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The Virginia Legal Aid Society (VLAS) receives many inquiries daily from people seeking legal-aid services – but, unfortunately, many people are not eligible for services due to restrictions on geography, legal problem type, and other factors.
To help meet the high demand for eligibility guidance, VLAS asked students of Georgetown University Law Center to create an app that interviews prospective VLAS clients and provides narrowly tailored guidance on eligibility for VLAS services. A team of five law students created the VLAS Eligibility Screening Tool using the Neota no-code software development platform.
The public can access the app in more than 100 languages through the VLAS website and, so far, the app has completed more than 54,000 full sessions with individuals seeking legal help.
According to VLAS Executive Director, David Neuemeyer, “a traditional screening and referral interview takes a paralegal about 20 minutes, so the app has saved us more than 18,000 hours in staff time that we have devoted to helping people we can serve.” Neuemeyer added that “the app is a tremendous benefit to VLAS and our client community” and “we are very grateful to Georgetown Law School and Neota Logic helping us create and maintain this wonderful tool.”
The app, which can be run in more than 100 different languages, was designed by the law students to replicate an interaction with an empathic legal professional. Users who don’t qualify for services are given encouragement along with appropriate guidance — and those who do qualify are given congratulations and instructions for next steps. In the most-recent update of the app, an AI-driven video avatar was added at the end of the app to allow the user hear the app’s guidance as well as read it.
The five students who developed the workhorse app were Ariel Atkinson, Meredith Madnick, Michael Milea, Mauhan Zonoozy, who worked under the direction of Professor Tanina Rostain of Georgetown University Law Center.
Every day, millions of low-income people struggle with civil legal problems that involve critical needs like safe housing, access to health care, child custody, and protection from abuse. Unless low-income people can receive help from a legal aid organization like VLAS, most are forced to “go it alone” without the legal information, advice, or representation they need.
Neota Logic is proud to help Georgetown Law School, VLAS, and other organizations increase access to justice, which is needed now more than ever.
The Virginia Legal Aid Society (VLAS)
