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- Title
COVID 19: A catalyst to automate protection order petitions to support self‐represented litigants.
- Abstract
COVID‐19 exacerbated the crisis in access to legal services especially for victims of domestic violence for whom the pandemic made their situations even more precarious. In this article, the author shares his experience of building and implementing an automated solution to help pro‐se litigants petition the court for emergency protection orders remotely and without the need to visit the courthouse. The article describes the lessons learned in developing a state court online portal dedicated to educating abuse victims and providing them with an automated way to petition the court for protection orders remotely without the need to visit a courthouse. The article concludes that implementing replicable models in other jurisdictions could create various efficient web‐based solutions for helping self‐represented litigants access the legal services that they need. Key points for practitioners: COVID‐19 required innovation to expand access to legal services by survivors seeking orders of protection from abuse.Online portals can provide education and an automated process for applying for protective orders that is superior to paper or even online forms.Open‐access low‐cost tools are available for building and implementing automated solutions for access to justice.Building online solutions for access to justice requires an investment in convening stakeholders to discover opportunities and barriers and a phased implementation with testing and feedback.
- Subjects
PANDEMICS; AUTOMATION; CORONAVIRUS diseases; LEGAL services digital resources
- Publication
Family Court Review, 2022, Vol 60, Issue 2, p165
- ISSN
1531-2445
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/fcre.12635