(Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM)Georgia Legal Services and Atlanta Legal Aid Awarded National Grants for Online Services
They were among 30 legal aid groups nationally to win federal Legal Services Corp. grants—many aimed at making it easier to gain legal help online.
October 14, 2019 at 04:23 PM
3 minute read
The federal Legal Services Corp. has awarded sizable tech grants to the Georgia Legal Services Program and the Atlanta Legal Aid Society to expand the reach of their online, legal self-help services for low-income people with civil legal problems.
Georgia Legal Services will use a $218,000 technology initiative grant from the LSC to develop three interactive, online tutorials addressing common landlord-tenant issues. One will teach tenants representing themselves their rights and the steps for proceeding with a case, while the others will provide training for the group's pro bono lawyers and legal aid staff. The tutorials will require users to answer multiple-choice questions to ensure they understand the concepts.
Atlanta Legal Aid will use a $90,650 LSC technology initiative grant to improve the accessibility of AyudaLegalGeorgia.org, a Spanish-language, self-help legal services website. The group will also use funds to improve online intake for Spanish-speaking clients via its case management system.
"LSC's Technology Initiative Grants increase access to justice for low-income people with critical civil legal needs," said LSC president Jim Sandman in an announcement of the national TIG grants last week. "These technology projects improve the delivery of legal services and information to the millions of Americans who would otherwise have to navigate the legal system alone."
An LSC focus area for the annual tech grants has been improving self-help, legal aid websites that make it easier for those seeking legal assistance to find it online.
It awarded Atlanta Legal Aid and Georgia Legal Services a $134,720 grant in 2017 to upgrade their joint site, GeorgiaLegalAid.org, which provides self-help legal information. That included making it user-friendly for those with sight, hearing or other disabilities.
There is a huge shortage of legal aid available for low-income Americans who can't afford a lawyer, according to a 2017 LSC report, The Justice Gap, that measured unmet legal needs. Their top three legal problems stem from family issues, housing problems and problems with wages and benefits, according to the report.
In Georgia, about 22% of the state's 10 million population have family incomes that fall below 125% of the federal poverty level—and nationally more than 60 million Americans fall in this category.
But a lack of resources means that 86% of civil legal problems for people at this income level are not addressed, according to the report. The LSC estimated that low-income Americans would seek help for 1.7 million civil legal problems nationally from the legal aid programs it helps to fund—and that the majority (62% to 72%) would receive inadequate or no legal assistance because of the shortage of resources.
Georgia Legal Services and Atlanta Legal Aid, the state's two largest legal aid groups, were among 30 recipients nationally of the LSC's annual tech initiative awards, which totaled more than $4 million. The LSC provides funding to 132 nonprofit legal aid programs in every state, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories.
Established in 2000, LSC's technology initiative grant program supports legal aid organizations in developing technologies that increase access to effective legal assistance.
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