Albany Law School students have released a web-based Nonprofit Formation Tool to assist lawyers with clients attempting to gain nonprofit status.

The idea for the tool was formed during a “Law of Social Entrepreneurship and Exempt Organizations” course in fall 2017. The Nonprofit Formation Tool allows lawyers to easily create the certificate of incorporation and bylaws, important documents needed to gain status as a nonprofit in New York state. The documents are created after lawyers answer a few questions in a web-based program. The questions and program were created by Albany Law School students through the cloud-based program building A2J Author software.

The idea for the tool sprung from students observing a legal need in Albany.

“It was something needed in the community, something beneficial, and brings their [Albany Law School students] learned expertise they've developed in the course and spread that around with this digital tool,” said Ray Brescia, an Albany Law School professor and leader of the course. Brescia added that the tool received feedback from lawyers in the community and those in the nonprofit sector.

The Nonprofit Formation Tool requires lawyers not to charge clients when using the software. The program is only accessible for lawyers admitted to the New York bar, who must enter their attorney registration number when applying to use the tool.

While lawyers who counsel simple corporate structures is the tool's largest projected demographic, Brescia said the software's convenience may also encourage pro bono services.

“[It's] really a reflection of the need in the community. We wanted to make it as easy as possible for lawyers representing nonprofits,” Brescia added. “It might encourage more lawyers to take this on pro bono as well, if they had this tool.”

What's more, this also isn't the course's first legal tech solution. Previously, the course created a foreclosure guide designed to aid homeowners facing mortgage foreclosures pro se. The course also created a web-based program that allows individuals to choose the bank that best fits their needs through a customizable series of benchmarks, according to a press release.

Currently, students in the course are working on a web portal that provides guidance to nonprofit groups nationwide on compliance issues relating to political activity limits under IRS guidelines and the federal Tax Code, Brescia said. The course's focus includes the emerging role of legal technology in legal services, a burgeoning reality that law students must be aware of, Brescia added.

“Law school students of today need to be very fluent in technology and be effective as lawyers as tech begins to impact the practice of law,” he said. Law school students “really have to know how tech should be used and when it shouldn't be used to deliver legal services.”

Albany Law School joins fellow New York-based law school Cornell University in allowing law students to use their growing expertise and develop on-demand legal services through technology. Cornell offers a course that tasks students with creating apps to solve challenges faced by various legal aid societies.