Hello Montana librarians,
It's still a work in progress, but I think it's going to be great!
MontanaLawHelp [www.montanalawhelp.org] is a new statewide Website that provides four kinds of law-related information to the public: (1) legal information to help Montanans help themselves with legal related issues; (2) information about legal service organizations that provide legal services to Montanans; (3) information about the courts in Montana; and (4) information about social service organizations and agencies that can help Montanans find shelter, food, health care, public benefits, and other necessary resources.
On MontanaLawHelp you'll find county-by-county lists of legal-aid providers, government agencies, and legal-advocacy groups. The site also provides legal information in various areas of the law that might help pro se litigants.
For example, from the front page of MontanaLawHelp, you have access to a number of different subject categories such as "General Legal Information," Family and Juvenile," Housing," "Consumer," etc. I clicked on the Family and Juvenile category and it turns out to be a wealth of information for Montana citizens. You can get forms for child support, summary dissolution of marriage forms, information about divorce in Montana, etc.
Similarly, the "Housing" category leads to such gems as "What are your rights if your landlord threatens to evict you," to "What to do when your landlord won't fix what he's supposed to fix."
Other topics covered on MontanaLawHelp that could prove to be useful in libraries serving the public are information on wills and probate in Montana and ideas for what to do if you're involved in an auto accident.
MontanaLawHelp is a project of Montana Legal Services Association (MLSA), which received technology grant monies from the national Legal Services Corporation for this project. MLSA works in cooperation with the State Bar of Montana and the Montana Supreme Court Equal Justice Task Force on identifying, creating and organizing content for the Website. These groups hope to teach public librarians across the state how to unite the site with walk-in customers who have legal needs. This is where you all, as Montana librarians, come in. Please take a few moments to look at the site and become familiar with its contents. The site Webmaster, Paul Shae, would really like your comments regarding the site. What you liked, what you didn't, other ideas for content, etc. Please contact him at pshae@mt.net with your comments. (I myself have made the suggestions that there should be a direct link to the Montana Code online from the site so people can look up actual Montana laws if they want to. I also suggested that they should get more forms on the site, which they have already planned to do).
Hope you find this new legal site to be useful!
On behalf of your friendly MLA PR & Marketing Committee, Lisa
(1/2 librarian, 1/2 lawyer)
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Lisa Mecklenberg Jackson
JD, MSLIS
Legislative Librarian
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