cortnay+varela

__Assignments__

a) Five good things about digital law practice b) Five potentially bad things about digital law practice c) Three definitions of "digital law practice" found online
 * (1) February 10**:
 * There's an enormous disparity between the number of legal services advocates available and the number of people who need legal services. Having free legal guides and other resources accessible on the web to anyone who is looking for them can help fill the gap, giving people forms they need and instructions on how to start getting through some legal issues. Far more people are able to access these resources on the web. Other good things:
 * Having a digital practice where advocates can share important documents with the people they are working with at any time, and vice versa. A place where you can keep important documents all together.
 * Having followup legal guides so people can look through them and find further information or a better understanding of what they might have talked about with an advocate. Having whole libraries of cases and laws and legal guides available to everyone.
 * Having online forms that can guide you through otherwise often complicated court documents.
 * Having online translations available for a variety of documents, making these much more accessible to LEP speakers.
 * Online interactions will never replace the importance of having face to face conversations with an advocate about a legal problem
 * Misunderstandings/less accurate advice/ nonavailability of legal advice (compared to traditional meetings with advocates)
 * consumers often would need to be relatively tech savvy, and fairly proficient English readers (lack of accessible, reader-friendly legal materials)
 * Security/tech error issues with regard to important documents/emails
 * Too much information with too little direction-- if move away from traditional legal services due to funding issues, and much more people relying on digital legal guides/practice materials, more people would perhaps be going to court/trying to address legal issues without having talked to an advocate about their legal problems- or having someone look at their overall living situation/ways that that situation could be made better. (I.e., it would be impossible to replace the importance of having an entire network of live legal services advocates addressing numerous issues in peoples' lives.)
 * practicing law in a digital environment