The New York LawHelp Consortium - IOLA

The New York LawHelp Consortium Snapshot of Accomplishments, 2011-2012 LawHelp/NY worked tirelessly to provide as much online legal support to low-income people as possible, focusing on the needs of people who, out of necessity, must represent themselves in a legal crisis. LiveHelp emerged as a crucial component of technology enabled legal assistance, leading lowincome visitors to potentially life-changing legal resources. In total, 5,165 real-time personalized chats (4,922 chats in English; 243 chats in Spanish) were conducted. There were 136 law student volunteers from 8 law schools who together contributed 3,048 pro bono hours to LiveHelp. While visits to the site were approximately 10,000 less than last year (approximately 451,000 visits for 2011), and dipped slightly for the grant period, usage increased for the Spanish site (48,451 page views), and for the English and Spanish LawHelp/NY blogs that provide up-to-date legal information and tips. From January 2011 through the first quarter 2012, the English blog received 23,702 visits and 44,927 page views while the Spanish blog received 9,329 visits and 14,732 page views, significant increases over last year. As a result, total visits and page views remained high. We also gained 161 new likes on Facebook and have 539 followers on Twitter. Visitors downloaded referral information about legal services offices 240,515 times. LawHelp/NY staff led and/or participated in 91 legal education events, 51 in New York City and 41 in the rest of the state, resulting in thousands of people learning about online Know Your Rights information and referrals to legal services. The 2011 summer intern program for college students was especially successful-summer interns formed teams and visited in person NYC high risk communities selected by New York Community Trust. More than 500 site visits were made, delivering brochures and other information about LawHelp/NY to senior centers, head start centers, community organizations and libraries, and much more. LawHelp/NY currently curates 4,190 resources in the Know Your Rights/self-help sections in 16 Continued on last page

Service Area: Statewide

This Provider At a Glance Population Served: General Low Income Population Area Served: Statewide Total Funding: $378,000 Total IOLA Grant(s): $200,000 Staffing - Full Time Equivalents Total Staff: 4.75 Lawyers: 2.35 Paralegals: 0.50 Other Staff: 1.90 Types of Services Provided Direct Civil Legal Representation Brief Services ) Extended Services ) Hotlines and Other Phone-Based Services ) Community Legal Education * Pro Se Assistance * Support for Other Service Providers * Major Cases or Other Advocacy Projects )

The IOLA Grant(s) Administration of Justice $200,000 See page 3

The New York LawHelp Consortium - 1

Other Services Legal Services Other Than Direct Legal Representation LiveHelp Project: The LiveHelp service has made a significant impact on visitors' access to potentially life-changing legal resources. In 2011, LiveHelp recruited 88 pro bono law students in the Spring and Fall semesters to serve as navigators. For the Spring 2012 semester, there are 41 volunteers. This increase in volunteer help meant that LiveHelp was available with 2-3 volunteers, Monday-Friday, 9am-9pm and Saturdays, 9am-6pm. For this grant period, April 2011 through March 2012, operators conducted 4,922 chats in English and 243 chats in Spanish for a total of 5,165 chats, a significant increase over last year. The total number of pro bono volunteer navigators for the grant period, which include summer 2011, is 136. The total number of hours on LiveHelp coverage donated by these volunteers was 3,048 hours!

The public interest offices and pro bono coordinators of New York law schools have been incredibly helpful in assisting with recruitment efforts. Since the beginning of this grant period, volunteers have been recruited from Albany Law School, CUNY Law School, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Columbia University Law School, Pace University Law School, Touro Law Center, St. John's University Law School and Syracuse University Law School, as well as Vassar College, Rutgers University and UMASS- Boston. Students volunteering as a LiveHelp operator (1) gain exposure to cutting edge use of technology in the delivery of legal services to low-income people; (2) have access to a national community of legal services providers who are using technology to expand their reach and impact in the public sector; and (3) have the opportunity to affect how LiveHelp will be enhanced and expanded upon at LawHelp/ NY. Volunteers have reported high levels of satisfaction from contributing their time to

