“Radical simply means ‘grasping things at the root’” –Angela Davis

You may be wondering what Angela Davis, and legal tech have to do with each other. This Summer I have the pleasure of attempting to use legal tech in ways that improve access for people who have traditionally faced barriers to legal services. While Davis may not have legal tech on the purview of her many social justice causes, she would surely recognize the necessity of seizing the opportunities legal tech potentially provides. By better orienting itself towards those most in need, legal tech presents an occasion to radically change civil legal aid. If capable of doing so, the civil legal aid community could begin to address issues that have reinforced the wealth gap and worsened barriers for marginalized communities.

As a result of its recognized blindspot, the civil legal aid community has taken substantial efforts in recent years to reform access to legal resources for low-income people. The heavy increase in the number of self-represented people arriving in courts, along with traditional obstacles faced by marginalized communities, presents an opportunity for the legal community to use technology to bridge the access gaps. In the spirit of Angela Davis’ quote, I believe that in order for tech to have any real effect, it must recognize the root of the access gap; systems must be designed to serve people rather than problems. Fortunately, this Summer I have the opportunity to work with and learn from a group of people dedicated to reinforcing that exact ideology through their work.

Situated in the heart of Downtown Boston, the Volunteer Lawyers Project (VLP) of the Boston Bar Association is a non-profit legal organization dedicated to providing resources to people with low incomes and whom are in need of legal services. Facing a high demand for pro bono services, VLP was founded in 1977 and has been growing ever since. Currently it coordinates a group of approximately 2,000 volunteers, which consists of attorneys, paralegals, and law students. Along with VLP staff these legal professionals help further the goal of providing civil legal services in the form of information advice, referrals, brief service in court clinics, or occasionally full representation for trials or appeals. In addition, VLP offers trainings and will now be maintaining a mobile-optimized statewide pro bono website for volunteers.

Over the course of the Summer I’ll be assisting VLP and Barbara Siegel (Deputy Director and Senior Partners Project Manager) with the relaunch of their new mobile site, and assisting with the creation of some documents that will help to address issues with social security benefits. With the website as my main focus, I will be implementing reach out through webinars, designing a sustainable maintenance structure, and attempting to increase participation by both volunteers and participating programs. As I am already a few weeks in, the majority of my work has been geared towards understanding the best possible ways for engaging my audience. By centering the reach out around ongoing feedback and usability, I hope to have updated the site and successfully rolled it out by the end of next month. Modeling after other successful projects and incorporating the unique limits and resources of VLP, the relaunch will focus first on engaging the private bar, then followed by larger programs.

While VLP seeks to provide services to as many people as possible, they ultimately are not able to help everyone that contacts their offices. An obvious result of this is the remaining need for pro bono services for many of these people. By making the pro bono website as user-friendly as possible, and by incorporating ongoing feedback from users, I hope to decrease this need by creating better streamlined partnerships between pro bono volunteers and programs that need them. For many the legal system can be overwhelming, scary, and have the potential for life-altering outcomes. Attorneys have a unique capacity to lessen these burdens, and getting them involved is the first step. To check out an introduction to the site, click here.

For a firsthand account of how pro bono attorneys can make a difference, check out this video: