Page 111 - Solving Housing Disputes

‘start’ button, which enables users to begin the relevant legal process – be that
making a money claim, or filing for divorce. 318 Some services, such as the online
plea service are much better, and offer prominent signposting to sources of legal
319
advice. Digital portals should encourage people to take up advice before
initiating a claim, through prominent signposting to sources of independent
advice and information. We would expect the landing page for the HCRS to
feature prominent signposts to sources of independent advice and information on
housing, such as Shelter, AdviceNow and Crisis.

4.28 Ideally, users of the HCRS would have access to face-to-face legal advice
delivered by a specialist but, where that is not available, other methods of advice
or information provision ought to be accessible. One benefit of a portal is the
opportunity to embed innovative advice delivery into a one-stop location. In
2019, JUSTICE drafted a concept note and convened a roundtable on the idea
for an “Online Advice Platform”, for people to locate and access advice based
on geographic area. This advice might be either delivered face-to-face (if
available), or remotely delivered through video chat. We suggested that the key
features of the platform would be:

• Support for users to understand: successful remote advice provision
has emphasised the need for client sided assistance providing practical,
320
technical and emotional support for those accessing remote advice,

318 Ibid and https://www.gov.uk/divorce/file-for-divorce

319 The current iteration of the online plea service features a help and advice heading, located above the
start button, encouraging users to seek out assistance from Citizen’s Advice or a solicitor before
commencing the process. Usefully, the link to “a solicitor” under the legal advice heading directs the
user to the gov.uk “Find a legal adviser” portal https://www.gov.uk/find-a-legal-adviser In early 2019, at
a workshop on the Single Justice Service held on the 10 of April, HMCTS stated that it intends to
th
encourage the uptake of legal advice, at least in the context of pleading online for criminal offences

320 See, for example Australian Pro Bono Centre, Pro bono legal services via video conferencing:
rd
nd
Opportunities and Challenges (2 – 3 July 2015), p. 3, 13 and 16, available at https://www.probonoce
ntre.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/ProBonoLegalServicesViaVideoConferencing-
th
OpportunitiesAndChallenges040615.pdf LiP Network, Setting up a Skype Clinic? (4 July 2017),
available at http://www.lipnetwork.org.uk/topics/post/skype-clinics Roger Smith and Alan Paterson also
refer to a study carried out in 1996 and funded by the Nuffield Foundation, which found that self-help
kiosks set up in courts “worked best when fed, watered and tendered by living people rather than just
dumped and left in dark courthouse corners”. The report had found that the best kiosk was one which
was set up in a law library and supervised by staff. Roger Smith and Alan Paterson, Face to Face Legal
Services and their Alternatives: Global Lessons from the Digital Revolution (2014) p.55-56 available at
https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/56496/1/Smith_Paterson_CPLS_Face_to_face_legal_services_and_thei
r_alternatives.pdf
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