The Wave Recedes: Providing Access to Justice for the Unconnected

Populations most in need of access to justice, such as the elderly and the urban and rural poor, also have limited access to connective technologies, such as the Internet, that are taken for granted in much of the United States. Although the cutting edge of technology rapidly advances, it proliferates unevenly, leaving a pervasive digital divide, with some 20 percent of Americans, or 60 million people, not connected to the Internet. In some cities, such as Detroit, the proportion of unconnected Americans approaches 60 percent. Services built on technological platforms are deceptively connective: it makes it easier to reach only those people who happen to be on the platform, whereas those who can’t access that platform are left behind or ignored. A map of tweets in New York City during Superstorm Sandy provides an illustrative example: although areas with high volumes of tweets—such as the East Village—suffered badly from the storm, the worst hit areas of Staten Island and the Rockaways were relatively silent, belying the situation on the ground.
 
Accessibility similarly limits access to and effectiveness of legal processes. To many—especially someone visiting a court for the first time—legal systems are black boxes, flattening grievances into proclamations under an ocean of paperwork. Opaque, time-consuming, or incomprehensible process clogs court, clerk, and legal aid provider bandwidth, slows service delivery, and drives vulnerable people to insecure alternatives. Technology can help make these processes clearer and easier to understand for clients and attorneys alike, but only if services are built platforms that both already use.
 
The solution rests in taking advantage of technologies that most people already have access to, which often requires fewer resources than researching and piloting entirely new technologies.  For example, text messaging on mobile phones, which have a 94 percent penetration rate in the United States; more than smartphones, Internet, or any other technology platform. Even seemingly "low-end" technologies can have a profound impact on a person's experience in a legal system, from land tenure to court administration, and can save thousands of hours in labor everywhere from small legal aid offices to sprawling court systems by automating manual or otherwise time-consuming human processes.
 
SMS can be--and has been--used to manage complex intake and outreach processes, enabling individuals to use SMS to find and engage with the most appropriate court services, receive reminders of court dates and filing deadlines, and track how their case is moving through a legal system. Implemented properly, mobile phones and SMS can provide the connective tissue between the whiz-bang technology systems of the future and the low-connectivity clients who most need help with access to justice. And the best part (for the accountants)? It can be all done on a shoestring budget.
 
About the speaker: Keith Porcaro is the :Legal Project Director at Social Impact Lab (SIMLab). He works with legal systems, legal service providers, and governments to make legal processes more accessible with mobile technologies. Keith has worked as an international development consultant, attorney, and web developer. He has a JD from Duke University School of Law and a BSFS from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. Keith never goes anywhere without his passport and a pen, and is licensed to practice law in California.
 
SIMLab is a hybrid organization that works to lower the barriers of social change using mobile technology. SIMLab are the creators of FrontlineSMS, the most-widely used software solution for organizations to professionally manage their operations and outreach with text messages (SMS). FrontlineSMS has been downloaded over 150,000 times and is used in 135 countries, from managing medical clinic intake in sub-Saharan Africa to expediting land administration processes in India.