by Gabrielle Hammond, NTAP

When I started in legal services in 1995, my then-Director warned me of people who start in their 20's. "Most burn out by the time they are 30." These words have at times kept me holding on to stay in this community, and at other times justified my want to leave. There's no brain science to the reasons for quitting young. Experienced or new, most legal services staff often hold various jobs, disguised as one: a lawyer, a techie, a manager, grant writer, an administrator, an outreach coordinator, a hotline manager. A young person has not the experience, perspective, nor desire to decline growing responsibility.

It's obvious I survived the early years. And, I'm honored to witness the next stage of development: personally, as the executive director of NTAP; and professionally, as a leader of an organization that can play a major role in three prongs of action needed by the poverty law community. NTAP strives to promote and support innovative uses of technology, not for its own sake, but for three distinct purposes:

* To help legal aid advocates fight for justice effectively, efficiently, and competitively, * To help recruit and retain new, fresh blood in our cadre of advocates (advocates, who expect to use technologies as part of their lawyering skills); and * To help the poverty law community operate as a national resource for low-income clients by taking advantage of expanded mechanisms for collaboration, resource-sharing, and communication.

In 2001, when we originally applied for funding, I was then a manager at the Legal Aid Society of Hawaii, managing about six projects and twenty part-time and full-time advocates. We received a large Technology Initiative Grant with a goal to enable LASH to keep a centralized pool of lawyers in Honolulu, while remotely serving clients on neighbor islands with limited representation. I realized it would be added to my list of responsibilities, and that, unlike the other projects and challenges handled prior, this one would be beyond me. I feared technology. There was a lot of money at stake for me to "practice" technology management. I wondered if the same were true for others. After speaking with other programs around the country in 2001, I realized this was a common experience. NTAP started modestly out of that need.

NTAP remains a tribute of our community's barn-raising abilities. NTAP builds nothing on its own. Instead, we try to help you build your tools effectively, or distribute your successes to other programs so there is more impact on low-income clients nationally, or respond to what you need to build capacity in the overwhelming areas of technology or tech-management, or keep you up-to-date on trends of the Internet and its impact on how people will expect to communicate. Our projects have been funded only because you asked for them or supported them.

This year is an important one for NTAP. Hopefully, we'll improve what we started and we'll build more to come, with your input. With reduced funding for legal services and more persons in need of assistance, each and every program faces hard decisions about how to staff its project, how to prioritize its work, and how to respond to client needs while maintaining quality and efficiency. Technology greatly impacts these decisions. Consider common technologies available the poverty law community: web conferencing, hotline phone systems, document assembly and I-CAN!, mapping, case management systems, online tools and services, and statewide websites. As one friend and visionary once told me: "More than anything I've seen in my thirty-year career, technology offers the power to dramatically increase whom we serve."

We understand technology is no panacea. In and of itself, technology gizmos and apps are just tools. They mean nothing unless they are usable and used by the community for which they are built. But, they offer possibilities. When technology solutions are integrated to harness the power of people, information, and expediency, they help us fulfill our mission beyond our current capabilities.

We look forward to the next year of NTAP, and building it to meet the needs of the poverty law community. We look forward too to your input on relevant technology applications for legal services, and more importantly on ways to help fellow programs implement creative and cost-effective approaches that deliver justice to the low-income families for whom we work.

We welcome you to our first and inaugural edition of the NTAP Newsletter.

Announcing NTAP

The Legal Services National Technology Assistance Project (NTAP) helps poverty law programs improve client services and community outreach through effective use of technology. Since 2001, NTAP has been operating as a project - or a series of projects - of various legal aid programs to provide training, technical, and management assistance toward that end.

This year, NTAP officially became its own nonprofit entity. In addition, we expanded the services we provide by adding LStech.Org and Legal Meetings to our programs. Our official registered name combines the two projects that have become NTAP's signature: LStech.Org and NTAP's online trainings. Our new registered name is Legal Services National Technology Assistance Project (LSNTAP or just NTAP). (Certainly, our name is not an indication of our creativity, but keeps us familiar with all of you who call us NTAP or LStech.)

