By Martha Gove, Staff Attorney/Program and Outreach
Coordinator, Michigan Legal Help Program
The Michigan Legal Help website is approaching its fifth
birthday in August 2017, and we’re pleased to share with you recent content
updates, program news, and other exciting developments!
Michigan Legal Help (MLH) is a free, statewide program that helps people who have to handle simple civil legal matters without a lawyer. For the past year, our staff has been working diligently to develop a new feature on MichiganLegalHelp.org that we call “triage.” In legal services, triage means guiding people to the most appropriate level of meaningful legal assistance based on their individual circumstances and the resources available. Meaningful legal assistance may consist of online legal information, assisted self-help, referrals for limited scope or full attorney representation, or mediation, among other outcomes.
Currently, visitors to MichiganLegalHelp.org can access
legal information by browsing by legal topic or entering search terms. Our new system will make this process easier
by using expert logic to help users identify their legal problems. Because we have populated the system with the
different resources that exist for different cases and places around the state,
the triage system then matches the user’s needs to the available help. Users benefit by getting only relevant
referrals and information, and organizations benefit by receiving fewer inquiries
from people they cannot help.
The MLH triage system will launch in the fall of this year
and will be easily accessible on the MLH website. Visitors can choose to answer a short series
of questions, and then receive a list of resources tailored to their individual
situation. This will replace the current
“Find a Lawyer” feature, and will only direct users to legal aid offices and
law school clinics where appropriate.
The State Bar of Michigan’s Lawyer Referral Service and
other future State Bar resources will always be offered to users. The system will also screen visitors for
membership in certain vulnerable populations (categories of age, disability,
language barriers, etc.), which may make them eligible for additional services.
At the same time, MLH is working with several legal aid
programs to develop an online intake process that will work in conjunction with
MLH triage, providing a seamless connection for these clients.
Streamlining, automating, and integrating triage with intake
systems statewide has many benefits, including increasing the ability of legal
services providers to do the following:
- · Direct some cases to legal services intake;
- · Redirect other cases away from intake, saving time and frustration;
- · Give visitors more useful and tailored referrals based on circumstances;
- · Help visitors find what they need in an overwhelming sea of resources; and
- · Be responsive to the changing needs and systems of programs.
As part of the development process, we’re testing beta
versions of the system on live users. The
feedback we get from testing helps us tremendously in designing systems that are
intuitive and easy to use. In December
2016, we did user testing at the Ypsilanti District Library and at a Wayne
County Legal Self-Help Center in Detroit. Later this month, we’ll be visiting more
libraries, legal self-help centers, and other locations to get input from our
users.
In fact, you may have already noticed some changes to
MichiganLegalHelp.org that resulted from last winter’s testing. At that time we went into the field to test an
early version of the triage system, and we also asked real MLH users what they
thought about the way we organize content on the website. Based on their answers, we rearranged and
renamed some of our legal categories. For
example, the content formerly found under “Estates & Probate” is now
located under the heading “End-of-Life Planning.” We also added a new legal category, “Crime,
Traffic, & ID,” which we plan to expand in the coming year. We hope these changes will make it even easier
for visitors to find the answers they’re looking for.
Finally, we recently had a number of new print materials
produced to help promote our program. These
materials include rack cards, posters, and brochures customized for our now 15
Self-Help Center locations. We’re
distributing these materials to every court and public library in Michigan.
If you’d like to receive materials for your office or
location, please visit www.michiganlegalhelp.org/PRmaterials.
You can help us spread the word by
putting these items where they may be picked up by the public and by sharing
them with other organizations in your community. Of course, we hope you will also refer people
directly to the website, www.MichiganLegalHelp.org.