another commented

“BOB AUBIN AND ANGELA TRIPP RULE!!!!!!!!!!!!”

We’d still love to hear from people what they think – we have separate surveys for HotDocs developers (https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TMTDev) and document assembly project managers (https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TMTprojmgr) – if you haven’t taken a survey yet, please do!

Are there any programs that are now using the tool to improve their existing interview?

Angela: Well, we are in Michigan. Other states are right now learning how to use the tool—and we expect that in the next coming months, developers will use the tool to trouble shoot, create new content, and find new uses for the tool.

Are you now creating any new content/forms with this new capacity?

Angela: Not at this time. Its biggest application for us is maintenance – updates, translations, improving existing content. Maintenance is one the biggest challenges in the document assembly world, and it’s great to have a tool to help make this easier, and less time consuming.

Any last work to project owners on the importance of using plain language for LHI interviews?

Angela: Only that it is extremely important, and as we move to developing more and more for mobile devices, using plain language is even more important. We have to learn to say things in simpler terms and fewer words so that it will fit and make sense on a small screen for people who are on the “go”; the only way to do this is through plain language.

You can find the tool, User’s Manual, and training video all here: https://www.probono.net/dasupport/library/folder.617503-HotDocs_Text_Management_Tool


Michigan Legal HelpThe Michigan Legal Help website and affiliated local self-help centers are part of the Michigan Legal Help Program. The Program works with judges, courts, lawyers, bar associations, nonprofit legal aid agencies, legal self-help centers, libraries and many others to promote coordinated and quality assistance for persons representing themselves in civil legal matters in Michigan.

LHI logoPro Bono Net leads a national effort to provide online legal document assembly for poverty law and court access to justice programs. LawHelp Interactive allows subject matter experts to create interview templates that can be used to assemble court forms and other legal documents based on a user’s input. The system increases opportunities for self-represented litigants to achieve justice on their own and improves efficiency for legal aid, pro bono and courts-based access to justice programs. Read a case study about how the NY Courts are using LawHelp Interactive. This project is in collaboration with Ohio State Legal Services Association, with funding by the Legal Services Corporation and the State Justice Institute, and using HotDocs software.

We are delighted to announce that Claudia Johnson, Pro Bono Net’s LawHelp Interactive Program Manager, was invited to author a guest article for the Self-Represented Litigation Network entitled “Document Assembly : An Essential Building Block for the Access to Justice Ecosystem.” In this piece she not only describes the innovation and extensive reach of LawHelp Interactive, but it’s incomparable impact on the end user community of pro se litigants. Below is a short blurb from the piece.

LawHelp Interactive increases opportunities for those without an attorney to achieve justice on their own by allowing pro se litigants to create their own complete, high quality legal documents and pleadings for free. LHI also promotes innovative models of pro bono, remote and unbundled legal assistance, and supports collaborations with community organizations and libraries.

LawHelp Interactive is a program of Pro Bono Net, a nonprofit leader in deploying technology and collaboration to increase access to justice, operated in partnership with Ohio State Legal Services Association. Together they have received generous support for this work from, among others, the Legal Services Corporation’s Technology Initiative Grants program, as well as significant software donations from the HotDocs Corporation. Through trainings, technical assistance and community networking, LHI helps local programs develop interactive forms and effectively integrate them with services to help hundreds of thousands of people each year prevent or address legal problems.”

To read the piece in its entirety, click here: http://www.srln.org/node/848


SRLNSelf-Represented Litigation Network (SRLN) is a network of innovative lawyers, judges, court staff, legal technologists, librarians and other allied professionals who believe everyone deserves access to justice. They are working to transform the American legal system so that every person who faces a civil legal issue can get the legal help they need, understand court proceedings and get a decision on the merits. They accomplish this by advancing innovative, evidence-based access-oriented solutions such as comprehensive court and legal aid self-help services, simplified court rules and procedure, and integrated systems that efficiently and effectively connect people who need lawyers to lawyers.