By Susan Beck, The Am Law Daily

Microsoft Corp. is committing $1 million to fund pilot projects for online legal portals that will direct low-income people to legal service providers. 

The Legal Services Corp. is expected to announce Microsoft’s gift and introduce the new initiative at an event Tuesday at the White House, which will be livestreamed starting at 1 p.m. Eastern Time. The LSC will also announce the creation of a Leaders Council to raise awareness of the need for increased funding for civil legal services for the poor. The new group includes high-profile nonlawyers, including University of Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh and Viacom vice-chairman Shari Redstone, as well as prominent lawyers such as Eric Holder of Covington & Burling and Craig Martin of Jenner & Block.

Tuesday’s event is LSC’s fifth White House summit to publicize the crisis in civil legal aid funding. Currently, legal aid groups are forced to turn away more than half the people that ask for help nationwide. The federally funded LSC is the single largest source of money for legal aid providers across the country, but Congress hasn’t sufficiently funded it to keep up with inflation. The $385 million allocated by Congress for this fiscal year is less than half of what the group received in the 1970s, when adjusted for inflation.

As its first step, the LSC’s portal project will create pilot websites in one or two states, with the aim of creating a template that can be replicated elsewhere. Pro Bono Net, a nonprofit that promotes innovative uses of technology to increase access to justice, will also work with Microsoft and LSC.

“The current system of accessing legal services is confusing, opaque and inefficient for many people,” said LSC president James Sandman in a statement. “The goal of the portals is to simplify the process by providing a single, statewide point of access to effective help for people needing civil legal assistance.”

In an interview, Sandman said Microsoft’s involvement began about a year ago, when Brad Smith, the company’s president and chief legal officer, stopped by his office and asked how he could help LSC. Sandman mentioned the need to start a pilot project for online portals, which were one of the recommendations that came out of a 2013 LSC technology summit.

“This $1 million from Microsoft is a godsend,” said Sandman, who added that the company will also provide technical assistance and project management. The first programs to be funded will be selected through a competitive application process, and Sandman hopes that they’ll be operating within two years.

Sandman would like to get other technology companies and corporations involved with LSC on similar projects, he said. 

David Heiner, Microsoft’s vice-president and deputy general counsel, is overseeing the company’s efforts. “The building blocks are there with all the technology that exists,” said Heiner. “We just need to write some custom code.”

Heiner, who is also chairman of the board of Pro Bono Net, said the biggest challenge is the fragmentation of the legal aid system. “Every court is unique, and there’s a cacophony of so many legal aid organizations,” he said. “It can be hard to make sense of all that.”

Last week, The Am Law Daily described a phone hotline project in Chicago that relies heavily on technology to provide callers with quick answers to legal questions or, if necessary, refer them to traditional legal aid groups. The 23-year-old organization, known as CARPLS (for Coordinated Advice and Referral Program for Legal Services), handled roughly 50,000 free consultations for 28,000 clients last year.

The creation of the Leaders Council, with its inclusion of people outside the legal world, marks another new approach for LSC.

“The first step to more funding is more awareness,” said Sandman. “If Jim Harbaugh would simply speak on the issue [of the legal aid crisis], it would be heard differently.” Sandman credits Sidley Austin partner John Levi, the chairman of LSC’s board, with recruiting the famed football coach and others. “John knows everybody,” he said.

“I may be a football coach, but I’m an American first, and all Americans should care about justice,” said Harbaugh in a statement.

The group, which is still being formed, will have at least 30 members. It will be co-chaired by Kenneth Frazier, the CEO of pharmaceutical company Merck & Co., and Harriet Miers, a partner at Locke Lord and former White House counsel to President George W. Bush.

IMAGE: White House

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