IOLA Project Grants Administration of Justice IOLA Funding Amount: $200,000

The IOLA grant was awarded to:  Implement statewide outreach strategies that expands both in-person and online outreach/ community legal education to improve access to justice for hundreds of thousands of low-income and vulnerable New Yorkers through the web-based help available from LawHelp/NY;  Maintain and improve LawHelp/NY content, with special focus on the needs of those most affected by the ongoing economic crisis, including limited English proficient and immigrant communities; and  Employ innovative technologies and implement enhancements to increase access to justice for the most vulnerable New Yorkers while expanding the use and usability of LawHelp/NY. In 2011, we will:  expand the use of LiveHelp, a real-time online chat feature that provides site visitors in English and Spanish with individualized help in finding resources from law student volunteers;  develop/add new and innovative interactive self-help forms;  launch the new national LawHelp template developed by Pro Bono Net, a founding member of the New York LawHelp Consortium; and  continue to expand search engine optimization and marketing strategies.

Number of People Benefited by Legal Services Other Than Direct Legal Representation… Website Visits: 451,000 Webpage Views: 2.2 Million Live Chat: 5,165 People Community Legal Education: 93 Events; 3,500+ People User Survey Respondents: 6,070 Visitors


Other Services, continued LiveHelp, stating that they have been exposed to a range of everyday legal problems faced by lowincome New Yorkers, and have learned about the practical information available to help those individuals solve such problems. Based on prechat surveys, the majority of visitors need help with a family law issue. After family law the main concerns were: housing, work/employment, debt problems, foreclosure, government benefits and immigration. The LiveHelp Coordinator is a bi-lingual Equal Justice Works AmeriCorps Legal Fellow via LAWNY's project with EJW. The Coordinator recruits, trains and supervises the pro bono volunteers that staff LiveHelp. To facilitate training and supervision, since summer 2010, all volunteers are required to use Google Chat to allow for side conversations with the Coordinator. In the spring, we focus on recruiting volunteers for summer coverage. For summer 2012 coverage, we have 5 (including 2 bilingual) law school interns. The current LiveHelp Coordinator graduated from Cardozo Law School and prior to law school was Eric Schneiderman's Constituency Services Coordinator when he was a State Senator. Her familiarity with LawHelp.org/NY has proven very helpful in her current position. LiveHelp's training model emphasizes handson practice from the outset with simulated LiveHelp questions, and a one-on-one practice chat before the pro bono navigator is added to the schedule. Each volunteer signs up for a weekly 3 hour slot; it is emphasized that this is a commitment to help low income New Yorkers which, except in extraordinary circumstances, cannot be changed. Our training model also

emphasizes being sympathetic with the plight of visitors seeking LiveHelp. Internet Marketing: Since it was published January 2011, the NonProfit Guide to Internet Marketing, a toolkit to search engine optimization and social marketing, has received positive national reviews and has been downloaded more than 2,000 times. Meanwhile, new innovations keep developing on how organizations can use search engine and social media marketing to advance their cause. Over the past year, we have prepared a new list of tips, free tools, and ideas to help nonprofits use Internet marketing to promote their missions, fundraise, and build community and support via social marketing. Currently we have amassed 52 new tips and tools that non-profits can use to design, launch, manage, and measure the impact of their Internet marketing. We plan on updating the toolkit with this new information and redistribute an updated toolkit to the city, state and nation-wide legal aid and non-profit community between now and the end of 2012. As part of our Internet marketing strategies we developed blogs in English and Spanish which link back to our main sites, as well as to LiveHelp, and we add the information to our Facebook page or Twitter feed. On the blogs (mynewyorklegalhelp.com and miayudalegalnuevayork.com) we post short stories highlighting particular aspects of LawHelp/NY, and legal news. For example, a recent blog post described how to use the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs free counseling service that helps New Yorkers deal with their consumer debt. This information has been made available in both English and Spanish blogs. Other posts deal with

Sources of Funding Total IOLA Grants Legal Services Corporation Foundations State Funding Other

Legal Services Corporation 17% $ 378,000 $ 200,000 $ 65,000 $ 57,000 $ 8,000 $ 48,000

