The Atlanta Legal Aid Society has been awarded a large grant from the Legal Services Corp. to both overhaul the state’s self-help legal aid website and make it a national model for accessibility to people with disabilities, according to Daily Report Online.
The $134,720 grant to update GeorgiaLegalAid.org is one of 25 Technology Initiative Grants the federal legal aid funder awarded this year as part of a national initiative to make it easier for those seeking legal assistance to find it online.
Atlanta Legal Aid jointly maintains GeorgiaLegalAid.org with the Georgia Legal Services Program. Launched in 2004, it is a robust source of self-help legal information, but “it needs a facelift,” said Kristin Verrill, Atlanta Legal Aid’s director of grants and innovation. Like many legal aid websites nationally, it needs an organizational and design overhaul as well as an update to its content, she said.
The 27-month grant will fund a paralegal to revamp the content and an accessibility expert to make it user-friendly to those with sight, hearing or other impairments and the adaptive technologies they use, Verrill said.
The retooled and disability-accessible GeorgiaLegalAid.org website will be used as a template for LawHelp.org, a national legal aid website developed and maintained by Pro Bono Net, in partnership with hundreds of legal services nonprofits, Verrill said, adding that Pro Bono Net provides tech support for legal services groups’ self-help websites around the country.
Information: www.atlantalegalaid.org
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