National Pro Bono Week

This week (Oct. 21-27, 2018) is the 10th Annual National Pro Bono Week! Legal organizations across the country have planned events to celebrate and educate pro bono attorneys in their communities, and the Harris County Law Library is no exception. On Thursday, Oct. 25, at 2 p.m., we’ll offer our first session of Free Legal Tech for the Public, which is designed to help pro bono attorneys and self-represented litigants make sense of all the great online resources available to help individuals representing themselves in legal matters. Everyone is welcome to attend this Hands-on Legal Tech Training from the Law Library’s Legal Tech Institute and Texas attorneys can earn 1.0 hour of CLE credit. Click for details and registration information.

Hats Off to Houston Volunteer Lawyers!

In the tradition of celebrating excellence in pro bono work during National Pro Bono Week, the Law Library would like to give a hat tip to Houston Volunteer Lawyers! HVL attorneys staff the “Library Booth,” which is a legal information booth where self-represented litigants with limited means can speak with a licensed attorney for free. The Library Booth is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., in the lower level of our downtown Houston location. Working in close proximity with HVL attorneys, our law librarians see the positive impact it has on our patrons to have ready access to pro bono attorneys who can answer basic questions. With guidance, self-represented litigants can make better use of the Law Library’s collection and have improved access to justice. Visit www.makejusticehappen.org to see all the ways HVL supports pro bono.

Further Reading

• For more information about National Pro Bono Week, including a nationwide events calendar, visit www.probono.net

• For information about National Pro Bono Week events in Houston, visit the Houston Bar Association’s Pro Bono Week 2018 page.

• For more information about the Law Library’s Hands-on Legal Tech Training sessions, including the Pro Bono Week session of Free Legal Tech for the Public, visit our Legal Tech Institute website and click the Course Calendar.

Public Interest Technology and the law

Photo via: https://www.goodfreephotos.com

Disruptive innovation, content curation  and design thinking are buzzworthy terms that, despite their possible overuse, describe substantive and meaningful concepts with broad application across many disciplines.  Design thinking, the application of design principles to solve problems, is being applied in a variety of fields, including business and industry, healthcare, education, and the law.

IDEO, a global design firm based on Palo Alto, is often credited as the architect of design thinking, and David Kelley, IDEO’s founder, is, not surprisingly, a strong advocate for this inventive problem-solving method. Along with his brother Tom (IDEO’s marketing manager), David Kelley has built a creativity engine that generates some of the most innovative ways of solving problems from the everyday to the exceptional. The brothers also write and speak about creativity and innovation in hopes of inspiring others to use design principles in their personal and professional endeavors.

One of their titles in particular, The Ten Faces of Innovation (written by Tom Kelley), resonates with many who work in law, tech, or at the intersections of these two fields as, increasingly, every lawyer must. Mr. Kelley discusses in some detail the different roles that each person on a team might play and the contributions that each member of a working group might bring to a problem-solving effort. One of those critical roles is that of the cross-pollinator, the person who “draws associations and connections between seemingly unrelated ideas or concepts to break new ground,” precisely the kind of thinking that’s required in the burgeoning field of public interest technology, a new and rapidly evolving area of practice that allows trained technologists to leverage their knowledge and skills for the benefit of the social good.

By combining tech expertise with fields such as public service, healthcare, criminal justice, education, immigration, child welfare, and the law, cross-pollinators are the perfect kinds of people to work in public interest tech.

To learn more about public interest tech, visit these sites:

• Public interest Tech: A Growing Field You Should Know (Ford Foundation)

• Public Interest Technology: About (New America)

• Serving Up Technology in the Public’s Interest — Hard But Worth It (Mashable)

• Navigating Complexity in Pursuit of Public Interest Technology (Blue Ridge Labs)

• Building our Technology Policy Future (Alan Davidson for Medium.com)

• Why Universities Need ‘Public Interest Technology’ Courses (Wired)

• Navigating the Field of Civic Tech (Derek Poppert for Medium.com)

Also, because it’s voting season, we call your attention to these public interest/civic tech initiatives that are designed to increase turn-out at the polls and ensure a fair and accessible voting experience for all of the electorate:

• Ballot Ready

• Democracy Works

• E.thePeople

• Vote.org

• Voter’s Edge

• We Vote

Texas Newsrooms Pool Resources to Acquire Voter Registration Data

In a Twitter post on Wednesday evening, Houston Chronicle data editor Matt Dempsey announced the acquisition of Texas voter registration data, which was purchased collaboratively by 20 newsrooms across Texas. Calling themselves the Texas Open Data Consortium, these news outlets will use the newly acquired information to report on voter demographics, the upcoming midterm elections, the geographic concentration (by ZIP code and/or county) of newly registered voters, the number and common characteristics of voters removed from the rolls, and much more. As a data analyst, Matt Dempsey was justifiably excited about the acquisition of this database, as were those who champion open data and free access to information. “This is a fantastic thing for open data, for journalism in Texas, for better and more in-depth stories on our electorate across the state,” Mr. Dempsey tweeted.

On Twitter, news of this collaborative effort was mostly well-received, but two questions emerged again and again: (1) Why isn’t this data already publicly available? and (2) How much did the database cost? Mr. Dempsey answered repeatedly that the Texas Voter Registration Database is not subject to a Public Information Act request and can only be obtained from the Texas Secretary of State as governed by Chapter 18 of the Texas Texas Election Code. Indeed, the law states specifically how copies of the dataset must be furnished upon request (§18.008) and what fees the registrar may charge for fulfilling such requests (§18.010). Each of the 20 news outlets who participated in the purchase contributed $180 for a total cost of roughly $3,600, according to Mr. Dempsey’s Twitter responses. (To purchase your very own Texas Voter Registration Database, click here.)

Each of the newsrooms provided a signed affidavit stating that the data would not be used for commercial purposes. All participants also agreed not to publish the data online, citing “a lot of concern among the public about this data set” and the need to exercise caution by protecting voters’ privacy. The Election Code (§18.009) clearly prohibits using the information “in connection with advertising or promoting commercial products or services.” The data will be used for news gathering only. Twitter responders from other states (Pennsylvania, New York, Washington) were incredulous that Texas exacts such a steep price for furnishing voter data, and others expressed their suspicions about how this data will actually be used, but for those who advocate for open data initiatives and responsible journalism, this is one for the win column.

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Hispanic Heritage Month

https://www.army.mil/article/87962/army_aims_outreach_at_hispanic_community

Saturday, September 15, marks the independence day of five Latin American countries: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Mexico, Chile, and Belize follow shortly after, on the 16th, 18th and 21st. The Harris County Law Library extends Happy Independence Day wishes to the more than 57 million Americans, and roughly 11 million Texans, who claim Hispanic roots. We would also like to commemorate Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs from September 15 through October 15, by recognizing the contributions of several of our era’s high-profile Hispanic lawyers, including Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor; former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; United States Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio; New Mexico Governor, Susana Martinez; and former Director of Intergovernmental Affairs under President Obama, Cecilia Muñoz. We also honor the trailblazers who came before, including the rich history of Latina and Latino lawyers practicing before the United States Supreme Court.

National Bar Associations

• Hispanic National Bar Association

• Latina Lawyers Bar Association

• National Latino Trial Lawyers Association

State and Local Bar Associations

• Hispanic Bar Association of Houston

• State Bar of Texas Hispanic Issues Section