IOLA Grants 53%

Foundations 15% State Funding 2% Other 13%


Other Services, continued new foreclosure information and resources, how to get free help with taxes, regular updates on the Advantage Program as it was being phased out, language access resources for seniors that do not speak English, information on NYC heating rules, domestic violence resources, information on housing discrimination and more. All LawHelp/NY staff contribute blog posts. During the period January 2011 through the first quarter 2012, the English blog received 23,702 visits and 44,927 page views while the Spanish blog received 9,329 visits and 14,732 page views. On both Facebook and Twitter we continue to see increasing growth in the number of followers/ friends and interactions that these tools allow us to have with the community. From April 2011 to March 2012, we acquired 161 new likes when compared to 103 likes we received from April 2010 to March 2011 period. On Twitter we doubled our followers from 154 followers in the April 2010 to March 2011 period to 366 new followers from April 2011 to March 2012. Currently we have 539 followers on Twitter. New A2J Interactive Interviews: Due to delays caused by an internal Legal Services Corporation audit, we were not able to complete the A2J interviews project planned for 2011-developing self-help interactive forms to help low-income persons prepare for and win public benefits administrative hearings. However, this project is finally back on track, and we expect to complete the work by February 2013. The team we recruited to work on these self-help modules reflects an impressive breadth of expertise, including public benefits experts from LS-NYC, Project Fair, City Bar Justice Center, Urban Justice Center, Empire Justice Center and Legal Assistance of Western NY (LawNY). The development of interview templates to be hosted on Pro Bono Net's LawHelp Interactive system will be handled by LawNY. The team of experts, however, began its work during this grant period. New LawHelp National Template (LH3) for New York: Over the past year we have been actively engaged in the development of the new LawHelp.org template, from participating in the national team that reviews proposed technologies The New York LawHelp Consortium - 4

and template designs to intensive meetings between Pro Bono Net staff and LawHelp/NY staff to plan implementation of the new template in New York. As described previously, the redesigned template was informed by analysis of site usage, research on how low-income users find legal information on the web, and input from a committee of state LawHelp partners that included staff from LawHelp/NY. We designed and implemented an alternative "tickler" system for keeping organization information up to date since the automated tickler will not be part of the initial migration. As of this date, the current site is frozen and we expect access to the new site within the next week. We will soft launch probably within 6-8 weeks of that access. By the time of official launch (either late summer or early fall) we plan to change our domain name (current options include nylawhelp.org and lawhelpny.org) so that the site is no longer a subdomain of the national www.lawhelp.org URL. This will greatly enhance search engine optimization effectiveness. Other state LawHelp sites that have already migrated report significant increases in site visits due to optimization strategies implemented in the new template; we expect similar boosts for New York. It turns out that a for-profit company off shore is illegally sitting on lawhelpny.org domain; Pro Bono Net's lawyers are working on this problem. Meanwhile, to protect ourselves we have purchased multiple domain names similar to LawHelp.org/NY that are now or will be redirected to the main LawHelp/NY site. In anticipation of the new website, we completely revised the Going to Court section of the website, improved its usability via new links to the Office of Court Administration website, parts of which have been systematically revised over the last couple of years. All the resources in this section were reviewed and changed where necessary. Throughout the site, we have eliminated inactive resources and have culled through a list of LawHelp/NY generated resources using an old html format. We have identified those resources that we will want to keep and have been considering new formats and templates that we will use once we migrate. Migration from the old website to the new website has taken more time than initially

