Browsing by Author "Pachhapurkar, Shilpa"

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    Flock of Legals Designing an Interactive Website to Create a Community for Lawyers
    (2015-03-27) Pachhapurkar, Shilpa; Hook, Sara Anne
    Our research identified an unserved niche within the legal technology marketplace. We observed that there was no comprehensive system for lawyers to connect with each other externally in a secure environment that would help them build a professional network of colleagues across the U.S. and even around the world. Our interactive website is intended to provide a LinkedIn-style community specifically for lawyers and is not for access by the general public. The tools within our community, tentatively titled Flock of Legals (but changed to Gaggle on the Gavel to avoid trademark issues), are totally within the lawyer’s discretion as to how much of the system he or she wants to use, such as referrals, calendars and tracking of continuing legal education seminars and other events, who he or she wants to connect with and how much information will be shared with external colleagues about cases, career opportunities or research interests. Gaggle on the Gavel (formerly Flock of Legals) will also include visualizations that will show trends in the law with respect the kinds of cases being filed and other issues and statistics that lawyers would be interested in and that would help with strategic planning for law firms.
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    Flock of Legals: Designing an Interactive Website to Create a Community for Lawyers [original name changed to avoid trademark issues]
    (2015-04-17) Pachhapurkar, Shilpa; Hook, Sara Anne
    Our research identified an unserved niche within the legal technology marketplace. We observed that there was no comprehensive system for lawyers to connect with each other externally in a secure environment that would help them build a professional network of colleagues across the U.S. and even around the world. Our interactive website is intended to provide a LinkedIn-style community specifically for lawyers and is not for access by the general public. Our poster will feature a demonstration of the current iteration of the Gaggle on the Gavel website, including our logo, as well as provide diagrams of the interaction flow within the website and the results of a focus group we conducted on our efforts to design an online community for lawyers.
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    Flock of Legals: Designing an Interactive Website to Create a Community for Lawyers
    (Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2015-04-17) Pachhapurkar, Shilpa; Hook, Sara Anne
    In many ways, law is behind other industries and professions in its implementation of technology. Fortunately, a number of legal technology entrepreneurs and academics are designing systems that will make the study and practice of law more efficient and less expensive and new players are coming into the marketplace to challenge long-standing monopoly-like situations such as have been enjoyed by traditional legal research companies like LexisNexis and Westlaw.1-3 There are now comprehensive practice management systems as well as more targeted software for internal law firm processes like time-keeping and billing.4 Websites allow potential clients to locate and connect with lawyers and for lawyers to promote their services to the public.5 However, our research identified an unserved niche within the legal technology marketplace. We observed that there was no comprehensive system for lawyers to connect with each other externally in a secure environment that would help them build a professional network of colleagues across the U.S. and even around the world. Our interactive website is intended to provide a LinkedIn-style community specifically for lawyers and is not for access by the general public. The tools within our community, called Flock of Legals, are totally within the lawyer’s discretion as to how much of the system he or she wants to use, such as referrals, calendars and tracking of continuing legal education seminars and other events, who he or she wants to connect with and how much information will be shared with external colleagues about cases, career opportunities or research interests. Flock of Legals will also include visualizations that will show trends in the law with respect the kinds of cases being filed and other issues and statistics that lawyers would be interested in and that would help with strategic planning for law firms. Our poster will feature a demonstration of the current iteration of the Flock of Legals website, including our logo, as well as provide diagrams of the interaction flow within the website and the results of a focus group we conducted on our efforts to design an online community for lawyers.
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    Gaggle on the Gavel: Designing an Interactive Website to Create a Community for Lawyers [poster]
    (2015-04-17) Pachhapurkar, Shilpa; Hook, Sara Anne
    Our research identified an unserved niche within the legal technology marketplace. We observed that there was no comprehensive system for lawyers to connect with each other externally in a secure environment that would help them build a professional network of colleagues across the U.S. and even around the world. Our interactive website is intended to provide a LinkedIn-style community specifically for lawyers and is not for access by the general public. Our poster will feature a demonstration of the current iteration of the Gaggle on the Gavel website, including our logo, as well as provide diagrams of the interaction flow within the website and the results of a focus group we conducted on our efforts to design an online community for lawyers.
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    Gaggle on the Gavel: Designing an Interactive Website to Create a Community of Lawyers
    (2016-07) Hook, Sara Anne; Pachhapurkar, Shilpa
    Law is behind other industries and professions in its implementation of technolo-gy that could make the practice of law and the delivery of legal services more ef-fective and satisfying. Although there has been considerable development in le-gal technology over the past few years, research identified the need for an interac-tive LinkedIn-style online community for lawyers to communicate other lawyers. Such a community would be particularly beneficial for solo practitioners, lawyers in small firms and lawyers in rural communities and would also provide a con-venient way to connect with lawyers for referrals and recommendations, for spe-cialized expertise and to develop contacts in different geographic locations. Ten-tatively titled Gaggle on the Gavel is an attempt to create such a community that would gather a number of attractive features and functionality under one umbrella and be compliant with the rules of professional conduct with respect to client con-fidentiality, security, advertising and solicitation. A system has been designed, prototyped and revised based on feedback from a focus group of lawyers.
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    Rebuilding from the Ground Up: User-Centered Methodology for Web Design Moves Non-Profit Organization into the 21st Century
    (2016-04-08) Pachhapurkar, Shilpa; Hook, Sara Anne
    Microfinance projects are a proven approach for economic development, but an indicator of future success is that these projects involve a number of community partners, both in the U.S. and on the ground in the locale where the project will take place. As part of a series of microfinance projects in Sierra Leone, a pleasing partnership has developed between the Rotary Club of Indianapolis and Right Sharing of World Resources, which has personnel on the ground in Sierra Leone, one of three countries that it currently focuses on.1-3 Although established in 1967, Right Sharing remains a small organization as compared with other NGOs and has not had the time or expertise to update its website or to take advantage of the power of social media for outreach and public relations. The presenters agreed to develop recommendations for a total redesign of Right Sharing’s website and a social media marketing strategy. After a thorough analysis of Right Sharing’s website, we inspected some 70 NGO websites to identify current trends in layout, design and navigation flow, including the websites of large, well-established international organizations such as Care and smaller organizations with more targeted missions.4-7 Various screenshots of websites we considered to be impactful, that incorporated best practices and usability principles and that seemed to contain a “call to action” to potential donors, volunteers and supporters were grouped into a variety of collages for easy comparison. A preliminary new information architecture was developed to assist users in transitioning from one section of the website to another with more logical categories and a better organization of information under each category. One challenge is to integrate Right Sharing’s substantial material about past projects, including images and audio, while still presenting the freshest and most compelling content about current and future initiatives. 1. Rotary Club of Indianapolis, http://indyrotary.com/071013wp/, (last visited 3/14/2015). 2. Right Sharing of World Resources, http://www.rswr.org/, (last visited 3/14/2015). 3. Care, http://www.care.org/, (last visited 3/14/2015). 4. Alliance for African Assistance, http://www.alliance-for-africa.org/, (last visited 3/14/2015). 5. Manna Foodbank, http://www.mannafoodbank.org/, (last visited 3/14/2015). 6. Ambassadors for Life, http://www.ambassadorsforlife.org/, (last visited 3/14/2015). 7. Not for Sale, https://www.notforsalecampaign.org/, (last visited 3/14/2015).