Summarize your idea/solution?
Michigan Legal Advice will connect low income users whose legal issues have been pre-screened by live chat agents to pro bono lawyers for online advice.
Describe your idea and how it addresses the challenge?
The justice gap is a continuum. At the bottom, pro se representation, at the top, full representation by an attorney. The steps in between these extremes, however, include solutions such as pro se representation with information and guidance, pro se with automated document assembly tools, limited scope representation, and others. In focusing on creating a pathway to equal access to justice, Michigan Legal Advice recognizes that some pro se litigants have legal questions that are complex for a lay person, but relatively simple for an attorney. But, bridging the gap between these two parties online in a productive way can be challenging because lay people often do not use the same language to describe their legal issues as an attorney might need to effectively provide an answer. Michigan Legal Advice will leverage pro bono attorney time from the comfort of their own homes and offices, and transform it into outcome-changing legal advice for users who have had their issues pre-screened by trained LiveHelp agents from MLH. By pre-screening each user's legal issues and indexing their chat transcript with their question in Michigan Legal Advice, the platform will provide attorneys with the information they need to effectively craft a robust response. This solution is a resource for low-income people in Michigan who either may not need full representation, or may not have an issue considered high priority by resource-strained legal services organizations. By providing a user-friendly, online platform, Michigan Legal Advice harnesses the knowledge of private sector lawyers who may not have an interest in taking full cases or engaging in traditional client representation, capturing a different kind of pro bono from an untapped contingent of attorneys.
How would your idea serve a local community?
This platform is built specifically to connect low-income people who cannot afford an attorney with qualified pro bono lawyers who will give them brief advice regarding their legal matter. For litigants who are representing themselves pro se, having expert advice on a more complicated part of their case could be the difference between a desired outcome and a disastrous one. The Michigan Legal Advice platform addresses a narrow section of the access to justice continuum by supplementing the currently available plain language information on MLH with personalized advice from attorneys who specialize in the issue area for which the litigant needs assistance. By removing hurdles to receiving legal advice online, such as physical travel and limited office hours and making the process of asking for and receiving legal advice more efficient and streamlined by pre-screening user's legal issues, this platform will fill an important and currently unoccupied gap in Michigan's justice continuum. The platform also seeks to inspire and a pro bono ethic in attorneys who may not be interested in traditional pro bono efforts. Although many legal services organizations have become adept at leveraging volunteer attorney hours for clinics, legal research, and full representation cases, there are many private sector attorneys who do not engage in these opportunities, largely due to time constraints or a preference against in-person client services or litigation. Michigan Legal Advice provides a path to pro bono for these attorneys, which we expect will appeal particularly to older or retired attorneys, time-strained attorneys, and rurally-based attorneys who may not have many pro bono opportunities in their immediate area.
Who will use the solution?
The platform will be used by two primary communities: low-income people with legal questions and attorneys looking for non-traditional pro bono opportunities. Low-income people: According to LSC data, low-income people only seek professional legal help for 20% of legal issues, partially due to an absence of guidance on where to seek legal help, or a preference for using other non-attorney resources, such as online resources and information. Michigan Legal Advice will integrate with existing pro se resources in Michigan, including MLH's plain language information repository and document assembly tools, as well as its live chat service which helps pro se litigants access and understand the legal system and its processes. At the nexus of these integrated resources, pro se litigants will be more fully equipped with not only information, form tools, and guided help via MLH and its live chat service, but also have the ability through Michigan Legal Advice to receive brief advice. Pro Bono Attorneys: Michigan Legal Advice seeks to leverage this untapped constituency by offering bite-size pro bono that is accessible from anywhere, at anytime. Attorneys can choose questions to answer at their leisure, with the help of Pre-defined Content (PDC) already developed by MLH to supplement their responses.
What makes your solution unique, innovative, and impactful?
Advice. In consultation with their staff, we learned that one of the common reasons questions from users went unanswered was that clients had difficulty identifying their own legal issue, and gave inadequate details to allow the attorney to craft an answer. Attorneys declined to take these questions in favor of more detailed ones. Unfortunately, this meant that the users who often needed the most guidance were left with none. MLH has encountered this same issue with its LiveHelp chat service. However, LiveHelp's chat allows its staff to triage the user's issue in real time, narrowing down and isolating the relevant facts. LiveHelp will act as a referral channel for Michigan Legal Advice when a user's question is too complex for existing resources. Upon deciding the question may require legal advice, the LiveHelp agent will refer the user to Michigan Legal Advice. Their chat history will travel with them, and become available to the attorney who answers their question in the platform, providing crucial context. Using data from LiveHelp, MLH will also design a series of guided questions that appear upon the user's selection of a legal issue category that help better elicit information from the user that the attorney can use in understanding and answering the user's question, increasing the value of the exchange on both sides.
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