As a project of this community and funded primarily through LSC TIG grants, we have appreciated the support of legal aid programs that have housed us through our early beginnings: Legal Aid Society of Orange County, Legal Services of South Central Michigan, Lone Star Legal Services, Legal Aid of East Tennessee, Center for Arkansas Legal Services, and Montana Legal Services Association.

Our new nonprofit would not be possible without your continued support. We also wish to thank two pro bono firms -- Public Counsel in Los Angeles and Milbank, Tweed, Hadley, and McCloy. Public Counsel is Southern California's largest pro bono program, and is helping NTAP file for its nonprofit status with the IRS. In addition, Milbank, Tweed, Hadley, and McCloy is helping NTAP manage intellectual property and trademark issues.

2006 promises great change for NTAP.

The Official Entity is Born. NTAP officially becomes LSNTAP. Becky Levine and Gabrielle Hammond are "official" staff. NTAP contracts with Steve Gray who works at Legal Services of South Central Michigan. We continue to contract as well with Madhu Lakshmanan, our content coordinator, also in Michigan. She helps perform user testing on the Survey Tool, design NTAP trainings, and has developed a plan for updating the LStech.Org content.

NTAP will Finish the LStech.Org Website Redesign. (Slated completion: May 2006) Last year, Madhu Lakshmanan surveyed a core working group across the country on how to improve the site. NTAP contracted with Mike Brumm in Illinois to redesign the site and create a "master-site," that includes a new LStech.Org, which is easier to use and offers more tools for community collaboration. The new site will unite all of NTAP's projects - training, circuit riding, Legal Meetings, LStech.Org, and various other national initiatives - under one virtual roof.

NTAP Takes on New Projects: Legal Meetings and the GIS Mapping National Server Project.

Legal Meetings: This year, Legal Meetings was transferred from Lone Star Legal Services to NTAP and the Center for Arkansas Legal Services. NTAP is managing this project toward sustainability, and CALS assists in its administration. NTAP has formed a working Advisory Board to sustain Legal Meetings for the community beyond TIG funding, and expand its usage among current users.

GIS Mapping National Server Project: The Legal Aid of East Tennessee has partnered with NTAP to apply for and manage this project, which aims to help any legal aid program easily generate maps that visually represent their case management and relevant U.S. Census data across their service area. These maps will identify areas of needed advocacy, staffing limitations, funding priorities, and other impacts on the low-income community. This year, LAET is contracting with University of Tennessee to do the behind-the-scenes work of integrating U.S. Census data, broken down by zip code, within each LSC-funded program's service area. NTAP will manage the technology, hosting, user interface, and training to the field for easy adoption.

Survey Tool: NTAP recently signed an agreement with Legal Aid of East Tennessee to finish the development and provide training on a free Survey Tool for the legal aid community. This tool helps programs easily perform surveys of clients groups, staff, board members, and partners. Built for community-use, this tool also saves program surveys and makes them available for others to use.

by Becky Levine, NTAP

2005 was a big year for the Open Source Template (OST) Website community. Since 2001, twenty-two states and territories have received TIG funding in order to develop statewide websites using the Open Source Template - developed by Kaivo Software, Inc. For a listing see: http://legalaid.kaivo.com/

During 2005, three websites went live for the public and five advocate websites went live. At the close of 2005, there were 20 of 22 websites live for the Public and 17 of 22 live advocate websites.

The OST websites have several core components, one of which, the "Public Library" contains legal education materials, forms and other self-help documents for low-income persons. All live OST websites have documents related to at least nine substantive law areas. On average the OST sites have over 200 documents in the public library with a total of over 5,000 documents in the OST site public libraries.

In addition thousands more resources exist for the public in the form of organization information (where to find legal or social service help in the state) as well as extensive off-site link listings.

Many OST websites turned their attention to the development of advocate websites during 2005. The result of this attention and hard work is that OST advocate libraries now contain over 14,000 documents. The median number of documents for an advocate library docs is 465.

Did these resources reach anyone?

