One of the most important parts to putting together Michigan Legal Help is user testing. We get so familiar with the website that we are hyper-sensitive to any changes, and because we know how we want it to work it always works, even if it doesn’t work for others. As we build triage we have
This summer for my Access to Justice Technology Fellowship I am working with Michigan Legal Help (MLH). I am also glad to say that joining me at MLH is my Michigan State University classmate LaDierdre McKinney! MLH is a website that operates under the wider-reaching Michigan Poverty Law Program. MLH gives legal information to people in Michigan who want to represent themselves in court or simply know more about the law. It covers simple civil matters including family law, housing, public assistance, taxes, and education, among many other subject areas. If you need help with a matter that requires forms, then chances are that we have the form. All you have to do is go through a simple interview process and at the end you will get a completed form ready for filing or mailing.
Currently there are 47 “Do-It-Yourself” tools offered, and users can generate 138 different forms from those tools. Additionally, there are over 150 articles and over 700 common questions and answers for all of the legal issues we cover. In the first quarter of this year there was an average of 338 forms generated per day through the website, helping make Michigan number two behind New York for most documents assembled on LawHelp Interactive. The website also has 8 videos to help clients, one of which you can watch below if you need to know how to serve divorce or custody papers. The scope of MLH truly is great, and it is expanding practically daily to help more people. That is part of the reason why I’m excited to be part of such a great program and help improve our ever-growing website!
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