Other Services, continued anticipated, but the process has begun. New York is one of the two largest sites using Pro Bono Net's LawHelp.org template. In addition, New York resources are more complicated than most because New York City has a complicated legal services geographic area regime, and we use various sorting formulas to make it easier for the user to identify their neighborhood-based programs. We also order our Know your Rights resources with a lot of  specificity, since a single subtopic may have 30-40 resources. Developing migration scripts for the more than 4,000 Know Your Rights resources that have been very specifically ordered is complicated; this aspect is now complete. Over the coming months, LawHelp/NY staff will concentrate on populating the new site with special attention to the homepage which features many new capabilities including a range of multimedia content, new "widgets" that can be customized in ways that make it easier for users to find high-value content. In addition, visitors will be able to sort resources by content type, such as video, audio and interactive form. An exciting aspect for staff is that site administration has been streamlined and vastly improved, which means less time spent on low-level tasks and more time on content improvements.  The new design means that visitors to LawHelp/ NY will be able to access resources through multiple paths, including a natural language search that allows users to look for legal resources without legal jargon. To better serve those not proficient in English, the new designs also include multiple entry points for these users to find content in their  language. LawHelp/NY will have a new multilingual entry page for each of the 38 languages other than English in which content is available. The new entry page highlights all of the legal resources in that language as well as how the population can access needed legal services. Content Management Work:  Interactive Resources: During 2011, there were significant improvements made to the content available on LawHelp/NY. Highlights include 13 interactive tools for veterans and service members to help them with essentials of life problems, consumer debt related forms, and new DIY resources developed by the courts and legal

services, including the Family Court Support Enforcement Petition, the Tenant Affidavit to Restore a Case to the Housing Court Calendar and the Surrogate's Court Guardianship Petition. We now make available 32 self-help interactive forms and provide a link to them from the home page of the site as well as from the relevant topic in the Know Your Rights section. Going to Court: The Going To Court section of the website was completely revised in preparation for migrating to the new LawHelp.org template. We updated the Family and Juvenile section, adding new resources on the new divorce law and new subtopics on marriage equality and pregnancy, breastfeeding, birth control and abortion. We also added a new subtopic that highlights resources on Internet use safety for victims of domestic violence. We introduced a subtopic in Consumer on Small Claims Court and a section on Student Loans, which we continue to work on. As part of the Small Claims Court section, we added a how-tofile a small claim video available in English, Russian, Chinese and Spanish. In the Seniors section, we added a video on how to avoid excessive 401(k) fees. Hotlines List: In response to a request from LiveHelp navigators and others, we developed a Hotlines List of all the hotlines we could identify for New York State and mounted it on the homepage. We canvassed New York State legal services project directors in developing this list. Know Your Rights Resources: We added more than 30 new Spanish resources that covered hot topic areas such as immigration fraud, health and family and juvenile issues. We also analyzed some of the most used resources on the site in order to identify the resources that we didn't have Spanish translations for, and made a list of ten important resources. We have contacted the organizations that developed these resources to ask them to provide Spanish translations; if they cannot do so, we plan to get them translated. In total, 194 resources were added and/or reviewed during this grant period. At this time, LawHelp/NY currently curates, in the Know Your Rights and self-help section, a The New York LawHelp Consortium - 5

Other Services, continued total of 4,190 resources covering 16 areas of law. Of those, 2,502 are in English and 730 in Spanish, while the remaining 958 resources are in 37 additional languages. Of these, there are 139 in Chinese, 118 in Russian, 104 in Korean, 102 in French, 66 in Haitian Creole and 58 in Arabic. The Going to Court section has been consolidated into 311 resources. Organization Listings Additions: As a result of a LawHelp/NY training for a wide range of civil legal services and community services programs in Nassau and Suffolk Counties during the Touro Law School job fair, and with the help from a pro bono Touro law student, LawHelp/ NY was able to add 8 new organization listings to the Find A Lawyer section of LawHelp/NY for Nassau and Suffolk. These include three projects of the Nassau County Bar Association (Foreclosure, Veterans and a Senior Citizen's Clinic) the foreclosure project at both the Suffolk County Bar Association, and Nassau County CASA, an immigrant's rights organization. User Survey: During 2011, visitors completed 5,880 user surveys. The following data only refers to those who filed out user surveys.  More than 54% of the visitors find the LawHelp/NY websites via search engines.  About 64% of the visitors are female.  Nearly 42% looked at Family & Juvenile resources (DV, divorce, custody, etc.).  Close to 40% reported that they are using the information for a court case while about 28% say they are getting information for a specific legal problem not related to a court case.  More than 65% reported that they are lowincome getting information for themselves while an additional 11% + reported that they are getting information on behalf of a low-income person. We are therefore providing assistance to our target audience, i.e. 76.5% in total of those getting help via LawHelp.org/NY are lowincome. During the first quarter of 2012, visitors completed 1,581 user surveys.  Of these, the percent who found LawHelp/NY The New York LawHelp Consortium - 6

