The SOPHIA project is LAWNY's Statewide Online Pleading Help and Information Assistant.

SOPHIA is creating online, interactive help for low income people to create answers to legal complaints, create petitions, or get customized legal information via the web.

SOPHIA is also creating demonstration examples of document assembly tools for use by civil legal services advocates.  SOPHIA is funded in part by the Legal Services Corporation's TIG program.

To see an example of this exciting new tool, click [here] to go to Chicago-Kent Law School's site regarding the A2J Author. 

The online tools we will create include separate interviews that will help people with the following:

Eviction from subsidized or NYCHA housing in NewYork City.

Eviction from housing outside New York City, including all of upstate New York.

Creating or modifying a Custody or Visitation petition.

Filing a Small Estate Distribution action for very small estates in Surrogate's Court.

Family Offense petition, advocate assistance tool/document assembly tool for use by advocates. 

 
The list of documents available for assembly by advocates is being discussed now.

For more information about SOPHIA, contact Jeff Hogue at (315) 781-1465

Our Technology: 

The SOPHIA project uses HotDocs technology to perform document assembly.  The HotDocs templates are stored on the NPADO free server.  Learn more about the NPADO server at http://www.npado.org . 

To make this powerful document assembly tool easier to use for people who cannot afford a lawyer, we use the A2J Author.  This software presents a step-by-step, graphical interface for users to navigate.  A2J has audio for each screen.

Check out the A2J Author at this [link] .  on  http://www.lstech.org

At the end of the A2J interview, a customized document is downloaded and printed by the user.  A more detailed summary of A2J Author is also available in pdf format.

A2J Author is available for free to interested courts, legal service organizations, and members of the HotDocs development community for non-commercial use. To learn more about A2J Author and how to download the latest version visit the Chicago-Kent College of Law's website.