By Ramzi Badwi, Program and Outreach Coordinator, Michigan Legal Help
From Legal Information to External Referrals
The Michigan Legal Help (MLH) Program is always looking for ways we can better assist self-represented litigants in Michigan. Although MichiganLegalHelp.org began providing solely legal information, many of our expansions since then have dealt with providing referrals to external organizations and resources. For example, the Guide to Legal Help can screen a visitor for legal aid eligibility, allow them to start their online intake application for legal aid if they are eligible, find a private attorney through the State Bar’s Lawyer Referral Service, and more. We also have a Courts & Agencies feature, which provides the visitor with court contact information, and a Community Services section, which can help the visitor find helpful organizations like fair housing centers and domestic violence shelters. The latest addition to our website is a continuation of this trend: a feature that will help visitors find a legal clinic where they can potentially receive free legal advice and representation.
The Legal Clinics and Events Calendar
This new feature is our Legal Clinics and
Events Calendar. This calendar
contains legal clinics and other events (such as child support amnesty events)
from all over the state of Michigan for many different types of legal
issues. A visitor to the calendar can
take a closer look at the clinic or event to see if it covers the legal issue
they are hoping to find help for and if it is at an appropriate time and place
for them. Each clinic listing will
include the clinic’s date and time; a description of when the clinic repeats,
if applicable; the eligibility requirements, if there are any; and a
description of who might want to attend.
The clinic calendar is available in multiple places: on the homepage, on
the results page after completing the Guide to Legal Help, and on the
right-hand side while viewing other content like an article or toolkit.
Adding an Event to the Calendar
We are keeping our eyes out for new events and clinics to add
to the calendar, but we could also use your help! If you have a clinic you’d like to see on the
website, please navigate to the clinic calendar on MichiganLegalHelp.org. Scrolling toward the bottom of the website,
you will see the heading “Legal Clinics and
Events” on the right. After
following the link to the calendar, you will see a link on the upper right to
request a login for the calendar. And after
completing the request form, you will receive an e-mail with login information
for the calendar. Now you can login to
the calendar and request to add a clinic.
You can continue to request to add clinics using the login information as
you wish. MLH staff reviews the clinic
information and posts it after confirming that all of the necessary details are
included.
More Features to Come
In keeping with the spirit of expanding on
MichiganLegalHelp.org’s features, we are currently working on another addition
to the website. This new feature,
“Texting for Outcomes,” will allow us to follow up with our visitors via SMS
text messages with “just-in-time” assistance and collect data we can use to
improve our services. Visitors to the
website who use the Guide to Legal Help will be able to opt in to this
service. For example, imagine a visitor
has received a notice of eviction. They
fill out the Guide to Legal Help and describe their legal issue. On the results page of the Guide to Legal Help,
they choose to opt into “Texting for Outcomes.”
They will receive a text saying “You have X days to file an Answer to
Eviction Complaint from the day you received your eviction notice. Did you file an Answer to Eviction
Complaint?” The “Texting for Outcomes”
project will allow us to make the website much more interactive and to get the
right legal information to people who need it, when they need it. In doing so, we’ll be able to gather
information about where the trouble spots are within a particular legal issue
and how visitors are dealing or not dealing with these obstacles.
The “Legal Clinics and Events Calendar” and the “Texting for
Outcomes” project are avenues for Michigan Legal Help to continue to expand on
the services we offer. These new projects
don’t simply continue in the tradition of providing legal information, but
widen the concept of what the website is and the services it provides. We are always trying to find ways we can
improve the self-represented litigant’s experience in the legal system, and we
are very excited about our newest efforts to do just that.