Illinois Legal Aid Online's (ILAO) legal content, technology, outreach and multimedia teams work diligently on various projects throughout the year. Here are some of our current programs and projects: 

“LiveHelp” on IllinoisLegalAid.org

In October 2009 ILAO launched "LiveHelp," an instant messaging service that allows visitors to IllinoisLegalAid.org to communicate for free with a remote operator who can help them find the resources they need to better resolve their legal issues. Operators provide direct person-to-person help between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, and on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings from 5 to 9 p.m. We utilize volunteer operators from each of the nine Illinois law schools. In October, our first month of operation, ILAO chatted with and assisted over 70 website visitors a day through this service.

Watch our video below to learn how Beverly S. of Joliet used LiveHelp and hear what law students from the University of Chicago and DePaul have to say about volunteering. "It was just great to have a live person interacting with me immediately and being so helpful," Beverly says. "Knowing it was a live person made such a difference."

Legal Self-Help Centers

ILAO works with courts and libraries across Illinois to establish technology-based legal self-help centers that provide assistance to lower-income residents who cannot afford a lawyer. Located in local public libraries and courthouses, these centers offer self-represented persons access to computers with free legal information and interactive documents on IllinoisLegalAid.org so they can better resolve their legal problems. ILAO collaborates with the local judiciary, circuit clerk, private bar, legal services providers, the Illinois Coalition for Equal Justice, and other stakeholders to plan each center, and provides ongoing training, support and technical assistance.

From 2006 to 2009 ILAO helped establish legal self-help centers in 39 of Illinois’ 102 counties. By the end of 2010, there will be 53 self-help centers. IllinoisLegalAid.org now features a directory of the centers. This alphabetical listing includes the location, address, phone number, and website for each legal self-help center.

Pro Bono Case Pairing and Mentor Matching System

Legal professionals across Illinois can now easily find help with pro bono cases thanks to the Pro Bono Case Pairing and Mentor Matching System, an innovative new resource on www.IllinoisProBono.org. Illinois Legal Aid Online (ILAO) developed and launched the online system in partnership with the Public Interest Law Initiative (PILI) to promote pro bono work throughout Illinois by connecting legal volunteers with one another as mentors and mentees or as case partners. The Pro Bono Case Pairing and Mentor Matching System went live in July 2009 and aims to link professionals who are newer to pro bono work to more experienced volunteers who wish to serve as mentors, and to connect individuals to work together on specific pro bono matters. The system can be used by attorneys, law students, paralegals, and legal secretaries who would like to do pro bono work in Illinois. 

Pro Se Court Videos

ILAO’s Legal Content Team is currently developing a four-part training video series on the Pro Se Court at the Daley Center in Cook County. The four videos are “Going to Pro Se Court”, “What a Plaintiff Needs to Know”, “What a Defendant Needs to Know”, and “Mediation.” The Chicago Bar Foundation and The Young Lawyers Section of the Chicago Bar Association are partnering with ILAO on this project. The videos will be posted on IllinoisLegalAid.org and our YouTube Channel by the end of 2010.

Automated Documents

IllinoisLegalAdvocate.org and IllinoisProBono.org, our websites for legal professionals, contain libraries of HotDocs© automated documents for use by legal aid and pro bono attorneys. These libraries contain common motions and discovery documents for use in general litigation, as well as wills and specific forms and pleadings for durable powers of attorney, divorce, adoption and some consumer and landlord-tenant cases. In cooperation with legal aid agencies in Illinois and Pro Bono Net, a national non-profit, ILAO is creating a system that will allow legal aid attorneys to send case information directly from the Legal Server Case Management system into our library of attorney HotDocs©. This system significantly reduces the time it takes to draft documents and increases accuracy.

We are also expanding our library of automated documents for attorneys and pro se litigants. The following are automated documents are scheduled to be created or substantially revised and released in 2010 on IllinoisLegalAdvocate.org and IllinoisProBono.org, for attorney use:

• Immigration forms for family-based, VAWA self-petitioners, and asylum-seekers
• Guardianship forms for minors and disabled adults
• Eviction Defense pleadings and discover documents
• Child Enforcement documents
  

The following are scheduled to be created or substantially revised and released in 2011 on IllinoisLegalAid.org, for public use:

• Motion to Continue
• Expungement and Sealing for Chicago and Cook County
• Complaint for Administrative Review for Chicago
• Letter to Landlord Request Reasonable Accommodation for Disability
• Joint Simplified Dissolution of Marriage
• Minor Guardianship
• Wage and Hour Complaints
• Jurisdiction and Venue decision tree

Last update: 08/19/2010