Volunteer with the Document Assembly Line
Document Assembly Line volunteers help solve legal problems at scale by building and improving the online guided interviews on Court Forms Online. It's a big job, and we need lawyers, coders, native language speakers, organizers, and others to do it.
We would love your help! If you are interested in volunteering with the Document Assembly Line, fill out the volunteer signup form and we will follow up as soon as we can.
Background
Online guided interviews are a key tool for bridging the access-to-justice gap. They empower people to complete and file essential court forms on their own, from a smartphone or computer.
Here's just one example: during the COVID pandemic a tenant used Court Forms Online to reverse an eviction in progress. While the sheriff was removing furniture and other belongings from their apartment, the tenant used Court Forms Online to complete and file a motion to stay the eviction from their phone. The court granted the motion the same day, and the sheriff put the tenant's property back!
There are many other situations where guided interviews can make a difference by empowering people who many not have access to any other legal help:
- Housing
- Domestic violence
- Child custody
- Debt collection
- Public benefits
- Guardianship
- Immigration
- General court procedures
- Etc.
The free guided interviews on Court Forms Online are built by students, courts, legal aid organizations, and volunteers across the US. But building, expanding, and maintaining such a large collection of forms is a lot of work! Some have bugs or need updates due to changes in the law, procedures, or official court forms. Some need to be translated. Most could be improved.
Our goal is to train and organize volunteers to help us do that work. In exchange, we'll teach you to work with cutting-edge legal technology like Docassemble and artificial intelligence. Sound like something you'd like to be a part of?
Volunteer opportunities
When you fill out the signup form you'll be asked to indicate which volunteer opportunities you are most interested in.
- Organizers: Help organize our volunteer efforts!
- Builders: Help us build new forms and work through our maintenance and improvement backlog.
- Subject-matter experts: Legal experts who can review guided interviews for legal accuracy.
- Translators: Review translations for accuracy.
- Other
All volunteer work is done remotely, and all training, meetings, and communication happen online. Volunteers should be comfortable with (or willing to learn) the following tools:
- Microsoft Teams
- Zoom
We don't require a certain number of hours. You decide how much time you can commit to volunteering. We just ask that you check in regularly.
Organizers
Document Assembly Line volunteers are largely self-organized, with support from Suffolk LIT Lab staff. Volunteer organizers manage volunteer recruiting, intake and onboarding, training, project management, and everything else related to volunteer work.
We need volunteers who can work independently but check in regularly, have good communication and coordination skills, and are able to keep track of projects and volunteers to keep things moving forward.
In addition to the tools above, organizers may need to work with spreadsheets, project boards, and GitHub.
Subject matter experts (SMEs)
In order to make sure our forms and interviews are legally correct, we need:
- People with deep knowledge of specific areas of law and procedure (e.g., experienced lawyers and legal professionals)
- People with general legal knowledge who can figure out if laws, procedures, or official forms have changed (e.g., law students and legal staff)
You can work on one interview or many, depending on the time you can contribute and the depth of your subject-matter knowledge. The overall time depends on the complexity of the form, and usually includes a few rounds of feedback and updates that involve other volunteers.
Builders
Build and update online guided interviews! This involves coding in Docassemble, but no coding experience is necessary to join this team. We will teach you everything you need to get started and support you with regular check-ins. You just need to be willing to learn!
Building interviews is an ongoing project, and the updates team requires a long-term commitment. Volunteers should be able to commit at least 5–10 hours per month for at least 3 months.
In addition to the tools above, builders will need to work with Docassemble and GitHub (but we'll teach you what you need to know).
Translators
Review draft translations for accuracy to help make interviews more accessible. The translation team primarily needs native speakers to ensure clear translations.
We ask for translation volunteers as needed, by notifying the translation team via email and Teams. To get notified, complete the signup form so we know you are interested.
Other
It would be impossible to list all the types of support we need. If you want to volunteer but aren't sure how, we would love to hear from you!
Here are some examples of other ways to volunteer:
- Bug hunters to test and document issues
- Copy editors and plain-language wizards
- Data validators
- Documentation writers
- Local community organizers
- Usability testers to give feedback and document issues
And more! Whatever your skills and interests, we can probably put them to good use!
Expectations
We expect volunteers who are actively training or working on a project to check in regularly. We generally check in weekly by responding to a post in Teams with a status update. (This is also a regular reminder to let us know if you need something else to work on!)