About the Series

The Libraries and Access to Justice webinar series is a four-part webinar series providing an introduction to the access to justice movement, online legal tools and resources available to librarians and patrons, as well as collaborations between libraries and civil legal service agencies. The series had nearly 400 unique attendees, representing 42 states, the District of Columbia and four Canadian provinces. 71% of the participants were public or special librarians, 23% were from civil legal services agencies or the courts, and 6% were from other fields. This series was conducted with grant funding from the Legal Services Corporation Technology Initiative Grant (TIG), in collaboration with the Legal Aid Society of Louisville, Central Minnesota Legal Services and Legal Services State Support (MN).

Who should view the series?

The series is targeted to public and public law library staff, as well as stakeholders from the broader legal aid, court and access to justice communities interested in learning more about developing resources and partnerships involving libraries to increase access to legal information and services. The recorded webinars are free to all viewers.

Why is Pro Bono Net involved in this area?

Pro Bono Net is a national nonprofit working to increase access to justice through innovative uses of technology and collaboration. We are interested in the intersection of legal services and technology, as well as the broader issue of access to legal services for those who can't afford a lawyer. To that end, we have developed and support several programs in use throughout the country to provide critical legal information and assistance to the public:

• LawHelp.org, a 27-state network of nonprofit legal information portals providing self-help and referral information to those seeking help with issues such as housing, domestic violence, consumer debt and immigration.
• LawHelpInteractive.org, a national service that allows legal aid programs, courts and other community partners to create interactive forms and documents for low-income individuals to complete legal forms on their own.
• LawHelp.org and LawHelp Interactive initiatives are coordinated locally by legal aid organizations, courts and other community partners.

As part of our support for these programs, Pro Bono Net works to increase awareness of and access to LawHelp.org, LawHelp Interactive and related resources, facilitate collaboration and involvement by new partners, and support innovative, replicable models for bridging the justice gap. As free, equitable access points to information, government institutions, and computing resources, libraries are key partners in that effort.

Who are the Presenters?

The webinars are moderated by Pro Bono Net. Panelists include representatives from the nonprofit legal aid community, state and national programs developing online resources and tools for low-income and other vulnerable individuals seeking legal help, other access to justice community stakeholders, law librarians, public librarians, and a representative from the Legal Services Corporation Technology Initiative Grant program. The presenters are listed on the detailed information page for each webinar.

• Webinar 1: Welcoming Librarians to the Access to Justice Movement
  This webinar will provide an overview of legal information needs among low-income and vulnerable Americans, the nonprofit legal aid, court and community groups that serve them, and why public and public law libraries are essential partners in meeting these information needs.

• Webinar 2: Connecting Library Patrons with Legal Information: Key Resources
  This webinar will provide an overview of online legal information and self-help tools developed by the nonprofit legal aid community, including a national network of statewide legal information portals, many of which have content available in languages other than English.

• Webinar 3: Helping Patrons Find Legal Assistance in their Community: Online Referral Tools
  This webinar will highlight online resources for people looking for a lawyer, including where to find referral information for nonprofit legal aid programs, lawyer referral services and state bar programs.

• Webinar 4: Developing Legal Aid-Library Collaborations: Models and Replication Resources
  Our final webinar in the series will highlight innovative, technology-enabled collaborations between legal aid programs and public and public law libraries in their communities to connect people with legal information.

• Questions Asked Throughout the Webinar Series (PDF)
  Throughout the webinar series participants submitted interesting and thought provoking questions. This is a list of the most frequently asked questions, with responses by the panelists.

• Compendium of Links and Resources (PDF)
  There are far to many links and resources to write down while watching the recordings of the webinars, so this is a compendium of all the links mentioned in the webinar, links that participants volunteered, and other relevant links to legal information, tools and resources.

Additional Training Materials

• In 2010, the National Center for State Courts, the Center-hosted Self-Represented Litigation Network, and the Legal Services Corporation co-sponsored the Public Libraries and Access to Justice Conference in Austin, Texas. Training materials are available on SelfHelpSupport.org and WebJunction.org.
  • Note: registration is required to access the materials on SelfHelpSupport.org.

This list will be updated as we receive more resources. Other resources can be found in our Compendium of Links and Resources. If there are resources you would like to suggest, please email Liz Keith at lkeith@probono.net. 

Sample Trainings

• The Minnesota Public Libraries & Access to Justice Project is hosted at Law Help Minnesota, and provides trainings and information for Minnesota librarians. Here you will find webcasts of the online library trainings, as well as the training slides, and further information on legal information vs legal advice.
• The Legal Aide Society of Louisville in Kentucky participated in the Accessing Justice: Public Libraries and Legal Needs Training. The training resource, Access to Justice Booklet, is available for download in PDF form..

Blogs

• Check out Pro Bono Net's blog entries that may interest the library community at Connecting Justice Communities libraries tag.

Additional Partnership Resources

• Through a 2013 LSC TIG grant, Three Rivers Legal Services and Florida Legal Services collaborated with Pro Bono Net to create new RSS feed capability on the LawHelp.org platform to help librarians and other stakeholders stay abreast of content updates and cross-publish content feeds with their own websites as appropriate. An example of this feed dashboard is available at floridalawhelp.org/feeds. To learn more about this capability for your state's LawHelp site, contact support@lawhelp.org. 
• Laura Orr, the Washington, County (OR) Law Librarian, has developed an extensive guide to access to justice community collaborations, work groups, task forces and other initiatives involving public law libraries across the country. The guide is an excellent starting point for learning about existing state and local collaborations.
• The Center on Court Access to Justice for All has a collection of articles and resources on collaborations between courts and libraries.
• The Minnesota WebJunction portal has a collection of training resources, news articles and other materials to help public librarians assist patrons with legal needs.

This list will be updated as we receive more resources. Other state specific resources can be found in our Compendium of Links and Resources. If there are state specific resources you would like to suggest, please email Liz Keith at lkeith@probono.net. .

Join the Public Libraries and Access to Justice list serve on Self Help Support

An overwhelming number of people participating in the webinar series requested a way to stay in touch with other participants and to keep up with various initiatives. We teamed up with Self Help Support, who hosts the Public Libraries and Access to Justice list serve. This list serve is free, and open to any interested party (you don't have to have attended the webinar series to join).

You can join in three ways:

• You can register as a member of selfhelpsupport.org, go to the "Groups" page, and click the subscribe link.
  If you become a member of selfhelpsupport.org you will have access to the list serve archive, helpful resources for people working on legal self-help initiatives Membership is free, and open to anyone helping low income and vulnerable individuals facing legal challenges.
• You can send an email to publib-subscribe@mail.lawhelp.org and request to be added to the list serve.
  Please note: You will not have access to the list serve's archive or other resources if you do not join selfhelpsupport.org.
• You can email Liz Keith lkeith@probono.net, and she will add you.
  Please note: You will not have access to the list serve's archive or other resources if you do not join selfhelpsupport.org.