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Fall/ Early Winter 2012 SWEB Support Site Update

  • 12/12/2012
  • Pro Bono Net

 

Pro Bono Net SWEB Site Update

Welcome to the Fall/Early Winter 2012 SWEB Support Site Update!

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Fall 2012 As the weather gets colder and the fall season wraps up, Pro Bono Net and the SWEB community are hard at work wrapping up several innovative projects. Recently, five state sites went live with their new LawHelp sites and several LawHelp admin resources were added to the SWEB site. We?ve also finalized production of the library webinar series we developed earlier this fall, which provided librarians with information and resources about access to justice. Additionally, Pro Bono Net has been involved in several client and advocate site partner collaborations, including involvement with Hurricane Sandy legal relief efforts. For more information on these and other quarterly updates, check out our SWEB newsletter below! 

In This Edition
  • LawHelp Rebuild News
  • New SWEB Items
  • Other PBN News of Interest
  • Events and Training Resources
  • New Pro Bono Net Staff

LawHelp Rebuild News
Our partners in five states ? Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas? recently launched their brand new LawHelp sites. Be sure to take a look at their freshly-updated sites below:
We are preparing to launch more sites in the coming months, so keep an eye out for announcements on the LawHelp listserv and LawHelp3 blog.
 
Additionally, we?ve added some helpful resources to the LawHelp Rebuild folder. Be sure to check out the resources below and more LH3 Rebuild documents on SWEB.
 
LawHelp Redesign Support Portal
Make sure to visit the LawHelp3 Support Portal if you haven?t already to find key resources for preparing and administering your new LawHelp site, and to find information on recent code updates and bug fixes. We?ve recently added November 2012, October 2012 and September 2012 code upgrade notes, as well as resources detailing the new LawHelp mini-portal sites and two new QuickStart Guides for LawHelp administrators. The documents are designed to assist admins who need a quick refresher (or primer) on creating an organization profile or uploading a resource.
 
LawHelp Redesign Blog
We?ve continued to add a lot of great content to the LawHelp Redesign Blog. Posts include updates on new site launches, code upgrade information, tips and resources on LH3 tools, different ways states are adopting LH3?s features and much, much more. Below is a selection of some recent LH3 Blog posts:
LH3 Translation Opportunity
This fall PBN offered our LawHelp partners the opportunity to have a limited number of content pieces translated for their websites through a service donation grant from the Linguistic Systems Inc. (LSI) Foundation.  All the initial requests were submitted to LSI for translation, and we have reopened the process for new translation requests.  For more information, please contact Xander Karsten at xkarsten@probono.net.
 

New SWEB Items
To find important updates, including LawHelp developments, and interesting news from the LawHelp Coordinator community, be sure to check out notes from the Monthly LawHelp Coordinator calls in the LawHelp Coordinators folder in SWEB.
 
LawHelp/NY/LIFT LiveHelp collaboration
Earlier this fall, Legal Information for Families Today (LIFT) and LawHelp/NY announced they will team up to offer individual family law help through the LiveHelp tool. For more information about this collaboration, and to view other SWEB community news, please visit the SWEB Support site News section. 
 
Virtual Pro Bono Fair on probono.net/DC
Marcia Maack from Mayer Brown and Rebecca Troth from Sidley Austin joined our community for the December 2012 Coordinator call to discuss the virtual pro bono fair on probono.net/dc, an online directory of legal service providers in Washington, D.C. To find out more, including details on the script they developed for the project, take a look at the December 2012 Coordinator call notes.
 
FTC Presentation on Client and Advocate Resources
During the November 2012 coordinator call, representatives from the FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection joined to discuss credit, debt and ID theft resources available on the recently launched consumer.gov site, as well as FTC resources for advocates and volunteers. For more information, please see the November 2012 Coordinator call resources.  
 
Flex Content Page Enhancement on probono.net
During the October 2011 LawHelp Coordinator call, a new enhancement on the advocates site platform was discussed. The enhancement gives admins the ability to make child pages an expandable section on the flex content page, rather than a new page. For more information about this improvement, please see notes from the October call.
 
A2J Triage Tool for Legal Aid Websites
Eve Ricaurte of Iowa Legal Aid recently shared with the SWEB community a resource about designing and using A2J as a triage tool for legal aid websites. To learn more about this resource, click here.
 
Update on New Cases and Calendar widgets
During the July 2012 Coordinator Call, Liz Keith of Pro Bono Net demonstrated two new probono.net advocate site features, the embeddable new cases and calendar widgets.  A few sites have recently taken advantage of these tool, including Georgia and Mississippi. To learn more about the embeddable new cases and calendar widgets, as well as the new feed and display option for content widgets, please see the July 2012 Coordinator Call notes in SWEB and this sample promotional handout for the embeddable widgets. 
 
