Yesterday's New York Times essay on the rise of online legal forms aimed at millions of Americans needing legal help for civil problems is encouraging validation for Minnesota's legal aid community. The Minnesota Legal Services Coalition, and its project office Legal Services State Support, were early partners in Pro Bono Net's LawHelp Interactive initiative - a guiding force in the development of online interactive interviews which then generate corresponding court forms.

In 2015, over 23,000 legal documents were created in Minnesota using interactive online forms, the 6th most in the nation. LawHelpMN has 18 interactive interviews (with 4 in Spanish), including interviews for creating eviction expungement documents, a motion to modify child support, and a power of attorney.

On the work being done in Minnesota, Mary Kaczorek, supervising attorney at State Support said, “As in Michigan and Maryland, the Minnesota Legal Services Coalition has been a leader in using technology to increase access to justice. Our criminal expungement document assembly tool – hosted on LawHelp Interactive – won a 2011 Innovation Award from Law Technology News. Tools like this help maximize limited resources and expand legal aid’s reach to provide critical help to underserved populations across Minnesota.”