via search engines grew to more than 56%.  Just under 65% reported that they are lowincome getting information for themselves while an additional nearly13% reported that they are getting information on behalf of a low-income person, for a total of 78%. These numbers are consistent with the yearly 2011 data.  36.5% reported that they are using the information for a court case while close to 30% say they are getting information for a specific legal problem not related to a court case. A summary of findings from the User Surveys collected for this grant period only (6,070) can be found in Section M, Program Evaluation. Quotations from survey responders are also reported there and are included in an attachment. Outreach: During this grant period, LawHelp/NY staff led and/or participated in 92 legal education/training and related community events. Of these 41 were in Upstate New York and Long Island, and 51 were in New York City. Summer Outreach Program for New York City: For the second year in a row we instituted a summer intern program in New York City that focused on outreach to the most vulnerable communities based on a list of High Risk Neighborhoods provided to us by The New York Community Trust. We had a dedicated team of seven college student interns recruited from Columbia University, Fordham University, George Washington University, Rutgers University, University of Richmond-Virginia, Vassar College and Yale University. We sought interns who would be comfortable navigating the "outer boroughs" of New York City, who spoke second languages, who had experience with the effects of poverty, and who believed very strongly in equal access to justice. Before the internship began, we sent a survey to the accepted interns that asked about their level of interest in certain communities, areas of the law and outreach strategies. This was an opportunity for the interns to speak freely about their passions, without the pressure of an interview. We learned through previous experience that interns who are not excited about making dozens of phone calls will not be

Other Services, continued particularly effective at it. The first day of the internship program was an orientation to LawHelp/NY, our staff, and our goals. We introduced the interns to New York City politics and gave geography quizzes, asking, for example, which borough is Kings County, in which borough Mott Haven is located, and what TriBeCa stands for. We shared tips on networking, public speaking, and working independently on projects with seemingly distant deadlines. On the first day, and throughout the internship program, we promoted cross-cultural sensitivity. We discussed the implications of referring to a human being as "illegal" and the ways in which survivors of abuse are strong, not weak. LawHelp/NY staff created maps of high need community board districts and marked sites to visit within each one. We divided the interns into pairs or groups of three to go on foot and visit each site. The goal of each interaction was to share information about LawHelp/NY, drop off fliers for staff and community use, and offer to return at a future date to conduct staff training or attend a community event. The interns were strongly encouraged to visit other locations as they came across them and to engage in dialogue with community members wherever possible. The groups were made based on the language abilities of the interns and the predominant languages of the neighborhoods. Each group was equipped with at least one phone with Internet access so the group could post their progress on Twitter, check in to locations on Foursquare and check their location if they became lost. We were also able to leverage the summer intern program for law students offered by LawHelp Consortium members, the Legal Aid Society and City Bar Justice Center, to enable our interns to participate in visits to Housing Court and various court-sponsored Lawyer for the Day programs. As a result of their commitment and unfailing energy, the interns visited well over 500 sites during the summer-including 65 senior centers, 38 Head Start programs, 93 social services organizations, 60 libraries, 52 elected officials' offices, etc. Over a hundred faith-based organizations were also visited, but because the visits were during the week, less face to face meetings occurred; however, LawHelp/

