Technology: Changing the Way Low- and Middle-Income People Receive Legal Services Around the World
By: Source: AARP Policy and Research Date Posted: 2003-09-17 00:00:00-04:00
Wayne Moore, Director of Advocacy Planning and Issues Management, AARP
Two themes emerged from recent international conferences on legal services for low- and middle-income people. First, the demand for free and low cost legal services is growing much faster than the government funding available for these services. Second, in response to the first theme, legal services programs are trying to serve more people with the same resources, primarily through the innovative use of technology.
Many developed countries (e.g., France, Germany, Canada, Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia, and England) spend two to twelve times more money per capita than the US on ensuring access to justice for low- and middle-income people. These countries have used staff to provide legal services in a traditional office setting despite its high costs. Due to budgetary constraints and the advances in digital services in recent years, however, Canada, Australia, and the United States are leading the shift to more cost-effective delivery systems without compromising quality. For example, Queensland, Australia provides legal services by offering telephone help lines for legal questions, local legal access points, and free-standing kiosks. Other countries are catching up technologically as demand continues to grow and funding remains static. Thus, what is beginning to emerge in the developed world are totally new approaches to delivering legal services. Some of these include:
- Telephone advice: Legal services programs are shifting from face-to-face advice to telephone advice. Canada and Australia have found significant savings with this approach and AARP is a leader of this trend in the United States. AARP and the AARP Foundation developed and tested the first free, statewide telephone advice line in the US in 1985. Since then, 23 states, Washington DC, and Puerto Rico have launched statewide legal advice lines for older people. Based on data collected by AARP, it can cost 75% less to deliver legal advice by telephone than face-to-face, when one considers the cost of scheduling in-person appointments and experiencing occasional no-shows.
- Websites: Many routine legal problems and questions can be addressed by posting information and self-help packets on the Internet. Document generators can be added to these websites to allow a lay person to draft many legal documents and court pleadings, simply by answering a series of questions. In the US, AARP is pioneering a version of this approach for low-income and other older people who do not have access to or know how to use the Internet. AARP arranges for legal services access points in agencies or churches that serve the target population. Staff and non-attorney volunteers at these access points are then trained to navigate a specially created website to find information and generate the documents that the clients need. The volunteers consult with attorneys on the telephone advice lines to ensure they deliver what the client requires. Queensland, Australia also uses local access points in communities to provide cost-effective legal advice.
- Kiosks: These are stand-alone, multimedia work stations where a client can follow written and verbal instructions to locate information or generate the court pleadings they need.
- Video conferencing: When face-to-face services are required and the client cannot travel, services can be delivered at legal access points in a community from a remote location in a neighboring city using video conferencing. The client and legal staff can see each other and staff can read the client's documents using a video camera attached to a personal computer.
- Brief Services Unit: AARP has had positive results with its delivery system called the Brief Services Unit, which receives all of its cases from the legal advice line or the community access points. The purpose of this unit is to resolve routine legal problems that are too complex to be dispensed with by the advice line or community access points, but not complex enough to require attorney services. The Brief Services Unit is staffed by paid paralegals and non-attorney volunteers and is supervised by an attorney.
The experiences thus far of Canada, Australia, and the US have resulted in cost effective service delivery while maintaining quality and client satisfaction. As technology continues to develop, even better methods of providing legal services will become feasible.
Wayne Moore is the AARP Director of Advocacy Planning and Issues Management. He is responsible for managing a process which prioritizes AARP public policy issues and sets the goals, strategies and level of effort for each issue. He also serves as the Chief Operating Officer for the AARP Advocacy Group. Prior to this, Wayne served as the Co-administrator of the AARP Foundation, Director of the AARP Legal Advocacy Group and Executive Director of AARP Legal Counsel for the Elderly over a span of 25 years. He co-founded the National and International Conferences on Aging and Law and helped initiate the ABA/NLADA Equal Justice Conference.
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