Legal access gateway being tested
Think of it as a Piper Cub, rolling down a rural airport runway and tentatively lifting into the air.
The Florida Legal Access Gateway (FLAG) — an online system aimed at eventually helping anyone with any size legal issue — got its official launch October 20 at the Bar’s Fall Meeting and recognition that its pilot project is airborne.
The result of the Florida Commission on Access to Civil Justice’s push, overseen by the Florida Justice Technology Center with help from The Florida Bar Foundation, The Florida Bar, and Attorney General Pam Bondi, the gateway actually began operating in Clay County on October 10. Bondi provided $500,000 from Florida’s share of a $136 million joint state-federal settlement with Chase Bank USA N.A. and Chase Bankcard Services, Inc., to finance the gateway pilot project.
William Van Nortwick, a partner at Akerman, chaired the commission’s Access to and Delivery of Legal Services Subcommittee that oversaw the project.
“We were charged with using technology to expand access to justice,” he said. “We discovered in New Mexico a very innovative system that used something like TurboTax to assist people with legal problems. We decided to study that and then take that concept and see if it would work in a pilot project in Florida.”
Clay County was chosen as the test venue, working with local Clerk of Court Tara Green. The system is available online with links on the clerk’s website, websites for Three Rivers Legal Services and Jacksonville Legal Aid, and directly at https://applications.neotalogic.com/a/floridatriage-production. The gateway acts as a “triage” service by asking users a series of questions and then based on the answers helping consumers with a referral to legal aid, to a lawyer, or generating a form ready for filing. Initially, the system will handle only dissolution and landlord/tenant matters.
As envisioned, the triage gateway will eventually connect users to a wide range of service entities including legal aid agencies, county clerk offices, law school clinics, law libraries, Florida’s Elder Law Hotline, and The Florida Bar Lawyer Referral Service — all under one online statewide referral service and resource portal.
Dominic MacKenzie, immediate past president of the Foundation and who serves on the access subcommittee, likened the system to an airport, where the Supreme Court is the FAA with overall control and the Florida Justice Technology Center and the Foundation are in the control tower. (Appropriately, the event was at the top of the Tampa International Airport Marriott Hotel, overlooking runways and arriving and departing aircraft.)
“If you look out, you’ll see different size runways and there are different size planes. We understand in this profession one size doesn’t fit all,” MacKenzie said. “There are commuter planes for people who need smaller planes for shorter trips. There are jumbo planes for folks who are flying longer distances, and there are smaller planes for medium-size flights. What this system is designed to do is you take a person into this airport, this person will describe the trip he or she needs to take, and we will hopefully find the ticket, put them on the proper airplane, so to speak, and get them to their destination.
“The destination being, we want to find them an answer; we want to find them the resources; we want to find them the lawyer if they need one.”
Right now, FLAG is not a major airport, or even a regional one, MacKenzie said.
“We’ve built a commuter airport in Green Cove Springs, and we’ve got two destinations [dissolution and landlord/tenant],” he said. “What we’d like to do is create an international airport with a bigger hub, and we will expand those subject matters and we will expand those services as we go forward.”
MacKenzie and Van Nortwick said the pilot program will run through November, and then be evaluated with a report due early next year.
The program was praised by Bar President Bill Schifino.
“Justice shouldn’t have a price tag, which is why we are committed to making sure legal support is not restricted only to those who can afford it,” he said. “We are privileged to work alongside our counterparts at the Supreme Court, The Florida Bar Foundation, and other coordinating agencies to bring this critical project one step closer to reality.”
Kathleen McLeroy, board chair of the Florida Justice Technology Center, praised Green for working with the project and making Clay County the test site.
“We knew that having the support of and collaboration among the clerk’s office, legal aid, and our other key stakeholders would be key, and we needed a county of manageable size. Clay County really fit the bill, and we are grateful to Clerk Tara Green for getting fully behind this project,” she said.
Green said she’s optimistic the project first will help residents of her county and then consumers statewide.
“If we can see this project through to statewide implementation, we will really have something no other state has,” said Van Nortwick. “We are borrowing from New Mexico Legal Aid now, but we hope by the time we’re done we’ll be the model for other states going forward.”
