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The Maryland Legal Assistance Network (MLAN) manages several websites as part of its coordination and support activities in partnership with Maryland's 33 legal services providers. The outreach efforts center on 2 separate websites.
General Promotion of Both Sites
There are ongoing efforts to publicize the websites and to look for ways to integrate the use of the sites into the daily work of legal services advocates in the state. The key activities have been:
Client Access and Techno-Literacy To address concerns about client Internet access and to promote “Techno -Literacy” among low and moderate income persons, we create 2 paper brochures on the topics:
The brochures were also translated into Spanish
We encourage legal services providers, public libraries and court programs to co-publish them. We agree to do quarterly updates and they agree to print and distribute the brochures. We currently have an arrangement with 32 organizations. We work with local professional groups of librarians to demonstrate the website and use flyers to promote “Techno-literacy” brochure partnerships. We worked with a designer to create a horizontal and a vertical version (18 x 22 inches) of a full color poster on coated stock.
In making contacts within the court system and public libraries, we made a particular effort to work within the respective systems using distribution routes suggested by our contacts within each system. In some instances we have created talking points for those distributing the posters (in addition to cover memos). Wherever possible, we ask to be on the meeting agenda to present the posters. We decided to make the extra effort of personal contact to maximize the chances that the materials would be displayed.
Currently we are working on a similar distribution plan for the constituent service offices of the state and federal legislators in Maryland as well as distribution plans for Department of Social Services and the state-sponsored "career.net" job development outreach sites. PLL Outreach Sites in the Community Under a grant from the Legal Services Corporation to the Legal Aid Bureau, the pilot Outreach site established under the initial MLAN grant was replicated in an additional 17 locations. These sites include computer and Internet access, legal self-help books, trained staff, signage and out-sourced technical support. Sites are located in public libraries, courts, community centers and a senior center.
We provide an orientation packet to the sites and work the sites to develop a customized plan for the site’s outreach within their community. We also offer onsite orientation for the Outreach site staff.
We have begun a quarterly outreach newsletter (MS Publisher) to help create a sense of community among outreach sites. One challenge in publicizing a website using outreach via the radio and television is to identify a timely "newsworthy" event. We used the catalyst of a change in the Maryland Governor's office (the first Republican administration in nearly 30 years) to announce a benchmark in the development of the Peoples Law Library website. We issued a press release on the potential impact of the state funding crisis and used PLL as an example of the impact of legal services work. We worked with a media consultant to:
We were fortunate in having the visible support of the Chief Judge of the state who was interviewed on television and demonstrated the website. We also worked with a television time reseller to produce a 20-second public interest spot that was placed in 9 time slots during one week with an estimated viewing audience of 512,000 persons. We have worked with others, such as the "Dr. Phil" Show, to include mentions of the Peoples Law Library as resources for certain shows / issues. Search engine analysis and registration Since search engines are a key method for the public to find the Peoples Law Library website, we put together a quick analysis of how search engines rate websites and how PLL was being rated. Based on that analysis we:
We reviewed the websites of the Maryland district and circuit courts, public and law libraries, other legal services providers, Maryland government websites and national sites such as the American Bar Association. In a process that extended over several months, we contacted the groups and made suggestions for either a general link to PLL or several content specific links.
Public education on seeking legal information on the web As part of the techno-literacy series of brochures, we created a brochure (also published on the web) to help the public identify reliable legal information on the web and the standards used to guide the PLL site development.
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