Cheryl Nolan at LSC, in collaboration with CERA, presented a webinar  featuring Online Intake procedures at four legal hotlines. The presenters were Rachel Baca - CA, Rich LeMay- ND, Debra Jennings, OH, and Martin Ostensen, Alberta. You can access their online intake processes at the following websites:

California Senior Legal Hotline www.seniorlegalhotline.org

Legal Services of North Dakota www.legalaisst.org

Legal Aid Line of Western Ohio www.legalaidline.org

Alberta Legal Aid www.legalaid.ab.ca

Among the most significant and perhaps surprising results of the deployment of online intake was noted by Debra Jennings at the OH Legal Aid Line. As most hotline managers can attest, hotlines serving states with large urban areas will usually have an overrepresentation of calls from applicants in the cities. According to Debra, the availability of the online intake feature has broken down the rural barrier to service even more than the telephone, with applications from the rural counties served by the Legal Aid Line of Western Ohio surpassing applications from urban counties for the first time. Debra reported that about 33% of applications for service came through the web in 2008.  Of these, 60% originated in rural service area counties. Debra also noted that with the A2J online intake application integration with the PIKA case management system has significantly increased efficiency in the intake process -- essentially converting an information gathering and recording function into an information verification function. This has significantly reduced the time to complete the application process, thus significantly reducing   response time.

At Alberta Legal Aid, online applicants get an ID number and then  call the hotline and use the ID number to get priority queuing. Martin reported that monthly web applications  have risen from 11% in July to 16% in September. In North Dakota, Rich reported  that monthly applications coming through the web ranged between 15-17% of the totals this year.

Some additional benefits to using online intake, described by the panelists include:

• Access to the application process is available  24/7;
• The applicant is able to designate the best time of day to receive a call back significantly increasing the odds that  a callback connection is made;
• Access for clients through third party service providers that would not be able to access legal services any other way;
• Substantial staff time savings;
• Client  access to online Resource and Referral Database;
• Priority telephone queue access (reduced call waiting time);
• Increased quality of client-advocate interaction;
• Reduced client reluctance to provide confidential information.
• Increased number of clients served; and
• Foundation for a program to develop a non-hotline online intake.

You can view the recording of the webinar on legalhotlines.org here.

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