Yes! The good news is visits to OST websites increased by 42% in 2005, reaching almost 3,000,000 total visits for public and advocate websites. As the community learns more about how to use web reporting software and gather feedback from website users, we're learning more about the type of content people use from the site and the type of people coming to the site.

While there is not a fool-proof way to determine the income status of people visiting these websites, based on informal surveys completed by legal aid programs and the type of information that is most popular on the websites, it is evident that the information is reaching low-income people.

What can we expect in 2006?

The OST is continuing to grow and change. In 2006 Kaivo is working on the development of two enhancements to the template: a multimedia server to house webcasts and other media content for OST sites as well as a search enhancement grant to improve the search functionality on the template.

In addition, many OST sites are developing customizations and creating code to add to the functionality, design and user experience on their website. These customizations are shared with the rest of the community so that each OST website can build on the experiences and work of the other websites.

What is NTAP (or LSNTAP)?

Some of you know the name NTAP. Some, LStech.Org. Some of you just know us. So, what is NTAP? It's people with a mission.

NTAP is the same people you've been working with on various national technology projects since its inception in 2001: Gabrielle Hammond, Steve Gray, and Becky Levine. Plus, we've added Madhu Lakshmanan, as content coordinator consultant.

NTAP also strives to fulfill its mission. NTAP helps the national, non-profit, public interest community improve client services and community outreach through the effective and innovative use of technology. NTAP provides technology leadership, training & assistance, and web information and online services that help the poverty law community represent and serve more clients, improve quality of services provided, and increases opportunities for low-income persons to achieve justice.

NTAP is home to -- or manager of -- the following projects:

• NTAP Technology Trainings
• LStech.Org
• Open Source Circuit Riding for Statewide Websites
• LegalMeetings WebEx
• Poverty Law Survey Tool (fka Presto)
• GIS Mapping National Server Project

NTAP's Services

Technology Training

NTAP offers online trainings ("webinars") using web conferencing software for the legal aid community on relevant technology topics. NTAP has developed trainings for executive directors, managers, hotline and intake staff, techies and tech managers, advocates, and administrators. NTAP also partners with Pro Bono Net to create and provide online webinars for statewide website coordinators, responsible for implementing the statewide legal online portal for clients and advocates.

In addition to creating its own webinars, NTAP also partners with the National Legal Aid and Defender Association and the American Bar Association to create and design technology training sessions at national annual conferences.

LStech.Org

NTAP now maintains the poverty law community's premier online portal on technology. In the new redesign planned, LStech.Org will offer up-to-date information on technology projects around the country, news, and featured innovations. LStech.Org also provides a complete Tech Library, which catalogues hundreds of articles, training modules, news items, and links on technologies specifically relevant to the delivery of legal aid. LStech.Org also houses wikis and workgroups to facilitate resource-sharing and communication within the poverty law community.

Technology Circuit Riding and Support

NTAP provides circuit-riding services to support 22 legal aid programs and their state justice communities to develop, implement, integrate, and sustain statewide legal websites for advocates, pro bono lawyers, and low-income persons needing legal help.

NTAP responds to programs implementing large-scale technology initiatives to provide consulting and support in technology planning, system design, vendor selection, staff hiring, integration with legal aid delivery systems, and implementation.

LegalMeetings

Legal Meetings is an online web conferencing service using WebEx that allows the poverty law community to meet and train virtually. This project facilitates communication and collaboration among multi-office programs and partners by reducing travel time and costs and improving communication.

Survey Tool

Legal aid programs frequently need data from clients, board members, staff, or partners to plan their work. The Survey Tool allows legal aid programs to conduct, create, manage and analyze online surveys easily and for free. In addition, the Tool maximizes resources by allowing programs to post or share completed surveys, enabling a subsequent program to build from that model. NTAP is in the final stages of developing and beta-testing the Legal Services Survey Tool, which allows managers, directors, or staff to conduct client or other online surveys easily.

GIS Mapping Project

The GIS Mapping Project helps any legal aid program easily generate maps that visually represent their case management and relevant U.S. Census data across their service area. These maps will identify areas of needed advocacy, staffing limitations, funding priorities, and other impacts on the low-income community. LAET and NTAP partnered to apply for and manage this project.