Can you believe we’re five
years old this month? It seems like only yesterday that we were drafting our
first articles and planning the original design of the Michigan Legal Help
website. Despite its youth, Michigan
Legal Help (MLH) is recognized throughout the state as the single most reliable
source for free, accurate, up-to-date tools and referrals for civil legal
problems.
We also serve as a model for similar programs developing in states across the country. The keys to our success have been the breadth and depth of our content, our outreach efforts, the many elements to our program, the fantastic contributions and support from our partners, and the dedication of our staff.
In addition to our fifth
birthday, this month we are also celebrating the Michigan State Bar
Foundation’s announcement that MLH Director Angela Tripp is a 2017 recipient of
the Access to Justice Award, which honors persons who have significantly
advanced access to justice for the poor in Michigan.
The most important
component of MLH is the legal information we provide for people with legal
problems. We are continuously adding new
content to the website, often in response to the demands of our users. In the last year, we added information about
special education, creation of a will, unemployment benefits, and farmworkers’
rights, among others.
We also work hard to keep
everything on MLH up to date, which means staying on top of all changes to the
laws and practices in Michigan. During
the past year, we updated filing fee information in many areas of MLH to
reflect the filing fee increase that took effect in 2016, and we revised our
articles and replaced forms as needed to reflect changes to State Court
Administrative Office forms.
We continue to close in on
our goal of translating 100 percent of MLH content into Spanish for publication
on our Spanish-language version of MLH: Ayuda Legal de Michigan. We have also seen a significant increase in
page views of this site in recent years.
One of the easiest ways to
measure the success of MLH is to look at data about how many people are using
it. During its first five years, the
Michigan Legal Help website received 11.6 million page views and 3.87 million
visitors. In July 2017, visit rates
averaged 29,000 per week. Traffic to our website increased by 20 percent
in our fifth year.
On MLH, visitors can easily
complete the court forms they need in order to resolve their legal problems. MLH
staff attorneys create these programs, and the forms are completed on the
LawHelp Interactive (LHI) web platform, which is used by about 65 states and
Canadian provinces. In 2016 MLH visitors
completed 86,824 sets of forms. (“Sets”
can include multiple forms necessary to carry out a legal case.) This is an average of 238 sets of forms
completed each day, and represents an increase of 38 percent from 2015. Michigan ranks second (after New York) among
the participating states and provinces in terms of the number of documents
completed on LHI.
Another way that MLH helps
people is through LiveHelp, an interactive, chat-based form of assisting
website users without giving legal advice. From its launch in September 2013, LiveHelp
has been available from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., Monday through Friday
(excluding legal holidays). LiveHelp agents,
who are trained student volunteers from area law schools, interact with website
visitors, helping them navigate the website and answering questions that do not
require legal advice. In 2016, agents
(including MLHP staff) answered 5,133 chats and 2,642 after-hours e-mails. These numbers reflect an increase of 119
percent since 2015.
We continue to grow and
improve our program in many aspects beyond the publication of new content. For example, in 2016, we asked outside
evaluators to assess how accessible our website is to users with vision and
other disabilities. On the basis of
their recommendations, we modified our website layout to improve both usability
and accessibility.
Also in 2016, we broke
virtual ground on one of our most ambitious programs to date, the MLH Legal
Help Finder. When this feature launches
in September 2017, it will guide all litigants to the most appropriate
resources available to them along the continuum of services available in
Michigan, from assisted self-help to unbundled assistance to full
representation by a legal services attorney, pro bono attorney, or private
attorney. The system will use advanced
logic trees to help identify a visitor’s legal problem and what services they
qualify for, then direct the user to the most appropriate resources to resolve
their problem, given what is available in the community.
Michigan Legal Help has
developed and continues to support a network of Self-Help Centers (SHCs)
throughout the state. These are
locations where visitors can go to access computers, printers, Internet, and
legal information (but not advice). In
most cases, the centers are staffed by trained “navigators,” who help visitors
find the legal information they need at Michigan Legal Help.
For each new Self-Help Center,
MLH staff conduct an on-site training for personnel from local courts, legal
services, libraries, community organizations, and the host location. We provide continuing support in the form of
quarterly webinars and news updates.
In the last year, MLH
opened new SHC sites in Saginaw, Livingston, Alpena, and Grand Traverse
Counties. We are preparing to open more centers
this year in Jackson, Genesee, and Cass Counties.
A critical component of the
MLH mission is to build strong partnerships across courts, legal services
providers, and community organizations to improve access to justice. To this end, MLH staff, and in particular, our
director, Angela Tripp, participate in numerous statewide and national
committees related to legal services delivery, as well as several SCAO forms
committees.
We continue to look for
ways to increase awareness of our programs throughout Michigan. Therefore, MLH staff are always willing to
make outreach presentations at organizations of all kinds, from academic
settings, to governmental bodies, to community festivals, and beyond.
We also regularly
contribute to various publications, including SCAO’s “Connections,” the Bar
Journal, and the Family Law Journal.
As we strive to make more
self-represented persons aware of our resources, in 2016 we redesigned our
print materials to reflect our expanded legal areas and services. In June 2017, these materials (business cards,
rack cards, SHC brochures, and posters) were mailed to all courts, public
libraries, and legal services offices in Michigan. We have had a very positive response to this
mailing, with many locations requesting additional supplies. MLH also maintains a consistent and active
social media presence on Facebook and Twitter. Our program was also featured in the New York Times in an article in June
2016, “Legal Aid with a Digital Twist.”
We are very proud of our
accomplishments so far, but there is always more work to be done. We hope you
will watch us grow!