lsc

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

Techcafeteria’s Week Of Added Content

As promised, I added about 40 of my guest posts here from the NTEN, Idealware, Earthjustice and LSC blogs. I also completely redid my categories and retagged every item, which is something I’d never done properly, so that, if you visit the blog, you can use the new sidebar category and tag cloud displays to find content by topic. Included is my “Recommended Posts” category, which includes the posts that I think are among the best and the most valuable of what I’ve written. These are mostly nptech-related, with a few of the personal posts thrown in, along with some humor. The newly-added content that is… Read More »Techcafeteria’s Week Of Added Content

Incoming Content – Apologies In Advance!

 RSS subscribers to this blog should take note that I’m apt to flood your feeds this weekend. Over the past few weeks, I’ve gathered 35 to 40 posts that  I’ve written for other blogs  that I’m adding here.  These are primarily posts that I wrote for the NTEN, Idealware, Earthjustice and Legal Services  Corporation blogs, but neglected to cross-post here at the  time. The publish dates run from mid 2006 to a few months ago. I’m also seeking  permission to republish some of my larger articles that are out there, so you’ll be seeing, at  least, my guide on “Architecting Systems to Support  Outcomes Management”,… Read More »Incoming Content – Apologies In Advance!

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

Making Your Website More Useful For More People

This post was originally published on the LSC Technology Blog in January of 2014. LSC is Legal Services Corporation, my employer. At LSC, we’ve been taking a critical look at our web site, to see if we can make it a more useful web site by factoring in all of the ways that people might want to view or use our information. In these days of big data and small screens, we realize that we have to be much more attentive to the ways that we present data than we have in the past. Identifying the different visitors who frequently use our site, we took a closer look… Read More »Making Your Website More Useful For More People

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

Notes From All Over

Did you know that Techcafeteria isn’t the only place I blog?  You can find me posting on topics related to legal aid, technology, and my work at Legal Services Corporation at the LSC Technology Blog.  My latest there is about my favorite free task management tool, Trello. I also do the occasional post on NTEN‘s blog, and they published my article on the history of Circuit Riders, the nonprofit-focused techies that got many an org automated in the 90’s, and my pitch for their new mission.  Related: I’ll be doing a webinar for NTEN this fall; an encore of the Project Management session that I… Read More »Notes From All Over

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.