NY resources were left at the sites. The visits generally involved a conversation with a supervisor, a description of LawHelp.org/NY, an offer to return to conduct training or attend a community event, the distribution of a selection of fliers and self-help pamphlets, and if possible, a quick tutorial on using the site. Interns visited almost 40 sites in Far Rockaway, around 20 in Jamaica, and almost 40 in Corona, Elmhurst, and Jackson Heights. Over 90 Bronx sites were visited, including the neighborhoods of Morrisania, Mott Haven, Hunts Point, Melrose, Crotona Park East, and Claremont. In Brooklyn the interns focused on Bushwick, Brownsville, Sunset Park, and East New York. During the first quarter of 2012, we began recruitment for this summer's intern program, and currently have committed to nine summer volunteer college interns for the Outreach Program and five pro bono law school interns focusing on LiveHelp legal information assistance. Upstate Outreach: The LawHelp/NY part-time staff housed at the Geneva, New York office of Legal Assistance of Western New York (LawNY) developed and implemented a well thought out outreach plan that focused in part on legal services partner organizations to make sure they were well informed about the resources available on LawHelp.NY. Since the Organization Listing Coordinator is at LawNY, they identified the annual update of listing information by each organization as an outreach opportunity. As a result, during 2011 and in the first quarter of 2012, 134 letters were sent to partner organizations thanking them for updating their LawHelp/NY listing and reminding them about certain resources and training opportunities. In order to ensure the success of the statewide webinar "What's in your legal toolkit," described below, LawHelp/NY Geneva staff took on the job of promoting the webinar, contacting project directors and related staff via phones calls (51 calls/19 conversations) and faxes to offices they couldn't reach. These activities did indeed ensure the success of the webinar, which ultimately attracted 70 participants. They also targeted both local and regional community events, health and safety fairs, veterans' events, and media for LawHelp/NY outreach which The New York LawHelp Consortium - 7

Other Services, continued resulted for this grant period in the 41 events listed in the attached list of outreach trainings and related events. Highlights include the veterans events in Bath, Elmira, Yates, and Rochester (Homeless Veterans Summit and Veterans Job Expo), and Canandaigua, Wayne and Livingston Counties; a radio show for the greater Rochester Metropolitan area with a listening audience of over 1 million; and a range of rural health and safety fairs. The Organizational Listing Coordinator also participates in the staff team that maintains LawHelp/NY's Facebook and Twitter accounts. Other New York City Outreach: During this grant period, LawHelp/NY led or participated in 51 outreach events throughout New York City, reaching more than 1000 people with indepth information about LawHelp/NY. Examples include The Interfaith Roundtable held at Manhattan Civil Court for religious leaders throughout Manhattan, CIANA, an immigrant rights organization in Queens, the Staten Island Mt. Sinai Center Jobs Enrichment Program, a health and education fair in Brooklyn sponsored by State Senator Eric Adams and City Council Member Letitia James, and two head start programs in Brooklyn. The number of education events is down from last year because our Outreach Coordinator started law school in August and we were unable to replace her with an equally talented coordinator until early 2012. We instituted a collaborative outreach program with the Queens Library System. We led a series of trainings for librarians and related personnel held at the Central Library in Jamaica, resulting in training close to 100 staff from throughout the system. In the first quarter of 2012, legal education training events included for librarians at the Inwood Public Library, the Kings County DA's Elder Abuse Clinic, a borough-wide event hosted by Families Building Community in Queens for 20-25 social workers and foster care agencies. We led a training event in Spanish for the staff of Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation, and they will host similar events throughout the year. And we set up a collaboration with the Brooklyn Family Justice Center for LawHelp/NY training, which will involve numerous events for both in-house legal services partners and for social and community The New York LawHelp Consortium - 8

