“Do It Yourself” Programs Will Help New Yorkers Navigate Legal System.

June 17, 2009, New York, NY – Today, Justice Fern A. Fisher,
Director of the New York State Courts Access to Justice Program and C.
Kenneth Perri, Executive Director of Legal Assistance of Western New
York announced the release of three new computer programs that will
help New Yorkers navigate the legal system. These DIY (Do It Yourself)
programs ask straight-forward questions to help users prepare
individualized court forms and instructions.

New Yorkers can
access the programs from any computer through two websites: CourtHelp
(nycourthelp.gov) and LawHelpNY (lawhelp.org/ny). The three state-wide
DIY programs are the Support Modification Petition Program for Family
Court, the Small Estates Affidavit Program for Surrogate's Court, and
the Adult Name Change Petition Program for Supreme Court.
Almost
two million New Yorkers appear without lawyers in New York State courts
each year. "These programs are part of our continuing effort to make
the courts more accessible to the ever growing number of New Yorkers
who are unable to afford an attorney," said Justice Fisher. The DIY
programs were built as part of an innovative partnership between legal
services advocates and court system personnel. Mr. Perri said, "We are
excited to be working with the court system toward the same goal:
greater access to justice."

The New York State Unified Court
System partnered with Legal Assistance of Western New York (LawNY),
Legal Services NYC, LawHelp/NY, and Pro Bono Net in this project, which
was funded by the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) and the State
Justice Institute (SJI). The Chicago-Kent College of Law provides the
A2J Author® software used to create these programs, and the National
Public Automated Documents Online (NPADO) Project of Pro Bono Net
provides servers and Internet support. Free, online document creation
systems hosted by NPADO are used in 26 states and generated 111,000
documents in 2008.

A2J Author® was created by The Center for
Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI).  HotDocs® server software
licensed by Lexis-Nexis® automatically assembles the forms and
instructions into printable documents.

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For more information, or to test the programs, visit http://nycourthelp.gov/diy

Contact: Jeff Hogue ([email protected]) 315-781-1465