• Archive for April, 2015

    Staudt’s Justice & Technology Practicum Celebrates Its Fifth Year

    by  • April 22, 2015 • Faculty in the News, Faculty Scholarship • 0 Comments

    By Alexander Rabanal, Access to Justice Fellow at Chicago-Kent’s Center for Access to Justice & Technology

    justice and tech practicum

     

    This fall marks the fifth year of Professor Ronald Staudt’s Justice & Technology Practicum, a groundbreaking course at IIT Chicago-Kent that teaches students how to create A2J Guided Interviews® and document assembly templates for use by self-represented litigants. A2J Guided Interviews are graphical interfaces that walk a person through a legal process and can also be used to generate a completed legal form. Since 2005, over 2.6 million A2J Guided Interviews have been run, producing over 1.5 million documents. With legal aid organizations typically burdened by limited resources and funding, Professor Staudt’s students make a critical contribution to closing the justice gap by creating powerful online self-help tools that scale up the delivery of legal assistance to those who cannot afford a private attorney or who are ineligible for legal aid.

    The Practicum is a hybrid classroom and clinical course. Students receive classroom instruction on the uses of technology to meet the legal needs of the poor and engage in lively discussions about the increasing role technology plays in both legal services delivery and private practice. Students are then paired with a legal aid attorney to address a justice problem and conduct critical legal research and fieldwork as the foundation for developing an interactive A2J Guided Interview and document assembly template for a legal aid organization. Over the past five years, Professor Staudt’s students have created interactive tools for legal aid organizations across the country, from California to North Carolina. Among other fieldwork activities, students may volunteer at the Self-Help Web Center at the Daley Center, where they help pro se litigants use A2J Guided Interviews and online legal self-help resources, such as those found on Illinois Legal Aid Online.

    (more…)

    Explore New Faculty Books

    by  • April 21, 2015 • Faculty Scholarship • 0 Comments

    Books That Matter is a new publication highlighting monographs, edited works, treatises, and casebooks written by Chicago-Kent faculty since 2012. These books have been published by presses including Oxford, Cambridge, and the University of Chicago and span more than 30 areas of law. Explore the publication below for more.

    For more recent Chicago-Kent faculty scholarship, visit http://www.kentlaw.iit.edu/faculty/recent-scholarship.

    Harding Receives 2015 John W. Rowe Excellence in Teaching Award

    by  • April 15, 2015 • Faculty in the News • 0 Comments

    Prof Sarah HardingIIT Chicago-Kent College of Law Professor Sarah Harding received the John W. Rowe Excellence in Teaching Award at IIT’s annual Faculty Recognition and Awards Reception on April 9. The award was given in recognition of Professor Harding’s noteworthy teaching efforts and dedication to IIT. University deans Christine Himes (Lewis College of Human Sciences), Harold Krent (Chicago-Kent), and Wiel Arets (College of Architecture) served on the review committee for the award, which was announced by IIT Provost Alan Cramb. The award is named for John W. Rowe, past chairman of the IIT Board of Trustees and chairman emeritus of Exelon Corporation.

    Professor Harding joined the IIT Chicago-Kent faculty in 1995. Her research focuses primarily on property-related issues—in particular the social and cultural significance of property. She teaches a range of courses, including property law, cultural heritage law, comparative law, and comparative Constitutional law. From 2008 to 2014 she was associate dean for faculty research and development. Professor Harding has a B.A. from McGill University and holds law degrees from Dalhousie, Oxford (Rhodes Scholar), and Yale.

    Find Professor Harding’s full biography, including links to her scholarship, at: http://www.kentlaw.iit.edu/faculty/full-time-faculty/sarah-k-harding.