Quarterly Update of GA Military Resources
GeorgiaAdvocates.org has been sharing out and updating resources from their Georgia Military Legal Assistance Program practice area. They recently completed their quarterly update of resources; as of September 30th, there are 335 library items covering a range of topics.  In addition to the 335 library items, there are an additional 20 dynamic pages of content that aren?t shared but may be accessed and copied by joining the Georgia practice area.  Newly added content includes links to curators of  military and veterans law resources, family law resources, and newly-produced national and regional video content.  All links have been updated.
 
To view an archive of past SWEB Support Site Updates, be sure to check out the  Quarterly SWEB Support Site Update folder in the SWEB library.
 

Other PBN News of Interest

Hurricane Sandy Legal Relief Efforts
As the process of recovery begins in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, Pro Bono Net expresses our deepest sympathy for those affected by this devastating natural disaster. The response from the legal aid community has been nothing short of inspiring. Our community has been busy collecting and sharing training materials and videos for volunteers on probono.net, as well as resources for the public on LawHelp. To keep current on some of the latest developments, visit the www.probono.net/ny/hurricane_sandy. Please check back often for updates, and visit LawHelp/NY's current list of Hurricane Sandy resources.
 
Online A2J Assistance Packages for Victims of Identity Theft
Pro Bono Net is partnering with the National Identity Theft Victims Assistance Network (NITVAN) and Kansas Legal Services to promote the availability of online A2J assistance packages for victims of identity theft for use on statewide websites. Victims can use the forms to write a letter to a creditor, debt collector or credit bureau. Idaho, Kansas, Maryland and Texas are the first of four jurisdictions to come online. Representatives from NITVAN will be joining the February 5th LawHelp Coordinators call to discuss how other states can adopt these resources, which are based on FTC materials. To see an example, visit TexasLawHelp.org.
 
Connecting Justice Communities Blog
The past quarter has been a busy one for the blog, which covers  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. Recent coverage includes Hurricane Sandy Legal Relief efforts, and the National Pro Bono Week Celebration. Below is a selection of some recent posts:
LSC Technology Grants Announced
At the end of September, LSC announced that it will award $3.4 million through its Technology Initiative Grants program. 2012 grants related to LawHelp statewide websites include:
  • LawHelp Mobile Spanish and LiveHelp integration (Legal Assistance of Western New York)
  • ?Pro Bono to Go? Pro Justice MN mobile TIG (Legal Aid Services of Northwestern MN)
  • Mobile LawHelp replication project (Southeast Louisiana Legal Services)
  • SMS/text messaging campaign for statewide website content (Georgia Legal Services Program, et al.)
  • Ohio LiveHelp for pro bono (Legal Aid of Western Ohio)
  • National DisasterLegalAid.org expansion. They will include new enhancements to probono.net, new content development, and pilot use of mobile technology within a disaster relief center to provide legal content directly (Lone Star Legal Aid).

Events and Training Resources
 
LSNTAP Community Training Series - Limited English Proficiency
Join us for the last webinar in this year?s LSNTAP series, ?LEP 201: Tips and challenges in expanding LEP capactiy in different technology contexts? on Wednesday, December 12th. To register, please visit LSNTAP.org or the SWEB calendar. To view previous trainings, such as the September training on online intake and the October training on technology-enabled pro bono visit LSNTAP.org or www.probono.net/statewebsites/trainings/2012
 
Public Library Webinar Series
With funding from a Legal Services Corporation Technology Initiative (TIG) grant, Pro Bono Net produced four national training webinars for librarians, in collaboration with the Legal Aid Society of Louisville, Central Minnesota Legal Services and Legal Services State Support (MN). The goal of the series is to increase awareness among librarians and community stakeholders about online access to justice resources that are available to them, how librarians can access and utilize those resources to better educate and assist their patrons with legal needs, and models for legal aid-library collaborations to connect people with legal information. To access recordings and webinar materials from the series, please visit www.probono.net/librarywebinars.
 
Save the Date! 2013 TIG Conference
The 2013 TIG Conference will be held in Jacksonville, Florida on January 16th-18th. To find out more, please visit the TIG Conference page. Pre-conference events include a LawHelp Interactive Community Live Training


New Pro Bono Net Staff

Pro Bono Net is excited to announce that Adam Friedl has joined  our team as the new Pro Bono Coordinator in our New York City office. He previously worked as staff attorney at The Family Center, and as coordinating attorney for New York Appleseed?s Volunteer Lawyer for the Day - Consumer Credit Project. He has also served as Acting Director of the Public Interest Center at St. John's University School of Law.
   Adam Friedl


We are also excited to have Xander Karsten join us as our New LawHelp Program Coordinator based in our San Francisco office. Before joining Pro Bono Net, Xander worked for two years as an Equal Justice AmeriCorps Legal Fellow at Legal Assistance of Western New York. He also worked as an Institute for Foreclosure Legal Assistance grantee at the Empire Justice Center in Rochester, New York.

Xander Karsten

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