LSC has posted to LS-Tech that it plans to announce its invitation to submit letters of intent (LOI) for TIG Grants this coming week (i.e the week of Feb 7).  Last year the LOI phase was open for four weeks.

For courts, and other potential partners, the thing to remember is that while grants can only be made to existing field program grantees of LSC, the funder is very open to projects that include extensive partnerships with access to justice partners, including courts, and including payments to those partners for appropriate participation.  You are strongly urged to contact local legal aid programs about any potential such projects.  To get a sense of the possibilities, see the Report of all 2009 cycle grants.

Here are some ideas that LSC grantees and potential partners might consider:

• Self-Represented bankruptcy, foreclosure, and consumer credit online tools, including online court pleading document assembly.
• Online intake and referral systems.
• Programs to ensure that court e-filing systems are open to the self-represented.
• Programs that help people figure out what they can do on their own, and what they need help with in their cases.
• Technology focused on those with LEP issues, including multi-lingual website and document assembly capacity.

These are just a few of the many possible approaches — the best idea is the one that no one else has thought of.

See my prior blog post on the digital courtroom idea.

See also a more general post on future ideas including Mobile, Broadband, Data Mining, etc.