- 1.What is Michigan Legal Help
Michigan Legal Help is a website designed to help individuals in the state of Michigan handle their legal problem without a lawyer. The idea behind Michigan Legal Help was to increase the access to justice for individuals in Michigan. The site provides articles that explain the law, “Do-It-Yourself” tools that create court forms, and provides answers to common legal questions.
Michigan Legal Help continues to grow. It also continues to expand into other areas of the law to provide a greater access to justice.
2. My Projects
As an ATJ Tech fellow I am working with other states to develop, test, and implement online “Do-It-Yourself” tools. Most states have websites similar to Michigan Legal Help, which also provide forms for individuals create court forms. However, these tools are mostly on an old platform, which is no longer supported. Thus, the states need to migrate their forms over to the new platform. My role is to learn about the applicable law, review the tools, find any errors, and provide feedback on the tools. The developers then make the adjustments and I re-check the tools. This is very helpful because of the time consuming nature of testing and re-testing.
3. Improving the Delivery of Legal Services
Improving online tools will allow individuals in each state to utilize legal services without a lawyer. Utilizing and paying for a lawyer is not an option for many individuals. The online tools allow individuals to utilize the court system without paying a high price.
4. Expanding Justice
“It has been widely estimated for at least the last generation that all the programs and resources devoted to ensuring access to justice address only 20% of the civil legal needs of low-income people in the United States.”1 This is not acceptable. States are taking a leading role in combating this access to justice gap, like Michigan with its Michigan Legal Help website. Technology has incredible potential to decrease the access to justice gap and when states work together to provide best practices and share ideas every state succeeds. With Michigan providing help to other states with their online tools, Michigan will develop better tools itself and help individuals across the country.