Lone Star Legal Aid continues to make steady progress on our AI chatbot project, supported by the Legal Services Corporation’s Technology Initiative Grant. Our team is focused on building a smarter, more responsive system that empowers clients to navigate legal issues, starting with housing and family law, more easily and effectively.
During our most recent project meeting, team members Ashley Oborn, Sourav Mohan, Nick Whitaker, and Clarissa Ayala discussed key developments and next steps:
- Knowledge Base Expansion: The Family Law Practice Manual has been successfully entered into Smartsheet for integration into JURIS, our AI-powered legal assistant. This will allow users to access trusted information on family law with greater ease.
- Case Flow Mapping: A draft outline for housing case flows, specifically for eviction matters, is now complete. This draft provides a user-friendly format that may serve as a template for other legal areas. Team members are now mapping out additional case flows for sexual assault, opioid-related matters, and other survivor services. Team Houston is coordinating the development of additional case flow.
- Smart Search Capabilities: Sourav Mohan is advancing the underlying AI technology, focusing on semantic and vector search tools that will enable NAVI (our in-development chatbot) to return more accurate and context-rich answers without compromising performance. The goal is to create a tool that not only answers questions quickly but also pulls from a deeper, more nuanced data set.
- Prototyping and Testing: Reagan Campbell has shared sample queries and preliminary testing results in Juris, helping the team refine the platform. He is also developing letter templates for our chatbot-powered legal self-help feature, LSLAsks.
- User Feedback and Outreach: We’ve sent out surveys and are beginning to receive valuable feedback from users and collaborators. These insights are crucial in helping us refine how the chatbot articulates and responds to real-world queries
- Case Studies in Progress: We’re also collecting and analyzing case studies to further enrich the chatbot’s knowledge base and ensure NAVI is grounded in real-life scenarios.
- Staying Ahead in AI: As the AI landscape rapidly evolves, our team keeps pace with industry innovations to ensure our tools reflect the best available practices in legal technology.
Looking ahead, we are excited to share our progress at the Equal Justice Conference in May in San Francisco. We hope to connect with other legal aid innovators to continue exploring the future of client-centered technology in the civil justice sector.
Stay tuned for more updates as we bring our chatbots to life and help transform the way legal aid is delivered.
Lone Star Legal Aid (LSLA) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit law firm focused on advocacy for low-income populations by providing free legal education, advice, and representation. LSLA serves millions of people at 125% of federal poverty guidelines, who live in 72 counties in the eastern and Gulf Coast regions of Texas, and 4 counties in Southwest Arkansas. To learn more about Lone Star Legal Aid, visit our website at www.LoneStarLegal.org.
Media contact: media@lonestarlegal.org
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