In honor of National Celebrate Pro Bono Week, Pro Bono Net and LSNTAP partnered to produce a pre-Celebrate Pro Bono Week webinar on innovations in technology-enabled pro bono. Moderated by Adam Friedl of Pro Bono Net, the webinar presented examples of new innovations in technology to support pro bono, as well as tips on how to make these technologies more effective and helpful for pro bono programs.

Paul Haidle, Director of the Volunteer Attorney Program at New Mexico Legal Aid, kicked off the presentations by discussing their virtual legal fair, in which attorneys gather at a central hub and connect with clients in rural areas using Skype. Additionally, Haidle explained steps to developing a successful rural clinic and technology considerations for a virtual clinic.

Next, Ric Morgan, a private attorney, and Beth Anderson of Johnson & Associates, covered a virtual pro se clinic concept – free monthly clinic(s) at public libraries across Colorado that link parties without an attorney to counsel over the Internet – and a sample plan for implementing such a concept.

Tony Lu, Product Manager at Immigration Advocates Network, then described work being done on Citizenshipworks 2.0. Citizenshipworks 2.0 is a project currently in development that utilizes expert systems, online forms, contextual information, and video/web chat to connect those seeking US Citizenship to the appropriate pro bono resources.

Afterwards, Brian Houghton, Litigations Projects Manager at Law Help Ontario demoed LHO’s ticket system to manage their remote assistance project, as well as considerations for undertaking such a project.

Lastly, Claudia Johnson, LawHelp Interactive Program Manager at Pro Bono Net concluded the webinar with a discussion of online forms and e-filing projects in the legal aid community.

While this was the final LSNTAP/PBN webinar of 2014, be sure to check out LSNTAP.org for additional information about upcoming online trainings. Materials from this and other webinars in this series are available on the SWEB Support Site.