ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Technology consulting firm Urban Insight today announced a donation of nearly $100,000 in free software to help nonprofit legal services organizations that serve millions of residents in 12 states.
"The economic downturn means state budgets continue to be cut while the need for free legal services is growing. States need tools that will allow them to help more people with less funding," explained Urban Insight's Chief Technology Officer, Abhijeet Chavan, speaking at the Legal Services Corporate Technology Initiative Grant conference in Albuquerque.
Urban Insight's free and open source software, called Drupal for Legal Aid Websites, or DLAW, enables legal aid programs to affordably manage complex websites using only a web browser.
"The economic downturn has presented legal services programs with a powerful challenge: How to help more people with less funding. One solution for many programs has been to provide online resources such as legal information and automated forms for those whom they cannot represent because of staffing limits," said Glenn Rawdon, Program Counsel for Technology at the Legal Services Corporation. "Urban Insight's work with our community to develop DLAW as an economical delivery platform for these resources has and will continue to help legal services meet the challenge of helping the growing number of Americans who cannot afford legal representation," added Rawdon.
The software is based on the popular open source web content management system, Drupal. DLAW includes many of the features required by legal aid organizations, including a self-updating National Subject Matter Index (NSMI) classification and tagging system. DLAW is developed and maintained in the public interest by Urban Insight in collaboration with Legal Services National Technology Assistant Project (LSNTAP), Idaho Legal Aid Services (ILAS) and legal aid organizations from Arkansas, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Vermont and West Virginia. Original development of the software was funded through a Legal Services Corporation Technology Initiative Grant.
More information about DLAW is available on a special website, www.legalaidtech.org, where legal aid organizations can also download the latest version of the software for free.
About Urban Insight
Urban Insight is a technology consulting firm that builds and operate successful websites using web content management systems, including Drupal. Urban Insight is based in Los Angeles, California.
About the Legal Services Corporation
LSC is the single largest provider of civil legal aid for the poor in the nation. Established in 1974, LSC operates as an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation that promotes equal access to justice to low-income Americans.