Justice Connect's Legal Gateway Project

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Illustration of help seekers

Co-creating online pathways to justice

Each year 8.5 million Australians have a legal problem and only half access help from a lawyer.

Justice Connect helps people and community groups connect with free legal help, so everyone can have a fair chance at a better life. For over 25 years they have been supporting people through phone-based triage.

They wanted to co-create an online legal intake prototype that could then be evaluated by help seekers and lawyers.

I worked with them to deliver fourteen co-design workshops, multiple training sessions to design the Minimal Viable Product.

Our project began by creating concepts with marginalised help-seekers, barristers, solicitors and community legal services in workshops. The sessions groups of saw participants critique our ideas, map their pathways navigating legal services from multiple perspectives. Working closely over time we refined designs to meet needs of communities so that language, and technology would not be a barrier to accessing justice.

Making over 60 prototypes, in total each one helped us make informed design decisions. Working collaboratively and iterating openly we adjusted concepts balancing the needs of people without lawyers and the community and lawyers they needed to reach for help. The Gateway went live in August 2018 and has seen a drop of 44% for time needed for case intake and triage. This freed up legal professionals to help those in most need.