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Laura Tuggle responded with additional information about the legal needs checkup tool that
Amanda Brown discussed earlier, developed for use at Tulane health clinics. This check-up tool
could be expanded for use in other locations. We just need to make sure we can meet any resulting
referral demands.

Professor Luz Molina (Loyola University College of Law) talked about how predatory lending
practices and consumer debt impact poverty and suggested we think about how law schools and
Prosperity Centers might work together to address the legal aspects of families’ financial barriers.

Charmaine suggested that the Prosperity Centers could be a good place to start because they offer
a model that has already built trust with clients.

Michael Williamson (United Way of Southeast Louisiana) suggested considering the funding, and
funding sources necessary to work effectively together (i.e., how much will it take, including in-
kind costs?).

C.C. Kahr (The Pro Bono Project) agreed that we should be looking for places that people are
already going and suggested that we should think about building in pro bono components into our
models.

Sachida Raman (Acadiana Legal Service Corp.) suggested that we think about centralizing one
statewide portal where all referral requests could be sent.

Amanda Brown suggested that we have many of the pieces in place, including public-facing
resources like the Civil Legal Navigator which can be used to support additional legal access
points.

Joy Bruce (CASA New Orleans) stressed the importance of having live humans at any access
points to provide warm hand offs and assistance for people with challenges using technology. She
also suggested that in each jurisdiction there will be multiple organizations serving a similar
population. We should make sure that we’re identifying the places where people are already going
in each location and making community-specific decisions about the location/s that make the most
sense as hubs.

Sarah Berthelot (Louisiana Association of United Way) reiterated that the there is growing
appreciation for the Prosperity Center model and suggested that the legal screening tool could be
used to determine differentiations in need. We would need to work together to make sure that we
are effectively referring people with needs identified through the screening tool.

Laura Tuggle reminded us that there will always be a segment of the client community for whom
technology will not be an effective option, and that we build in a human element to any model
with consider.

2023 ACCESS TO JUSTICE CONCLAVE NOTES 5