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Center for Access to the Courts through Technology

Established in 1999 as a result of an order by the Sacramento Superior Court which distributed to the University residual settlement funds from a consumer class action, the Center for Access to the Courts through Technology promotes consumer and small business access to the courts and other public dispute resolution systems using advanced communication and information technologies. The Center hopes through its technology grants program to change the paradigm for access to justice.

The Center's first round of projects are as follows:

• A grant to the Sacramento Superior Court was used to create the first web-based electronic filing system for small claims cases in California. The system is now being examined for use in other counties in California.

• In partnership with the National Center for State Courts, the State Justice Institute, the Open Society Institute, and the Justice Web Collaboratory (a project of the Illinois Institute of Technology's Chicago-Kent College of Law), the Center is supporting a multi-year project called Meeting the Needs of Self-Represented Litigants: A Consumer-Based Approach. Based upon a market study of what consumers really want from their justice system, this project will (1) propose fundamental changes and simplifications to civil justice in fields such as family law and landlord-tenant where unrepresented litigants predominate, and (2) in those fields, create computer-assisted dispute resolution systems to reduce the need for legal representation.

• Technology cannot replace the need for and benefits of the human touch and legal representation. But technology can facilitate and make more affordable community-centered legal services and legal document preparation assistance. The Center is supporting two such programs in the Sacramento area:

• The Center is supporting the development by Legal Services of Northern California, Inc., of a Senior Legal Hotline on the Web. The Web Hotline will provide a portal by which seniors can obtain client education material, submit questions and receive answers by e-mail, schedule appointments, and complete certain legal forms. This project builds upon Legal Services of Northern California's nationally-recognized use of technology to provide legal services to its clients.

• The Center is supporting the development of an innovative website for CAPITAL, the Council of Asian Pacific Islanders Together for Active Leadership, an umbrella organization composed of more than 70 Asian Pacific Islander organizations representing over 100,000 Asian Pacific Islander Americans in the Sacramento area. The website will test whether cultural and language barriers to access to justice can be overcome in part by empowering community leaders through technology to reach distinctive communities which have unmet legal needs.