A Better Legal Internet

When you search Google for something like heat rash, Abraham Lincoln, or the Eiffel Tower, the list of search results is accompanied by a Knowledge Card, which contains brief, supplemental information about your search term along with relevant facts. Symptoms and treatment (for a medical term), biographical data (for a historical figure), or geographic information (for a national landmark) is presented in a box to the right of your search. Pictures, bits of trivia, related search terms, and links to official websites are also included, providing a snapshot, in plain language, of the topic you are researching.

This information is all very useful when it's available, and having this kind of easy-to-access, user-friendly content on the same page as your search results can be a very helpful starting point for your basic online research. For legal terms, however, no such equivalent exists. A search for the terms unlawful detainer, emancipated minor, or protective order do not offer the same benefits. A definition, or a featured snippet from Google, drawn from Wikipedia or FindLaw, may appear at the top of your search results, but no other value-added content is likely to be provided. Knowledge cards simply do not exist for legal terms, nor do so many other search engine features that could improve the user experience for those in need of legal information.

Fortunately, the Legal Design Lab is taking steps to introduce just those kinds of improvements. A Better Legal Internet is the name of the project that seeks to improve the search experience for Internet users, particularly lay people looking for legal information. The goals of the project are to (1) increase the ability of search engines to identify legal issues in people’s queries, and (2) direct them to relevant, jurisdiction-specific, actionable information to deal with those issues. Overall, A Better Legal Internet will provide a seamless, intuitive, user journey for people who rely on the internet for legal information. As users search for help, they should be able to find legal information (i.e., what the law says), legal service providers (i.e., people who can help), self-help tools and forms to complete legal tasks, and paths for accessing the courts system. 

Underlying the goals of A Better Legal Internet is a semantic system similar, in some ways, to the Google Knowledge Cards. Creating a taxonomy of legal terms used by lay people, including words and phrases that describe a person's case details and legal objectives, would be an important first step in developing a semantic foundation for A Better Legal Internet. Next, linking the taxonomy of legal terms to a directory of available legal options and their associated eligibility factors would need to follow. Providing action steps and the sequence of tasks to complete for each step of a legal process, along with accompanying forms and self-help documents, would be another important part of the equation. Finally, finding people in your geographic area who can help provide legal assistance, including free service providers and legal clinics, would round out the options available. 

Increase Security and Convenience with Password Managers

Remembering the login credentials for all the websites we use every day can be burdensome and frustrating, but maintaining secured access to the information we rely upon is important and necessary. Websites for financial institutions, retail outlets, and other identity-based portals must be secure in order for us to feel confident in transacting business or when storing personal information on the cloud.

To relieve some frustration and make your online interactions more seamless, consider using a password manager. Password managers vary in their functionality, but in general, these tools will help you generate unique, high-security passwords and then store them for easy access. They will even populate the username and password fields for each site you visit, eliminating your need to remember another password ever again. There are several password managers to choose from at varying price points ranging from free, or just a few dollars a month, up to about $40 for a one-time purchase. The free tools have their limitations, but even without the sophisticated features of their premium counterparts, each product has its merits. To compare the best free password managers, take a look at PC Magazine's comparison chart. Another more recent article, also from PC Magazine, rates the more costly password managers and highlights the features that make each a good choice. Some of the apps recommended by PC Magazine are also endorsed by the folks at WIRED. It's worthwhile to check out their favorite picks.

Once you use a password manager, you may wonder how you ever got by without one. Now, if only these helpful programs would allow you to bypass the CAPTCHA requirement to prove once and for all that you are nor a robot...Is there an app for that?

Free PDF Tools

In the online environment, PDF documents are everywhere. Brochures, newsletters, instruction manuals, and digital magazines are just a few of the publication types that are commonly presented as PDFs. These documents can display text, images, graphics, and non-standard font types, typically in a fixed format that cannot be altered. This is an advantage when sending a document that needs to be protected from modifications by another user. It's also a design that works well for self-help legal forms, including those that we in the Law Library access on a daily basis from TexasLawHelp.org and the Harris County District Clerk's website.

Presenting DIY legal forms in PDF makes sense, as it preserves the document format and the arrangement of the content on the page. However, the forms published on the two websites mentioned above are not fillable. That is, the content on the page is static and the fields it contains cannot be populated with data. The space designated for Petitioner, for example, does not allow the user to type in his or her name. Instead, the forms are meant to be printed on paper and filled out by hand. This design works well for self-help legal forms, and, as long as the handwritten information is legible, the courts are happy to accept the documents as is. In some instances and for other types of documents, including legal drafts, you may find a need to add modifications such as markups, highlighting, white-out, or type-written text. Purchasing expensive PDF editing software is one way to add this functionality to otherwise fixed-format documents, but free alternatives do exists, a few of which are mentioned below. 

PDFescape, FormSwift, PDF Buddy, and DocHub are four cloud-based document editors that allow you to upload PDF files and alter them with signatures and other markups. A brief description of each is available here. Another useful PDF tool is SandwichPDF.com. It applies Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to uploaded files and effectively converts any non-searchable PDF to a fully searchable document with cut and paste capabilities.

The beauty of the tools mentioned here is their price (FREE!) and their low barrier to entry --  they require no software installation, no registration, and no password protection, and they can easily be used on demand, at the time of need. In addition, you can almost always drag and drop your PDF documents into whichever editing tool you are using, or you can paste in the URL of your chosen PDF, saving you the trouble of first downloading a document to your own computer before uploading it to the website. With all the functionality offered by these tools -- for editing, splicing, combining, and securing documents, and for converting them to searchable text -- fixed-format PDFs become more adaptable and dynamic, two useful features for anyone in need of greater versatility at an affordable price.

Legal Tech Institute CLE: The Robot Lawyer

Join us on Thursday, September 28, 12pm - 1pm, for The Robot Lawyer: Artificial Intelligence in the Practice of Law. Saskia Mehlhorn, Director of Knowledge Management & Library Services, Norton Rose Fulbright US LLP will give specific examples of tools that incorporate AI technology and discuss opportunities for lawyers and other legal professionals. To register, click here. 

PLEASE NOTE: The location of this CLE has changed. It will not be held at the Harris County Law Library. The HBA is generously providing space for this event at the Heritage Plaza Conference Room, 1111 Bagby Street. Please see the announcement for further details. 

Legal Tech Institute CLE: The Robot Lawyer

Join us on Thursday, September 28, 12pm - 1pm, for The Robot Lawyer: Artificial Intelligence in the Practice of Law. Saskia Mehlhorn, Director of Knowledge Management & Library Services, Norton Rose Fulbright US LLP will give specific examples of tools that incorporate AI technology and discuss opportunities for lawyers and other legal professionals. To register, click here.