services borough-wide throughout the remainder of the year. Outreach to the Statewide Legal Services Community: We led a statewide webinar for intake workers and receptionists of legal services programs. Seventy people participated in this webinar called "What's In Your Legal Toolkit." Of the 70 attendees, thirty-seven were from New York City based organizations, eight from Westchester, nine from Nassau County, and sixteen from the rest of the state. Other outreach to the legal services community during this grant period includes the publication and distribution of 5 enewsletters designed to share updates about the resources available from LawHelp.org/NY and other relevant information directed mainly to the statewide legal services community. Each enewsletter went to approximately 3,000 recipients. Support for Other Service Providers LawHelp/NY continues to serve as a backbone and as a backup for civil legal service providers, as well as for pro bono lawyers, medical, social services and shelter services staff and many others that assist in providing access to justice for low income persons. It is especially important as a source of referrals to free legal services across the state. During this grant period, users downloaded referral information for legal services organizations 272,178 times. LawHelp/NY also provides information and resources especially to those lowincome persons who are eligible but who may not be able to obtain legal representation. In these instances, LawHelp/NY is especially crucial for persons who, out of necessity, are representing themselves in a legal proceeding. To help the unrepresented and to make it easier for the nonlawyer advocate to help their clients, there are approximately 4,100 Know Your Rights and selfhelp resources available in 37 languages, including a mirror website in Spanish. There are now 30 interactive self-help forms that prepare court papers and other legal documents, including 13 interactive forms especially designed to help veterans and those in military service. Bilingual LiveHelp is available from 9 AM to 9 PM on many days, depending on the number of volunteers, but at least until 6 PM

Other Services, continued each weekday. During this grant period more than volunteers targeted outreach to high risk 5,000 people were provided individualized legal neighborhoods identified by New York assistance via online, real-time chat support. We Community Trust. They made more than 500 build legal information collaborations with a range site visits over the summer. In addition, a of social and community services organizations. college student assisted in fixing broken links. For example, we have a new pilot project with  We use pro bono attorneys to assist with LIFT with respect to LiveHelp-they are responding Content Management, however this grant period to requests for family law information on Fridays, these attorneys were primarily from other nonand added a button on their website that connects to profits. Attorneys from Lawyers Alliance and our LiveHelp software. We have an ongoing collaboration with the Queens Library System to Pro Bono Statistics train their libraries on best practices for using During 2011-2012, the following results were achieved: LawHelp.org/NY to help their customers. Similar • Law Student Volunteers: 136 collaborations are in the works. • Hours Pro Bono Assistance: 3,048 Pro Bono Private Attorney Involvement • Summer College Interns: 7 • Community Level Site Visits: 500  LiveHelp continues to attract significant pro • Pro Bono Attorneys Developed New Content: 8 bono assistance especially from the law school community. During this grant period 136 pro • Hours Donated: 200 bono law students from 8 law schools and 3 the Legal Aid Society assisted the Consortium colleges contributed chat legal assistance to in its review of its legal status. A team of public more than 5,000 low-income visitors to benefits attorneys (from Project Fair, Empire LawHelp/NY. Together they contributed 3,048 Justice Center, City Bar Justice Center, and hours of pro bono assistance. We also benefited Urban Justice Center) began working on and from a Touro Law School student who helped continue to work on the interactive interviews identify additional legal services assistance on under development to help unrepresented Long Island to improve the Find A Lawyer litigants win fair hearings. An attorney from sections for Nassau and Suffolk counties. South Brooklyn Legal Services regularly  We use non-attorney volunteers in the updates the Tax section of the site. LawHelp/NY Summer Outreach Program for New York City. During 2011 summer, 7

Snapshot of Accomplishments continued from page 1 areas of law. Of those, 2,502 are in English and 730 in Spanish, while the remaining 958 resources are in 37 additional languages. There are 139 in Chinese, 118 in Russian, 104 in Korean, 102 in French, 66 in Haitian Creole and 58 in Arabic. LawHelp/NY makes available 32 self-help interactive forms; new forms include the Family Court Support Enforcement Petition and the Surrogate's Court Guardianship Petition. New interactive forms to help poor people win fair hearings are under development. The Going to Court section was revised and consolidated into 311 resources. In response to a request from LiveHelp navigators and others, a Hotlines list was developed and added to the

homepage. During this grant period, 6,070 visitors completed user surveys (5,524 were completed in English and 204 in Spanish) providing invaluable feedback. LawHelp.org/NY prominently features links to the I-CAN! E-File program during each tax season. I -CAN! returned $1,271,175 to low-income New York State residents in 2011 through the Earned Income Tax Credit and helped 3,052 New Yorkers file their taxes for free. IOLA support for LawHelp/NY is crucial to our mission of providing reliable, up-to-date legal information and referrals to free legal services to low-income and vulnerable New Yorkers.
