Court Compass

The IAALS Court Compass project is exploring streamlined and simplified solutions that help people through the divorce and separation process. After holding successful design sprints in Boston, Des Moines, and Raleigh, the Court Compass team is planning another design sprint in the Denver metro area.

The IAALS Court Compass project is exploring streamlined and simplified solutions that help people through the divorce and separation process. IAALS is partnering with the North Carolina Judicial Branch and the North Carolina Equal Access to Justice Commission to bring a design sprint workshop to Raleigh on August 11, 2018.

The IAALS Court Compass project is exploring streamlined and simplified solutions that help people through the divorce and separation process. While the project aims to make the process better for all litigants, there is a particular focus on people who go to court without an attorney. The Court Compass project is employing a number of human-centered design tools, including in-person design sprints and other focus groups to test new processes and solutions in real time and refine them based on user feedback. IAALS and the Iowa Judicial Branch are partnering to bring a design sprint workshop to Des Moines later this month.

In three quarters of all civil cases, at least one party is going to court without an attorney and navigating a legal system not designed for the layperson’s use. To help potential litigants, some courts are leveraging technology and developing websites and portals that offer a vast amount of information and resources. However, these offerings vary widely in courthouses across the country. With the goal of helping bridge what has become an access-to-justice gap, IAALS today announced the release of Court Compass: Mapping the Future of User Access Through Technology, a compendium and analysis of court-offered solutions for self-represented litigants (SRLs), along with maturity models to guide the development of integrated solutions in courts nationwide.

As a pro se (or self-represented) litigant, imagine being faced with an overwhelming system of protocol, etiquette, deadlines, rules, and legalese. You are expected to navigate this foreign world to keep everything you care about from breaking as it spins to the ground. This system is one that takes attorneys years to understand.

Despite efforts by courts, communities, and bar associations around the country, there remains a serious need for tools that provide self-represented litigants with easy access to the information and resources required to appropriately navigate the court system. Technology is increasingly being leveraged in self-help solutions, and the concept of the litigant portal is at the core of this strategy.