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Legal empowerment, or improving \u00a0legal opportunities, directly relates to improving people\u2019s capabilities to exercise their rights. This is a basic level of justice – when the law is not restricted to codes and halls of\u00a0courts of justice, but\u00a0it\u00a0is accessible and useful to all\u00a0people.<\/p>\n
People and organizations, including Legal Development Network,\u00a0work to achieve this goal around the world,\u00a0applying\u00a0a variety of approaches: from providing free legal services to\u00a0ensuring\u00a0accessible\u00a0legal education and information. All those approaches\u00a0imply explaining people how the law\u00a0impact them\u00a0in their everyday lives, \u00a0improving their ability to\u00a0use formal justice systems, and also enabling\u00a0people to influence the improvement of legislation.<\/p>\n
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One of the ways to achieve\u00a0this goal\u00a0is applying\u00a0technology to provide information about the law,\u00a0providing them with technological\u00a0opportunities for obtaining legal advice and services. Technologies\u00a0for legal empowering\u00a0vary according to jurisdiction, \u00a0justice\u00a0system, systems of providing legal aid.<\/p>\n
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How citizens interact with law and legal services<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n A wide range of technologies is aimed at citizens – from SMS-based information systems to web-sites that allow people to create legal documents, resolve disputes, and find legal information that is relevant to their particular situation. What\u00a0does\u00a0technology really add (or does not add) to existing trust building tools? What makes technology projects more manageable and useful for people?<\/p>\n There are many gaps in our knowledge of how citizens interact with law and legal services. Recent studies, including those conducted in Ukraine, have expanded our understanding of how people solve legal problems.<\/p>\n Studies on legal capacities show that, despite the fact that many people are faced with legal problems, they often do not know that their problem is legal in nature and they do not know which legal support may be available to them. Often, they do not try to solve the problem at all. Those who make such attempts are unlikely to turn to lawyers or courts, and they hope for help from relatives\u00a0or\u00a0acquaintances. In many countries, informal justice systems also provide an affordable alternative to formal mechanisms, providing quick, relatively inexpensive assistance conforming with\u00a0local traditions.<\/p>\n Technological solutions\u00a0are\u00a0more effective means of providing legal services to a wider range of people. In particular, technologies increase the potential for expanding geographical coverage of legal aid; allow people to help themselves\u00a0more effectively;\u00a0reduce the cost of involving professional\u00a0lawyers. Legal information, presented through readily accessible channels and in a more\u00a0understandable way, also has the potential to reduce inequality in access to justice.<\/p>\n Throughout the world, legal initiatives already use\u00a0technology for:<\/p>\n The most commonly technologies\u00a0used in legal empowerment, along with examples interaction of users and legal aid providers:<\/p>\n The five main types of technologies are used to allow people to perform\u00a0these interactions:<\/p>\n Most initiatives use websites as the primary means of providing information. The nest as for their popularity are\u00a0mobile applications, although they remain relatively rare. Relatively limited number of initiatives provide information through SMS, chat bots and on-line chat.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Challenges when using technology to bring people closer to the law<\/strong><\/p>\n The introduction of technologies can have far-reaching implications for the activities of legal aid organizations. As an example, the use of technology to expand access to justice is often associated with new regulatory issues and raises the question of the role of technology in wider legal practice. In some countries, for example, there is a fine line between providing legal information and legal consulting\u00a0– the latter may be prohibited by the rules against “unauthorized legal practice”. Not to mention the uncertainty as to how “up to date” is the legal information received on online resources.<\/p>\n Recognizing that identifying a legal problem is an important step towards solving it, many initiatives aim to help users better understand the nature of their legal problem and then direct them through the maze of the following legal decisions and processes. Tools that explain the process and help users make choices can help them be more proactive\u00a0instead of just\u00a0“think for a user.” Such tools are trying to achieve this by directing users through an on-line expertise that is dynamically adjusted according to user needs.<\/p>\n However, the use of technology to bring people closer to the law is a daunting task. The plain\u00a0publication of legal information on the Internet is not automatically equal to raising the knowledge of users about their rights. The plain provision\u00a0of legal information and resources online does not mean increasing the access of citizens to them. Information should be presented in a user-friendly and understandable\u00a0format so that it is useful to people who are far from jurisprudence.<\/p>\n Inconveniently applied technology can deepen existing inequalities in access to information: to distraction from legal services, available offline\u00a0that is personalized; mislead with inaccurate information. People who are on the margin of society, representatives of vulnerable groups less often recognize legal problems and receive legal advice, they often lack knowledge of their rights and they are more affected by the negative effects of this ignorance. Moreover, they are less effective in seeking legal advice or access to legal services – both online and offline – due to lack of knowledge or skills,\u00a0due to uncertainty and frustration.<\/p>\n Internet access and mobile phones are also more limited in\u00a0vulnerable groups and access to them is\u00a0lower among women, the elderly and people living in rural areas. Technological initiatives that ignore socio-economic, geographical,\u00a0digital, and \u00a0literacy\u00a0barriers have the potential to deepen inequalities in access to justice. Any use of technology should be sensitive to these constraints.<\/p>\n Technology also has the potential to change the relationship between a person and an organization that provides advice or support. Technology is \u00a0the most valuable for people\u00a0when it allows\u00a0to recreate a feeling of a personal meeting or conversation about a\u00a0problem, create a sense of ownership.<\/p>\n In many countries, there is not enough resources to expand the capacity for direct, eye-to-eye contact with a legal advisor. In this context, carefully crafted technological tools can bring organizations closer to more people without extra\u00a0costs\u00a0for individual visits or phone calls.<\/p>\n However, technology is not a substitute for personal, “live” legal advice and assistance. Technology can help determine when such an assistance is most sought after and how a person can get it in the best way. Technology should not be implemented\u00a0if\u00a0understood just as means of\u00a0reducing the cost of providing legal information and advice. Personalized legal advice will remain an important part of the efforts\u00a0to empower people. Under the conditions of proper application, technology can help focus personal assistance where it is most needed, through the provision of easy-to-understand advice by those communication channels that are already used by people.<\/p>\n Written by Yevhen Poltenko, Executive Director of Legal Development Network (Ukraine)<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Technology innovation Conference #LSCITCon in early January 2019 gathered in New Orleans (USA) a wide range of practices for demonstrating technological projects and tools that are being implemented to promote access to justice and provide high-quality legal services to low-income…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5423,"template":"","project":[],"section":[415],"event-type":[],"region":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ldn.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/event\/5535"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ldn.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/event"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ldn.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/event"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ldn.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ldn.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/event\/5535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ldn.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ldn.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"project","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ldn.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/project?post=5535"},{"taxonomy":"section","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ldn.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/section?post=5535"},{"taxonomy":"event-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ldn.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/event-type?post=5535"},{"taxonomy":"region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ldn.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/region?post=5535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ldn.org.ua\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/49914644_2282576911775962_6963904602739572736_n.jpg\")
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