Pro Bono Services for Veterans

Legal aid organizations throughout the state are celebrating Veterans Week, which runs from November 6th to the 12th. Many, including TexasLawHelp.org, which is funded by the Texas Access to Justice Foundation, are offering resources and pro bono services to our nation's men and women who served in uniform. 

Free help for Texas veterans is also provided via the Veterans Legal Aid Portal with links to a number of helpful resources and a free legal assistance hotline (1-800-622-2520). Other organizations, including Lone Star Legal Aid, the Texas Legal Services Center, the State Bar of Texas, the Houston Bar Association, and the Texas Veterans Legal Assistance Project, have similar initiatives in place.

The Harris County Law Library is providing access to legal research materials, including federal forms for veterans, the Code of Federal Regulations (Title 38: Veterans Affairs), and a veterans benefits handbook, along with several military law titles, which are available though HeinOnline. Please visit our Veterans' Legal Resources display in the library. It will be available throughout the week. 

SRLN: Self-Represented Litigation Network

The Self-Represented Litigation Network is a national organization formed under the leadership of Richard Zorza, a former public defender, legal services attorney, and justice technology designer. He is also an avid blogger and a key player in the Access to Justice movement. Through SRLN, Mr. Zorza has created a rich network of resources, especially for those concerned with closing the justice gap. Over the last decade, the SRLN has made great strides in developing innovations, including strategic and empowering uses of technology, to improve the experience of self-represented litigants as they navigate the justice system. 

Membership in SRLN is free, and signing up is easy. As a benefit of joining, members can register for email newsletters and enroll in a number of working groups, including the Forms & Technology group. If you are a legal system professional and would like to get involved, SRLN offers several options. Take a look at what SRLN can do for you and what you can do to improve the experience of pro se litigants.

Courting Justice, A Listening Tour to Improve Access to Justice

Judicial leaders from across the country will gather several times this year to engage in a dialog with the communities they serve. This series of town hall meetings, called Courting Justice, is a partnership between the NCSC and PBS. All sessions will be broadcast in Tavis Smiley's regular programming slot. In Houston, Tavis Smiley airs on Friday evenings at 9:00 pm on PBS Channel 8.

Community leaders from disenfranchised groups and others who work in the areas of social justice and advocacy will participate in the discussions. Small business owners, faith leaders, and members of local and national bar associations will also take part. This unprecedented opportunity for judges to engage with their constituents will give voice to those who feel neglected, ignored, or denied access to the justice system. Restoring faith and trust in the judicial process will be the goal.

Future dates and locations for several additional town halls will be announced shortly. The next air dates are September 28 and 29.

Power Up at the Library

Today is Power Up Day at the Library. This initiative of the Texas Library Association was developed to raise the profile of libraries as vital technology hubs within communities.

Libraries are often thought of as repositories for books, but advances in technology and the explosion of digital content has transformed the traditional library from a purely analog institution to an innovative center of activity and services where people, ideas, and technology intersect. At the Harris County Law Library, we bring these facets together in number of ways. In general, we offer access to legal materials, in both print and digital formats; we instruct users in the selection of appropriate tools for their legal needs; we suggest strategies for locating and evaluating legal information; and we refer patrons to resources in the community when appropriate. These are the traditional roles of libraries and librarians, but performing them in fulfillment of our mission achieves, we hope, a greater good, namely, access to justice.

We recognize that navigating the legal system is difficult and daunting, and that barriers to both access and engage with the system are great, especially for those of modest means. We are committed to reducing these barriers and to facilitating the best use of our library in any way we can. Not only do we provide access to legal information resources, i.e., the substance of the law, we also guide our patrons in the use of those resources as a means to an important personal end. 

Any individual with a legal issue to resolve must learn how to access the materials in our collection and how to use them in the context of the legal system, but neither of these tasks can be accomplished without also knowing how to use technology. For many people, opportunities to use and feel comfortable with technology are limited, yet increasingly, digital literacy is a prerequisite to engaging with the legal system. Without some degree of tech proficiency, one challenge -- learning how to file a petition in civil court -- becomes two. This double deficit created by the digital divide and the justice gap is our focus. Providing basic technology skills training is one way to reduce it, and this is just one example of how we Power Up at the Harris County Law Library, bringing people, resources, and technology together to facilitate access to justice. It's what we do. 

Interpreters in the Courts, or Do you Speak Q’anjob’al?

Immigration Law Resource Month at the Harris County Law Library runs through the end of September. Until then, we will highlight immigration stories, issues, trends, and developments in the law. The lack of qualified interpreters in U.S. Courts is one such topic, which we address briefly in today's post. 

In recent weeks, several news outlets have reported on the growing need for qualified interpreters in U.S. Courts. Throughout the justice system, the shortage of those who are fluent in a second language is a problem of increasing concern. It is also a matter of equal rights, as those with Limited English Proficiency cannot engage with the legal system on an even footing. The consequences can be dire: a simple traffic offense may be misconstrued as a rape charge; an asylum-seeker facing death threats in her native Guatemala may be deported; or the misunderstanding of one’s Miranda rights may lead to self-incrimination and a denial of justice. 

The United States is one of the largest Spanish-speaking countries in the world, second only to Mexico, so the need for Spanish-language interpreters is especially great. In border states, which are common points of entry for immigrants from Central America, officials have identified another trend -- increasing numbers of immigrants who speak languages indigenous to their countries of origin. In many cases, finding translators for the regional languages of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador is next to impossible, and justice cannot be served.

In 2014, Immigration and Customs Enforcement published a Language Access Plan, stating its commitment to serve individuals with Limited English Proficiency. Recognizing the need for interpreters who speak indigenous languages is a positive step, but actually locating third-party translators for these languages is a challenge they are still trying to meet.