The Texas Bar Foundation awarded the Harris County Law Library a $16,225 grant to improve access to legal aid resources for self-represented litigants through the Law Library’s Self-Represented Litigant Assistive Technology Initiative.

“We are excited to expand opportunities for access to legal information with the support of the Texas Bar Foundation,” Law Library Director Mariann Sears said. “Public access to legal information is necessary to ensure open and equal access to our civil justice system. With this grant, we can leverage technology to help connect more people who are unable to afford representation with community legal services, like those from our partners at Houston Volunteer Lawyers.”

The purpose of the Initiative is to deploy technological solutions at the Law Library and Houston Volunteer Lawyers (HVL) Information Booth located at the Law Library to streamline access to online intake for legal aid, self-help legal forms, and self-help video content. Creation of up-to-date video content for use in Harris County, which leads the state in the number of cases filed by self-represented litigants, is a major component of the project.

“Since the Law Library joined our Office in 2011, we have worked diligently to make it a resource for everyone,” Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan said. “Most of the people who visit are not lawyers, but people who need help finding legal information to access the courts. At the Law Library, they have access to one of our nation’s leading public collections of digital legal resources and professional law librarians to help them navigate it. It’s a tremendous asset to the people of Harris County.”