Immigration Advocates Network & Pro Bono Net released an app Immigo this year to serve advocates on the go. It is an app with 3 main functions:
- Listing out trainings and support events for legal professionals
- Providing links to nearby legal help centers that the advocate could contact or refer a client to;
- Curating a list of news articles about immigration for the advocate to browse through, to stay on top of new events & policies;
It also presents some basic information about immigration. And it gathers information through polls on the app to the users of the app.
This is a promising model for other areas of law — putting legal training and resources at the advocate’s finger tips. That way, they can access relevant educational material right when they need it, wherever they are. It also is segmented to a particular type of law, so there is no need to search through a general portal to find your specific resources.
To me, it presents several directions that are promising for further development efforts.
- What if more Continuing Legal Education occurred through apps?
- What if directories of legal & social service were all on apps?
- And what if legal tools — especially those around search & resources — were segmented to specific topics of law, rather than having the very general, one-size-fits-all approach of the status quo products like LexisNexis & Westlaw?
