A Litigant Portal is an online self-help website for people with a legal problem to determine if there is a non-court solution or if they need to seek a court solution. Depending user interaction and session data, the Litigant Portal helps a self-represented litigant determine what kind of problem it is, what kind of non-legal or legal resources are available, what are the most likely or common alternatives and actions for a type of case, legal strategies and tradeoffs. The Litigant Portal component is defined in terms of modules identified as part of the OASIS Litigant Portal Technical Committee.
- Assistance Module - The Assistance Module of the Litigant Portal determines from user responses to questions whether the user is to be advised to seek an attorney to represent the user’s interests or, if an attorney is not desired, what the most cost-effective type of non-attorney assistance would be. The user is linked to the type of assistance desired (see Solution Provider).
- Capacity Assessment Module - The Capacity Assessment Module of the Litigant Portal determines from user responses to questions the capacity of the user to use the capabilities of the portal, such as literacy and language ability, need for an interpreter, computer literacy and access to a computing device and the internet, prior legal experience, immigration status (for immigration assistance), documentation of a user’s disability, and access to transportation if needed.
- Description/Navigation Module - A Litigant Portal’s entry point provides descriptions of its modules’ capabilities and navigation to any module.
- Probabilistic Outcomes Module - A Litigant Portal is designed to identify the most likely or most common actions and alternatives/ pathways in a case of a given type in the locality where historical data of a court or legal aid organization is captured, help a user determine the best course of action, and the outcomes of a variety of alternatives. Alternatives include lawyer referral, online self-help, or mediation. Historical case data of results in similar situations is segmented by claim type and amount, case type, level and jurisdiction of a court, and type and amount of judgment associated with a claim. Courts may track the percentage of judgments amounts paid and satisfied.
- Problem Identification Module - A Litigant Portal is designed to prompt a user to describe the perceived legal or non-legal problem they have, and to suggest available legal strategies based on the user’s preferences for tradeoffs (see Tradeoff Preferences Module). The user may identify related issues, whether legal or non-legal, and timing/ urgency/ deadline issues and location/ jurisdiction issues.
- Registration/Login Module - A Litigant Portal allows anonymous use with registration, but also provides a secure method of creating an account, recording the role the user will play in the perceived legal problem. Using an account saves the user’s information for later use.
- Solutions Module - Depending on the results of a user’s input to the Problem Identification Module, the Solutions Module suggests several generic non-legal solutions or, for a legal problem, several legal alternatives (see Probabilistic Outcomes Module). The solution may depend on the user’s preferences for in-person/ telephonic assistance, non-computer options, and use of a particular language. Financial eligibility for a solution may depend on income, expense, debt, public assistance and property ownership data. A Litigant Portal enables solution providers to make themselves available for referral to users based on issue type/ category and the provider’s capacity to handle a maximum number of referrals. A solution provider may offer one or more levels of service for legal or non-legal issues identified by the Problem Identification Module. A solution provider may have financial eligibility criteria for accepting a referral for a specified alternative/ pathway.
- Tradeoff Preferences Module - A Litigant Portal records a user’s preferences or requirements related to cost, speed (timing/ urgency/ deadline), convenience (location/ jurisdiction issues) and due process (exercising their legal rights). A user’s preferences will be used by Assistance and Solutions modules.