Access to Justice

Posts related to providing equal justice to all Americans

Knowledge Management Toolkit is Available

Last winter, I took on a project for the Michigan Advocacy Program (MAP) and Idealware  developing a toolkit for implementing knowledge management at your organization. This project was funded by a Technology grant by Legal Services Corporation, my erstwhile employer. While geared somewhat for legal aid programs, the toolkit is fully usable for all sorts of nonprofits and businesses. It focuses primarily on document management, but includes advice on email, social media, and even non-technical information management practices. The goal of the toolkit is to help orgs capture and easily manage not only the work product that they create, but also the thought processes behind… Read More »Knowledge Management Toolkit is Available

Peter Does Not Approve

Last week, at the Nonprofit Technology Conference, I co-led a session on “Leading in Uncertain Times” with my friend Dahna Goldstein. At one point, while discussing layoffs, an attendee asked a question that I heard as “Aren’t layoffs a good opportunity to lose the organizational dead weight?” and before I had time to edit my reaction, I just blurted out “I don’t approve!”, getting quite a laugh from the room – a good feat when one is discussing layoffs. On Monday, my nptech doppelganger, Steve Heye, blogged about the conference and included the meme to your left, leaving me to conclude that there is no… Read More »Peter Does Not Approve

Year-end Reflections

This post was originally published on the NTEN Blog on December 24th, 2015. As years go, 2015 was a significant one in my career. The work of a CIO, or IT Director, or whatever title you give the person primarily responsible for IT strategy and implementation, is (ideally) two parts planning and one part doing. So in 2015—my third year at Legal Services Corporation—we did a couple of the big things that we’d been planning in 2013 and 2014. First and foremost, we (and I do mean we—I play my part, but I get things done with an awesome staff and coworkers) rolled out the… Read More »Year-end Reflections

How I Spent My 2015 Technology Initiative Grants Conference

I’m back from our (Legal Services Corporation) 15th annual technology conference, which ran from January 14th through the 16th  in San Antonio, Texas.  It was a good one this year, with a great location, good food, great people – nearly 300 of them, which is quite a record for us. There were plenty of amazing sessions, kicked off by a fascinating keynote on international access to justice web app partnerships. Slides and videos will be up soon on LSC’s website. But I did want to share the slides from my sessions, which all seemed to go very well.  I did three: Are You Agile I… Read More »How I Spent My 2015 Technology Initiative Grants Conference

Hackcess To Justice

Regular blog readers know that landing my job at Legal Services Corporation, the single largest funder of civil legal aid to people in financial need, was not an accident.  The mission of providing representation to those who need it, but can’t afford it, is one that I targeted for over half a decade before getting this position. I’m passionate about the work of our grantees, because there is something about social and economic injustice that offends me at my core, and I consider it my responsibility and my privilege to be able to do work that attempts to alleviate such injustice.   That’s my best explanation,… Read More »Hackcess To Justice

Notes From Here And There

Long time no blog, but I have good excuses.  Moving cross-country, even with a modest family of three, is no picnic, and we are now, over 13 months since I was offered the job in DC, starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Since summer, I’ve been frantically house hunting and, since December, busy relocating (for the third time) to our new, tree-laden home in Reston. This, however, doesn’t mean that I haven’t been writing or totally neglecting my nptech duties. So here are some things to look forward to: #ntcbeer. First and foremost. The annual Nonproft Technology Conference runs here… Read More »Notes From Here And There

Finding Aid To Improve Find Legal Aid

This post was originally published on the LSC Technology Blog in January of 2014. LSC is Legal Services Corporation, my employer. Hands down, the most popular feature on LSC’s website is our Find Legal Aid lookup, which directs you to the LSC-funded legal services provider in your service area. I’m happy to announce that we’ve given this lookup a refresh while simplifying its use. But we didn’t do it alone, and the story of how we got this project going is one that I really want to share with our community. As I’ve blogged about before, our service areas are a unique geography that doesn’t lend… Read More »Finding Aid To Improve Find Legal Aid

Hacking For Justice

This post was originally published on the LSC Technology Blog in May of 2013. Note that “LSC” is Legal services Corporation, my current employer, and “TIG” stands for “Technology Initiative Grants”. Welcome to the new LSC Technology blog, hosted here on the TIG site, and written by TIG and Information Technology staff. To kick this off, I wanted to report on a fun, exciting, and long overdue initiative we’re on: making our non-confidential data available to hackers.  Let me be clear here, for those of you who have any bad associations with the word, that  a “hacker” is not a computer criminal or spy.  The… Read More »Hacking For Justice

My Birthday Campaign: Justice For All

Image by Steven Depolo I’m sure that you’re all familiar with birthday campaigns: this one is a little different. For my birthday, coming up on June 1st, I want you to do something for me and a cause that is very important to me.  But I’m not asking for money, I’m asking for your voice. Here’s the deal: Legal services (aka legal aid), is the offering of free legal counsel and services to those who can’t afford an attorney otherwise.  Many Americans know this, but they have no idea why it is so important. They might ask, “What’s the big deal?  In America, everyone has the… Read More »My Birthday Campaign: Justice For All

TIG Takeaways: First Impressions Of The Legal Aid Tech Community

Last week I attended two events sponsored by my new employer, Legal Services Corporation (LSC). The first was a two day Technology Summit, where a group of 50 thought leaders gathered to develop a plan for addressing the demand for legal aid more dramatically by making strategic use of technology. That was followed by the three day Technology Initiative Grants (TIG) conference.