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Innovation Award recognizes an individual attorney or organization that has developed an
innovative program or service that effectively meets the legal needs of vulnerable populations in
Louisiana. To learn more about the awards and recipients, visit www.lsba.org/ATJ.

Statewide Task Forces
The ATJ staff works with five statewide substantive law task forces to provide practice area-
specific forums for discussion among civil legal aid and volunteer attorneys. The Task Forces
include: Elder Law, Family Law, Housing and Consumer Law, Public Benefits Law, and CINC.
Members of these groups also develop CLE programming to address topic-specific poverty law
training needs of the legal services and pro bono organizations.

Statewide Uniform Case Management System

In an effort to provide better exchange of information, reduce duplicative development of reports,
and increase uniformity of client information for state and national reporting, the LSBA developed
a single, uniform case management system. The statewide case management system, PRIME,
allows all participating provider organizations to use the same system for seamless transmission
of data. This technology assists our nonprofit partners with the ability to maximize their work with
minimal resources.

The support of the Louisiana Bar Foundation and the Louisiana Bar Association has allowed the
non-profit civil legal aid providers to participate in the statewide case management system (SCMS)
at no cost. In addition to the two Legal Service Corporation-funded programs, Lafayette Volunteer
Lawyers, Southwest Louisiana Bar Foundation, Baton Rouge Bar Association Pro Bono Project,
and The Pro Bono Project of New Orleans, Central Louisiana Pro Bono Project and the Shreveport
Bar Association Pro Bono Project now use the statewide system. Representatives from these
organizations compose the Statewide Case Management (SCMS) Steering Group which
collectively determines the course taken with this work.

Within the last three years, the system was moved to a hosted data center in coordination with the
application’s developer. The program participants received new features and, with committed
funding by the Bar Foundation for a three-year period, will receive annual upgrades to their system
without the necessity of a full conversion. These system changes have significantly reduced the
necessity of ATJ staff involvement in oversight and management of the system. ATJ personnel are
working with program participants to ensure a smooth extraction of the Bar’s involvement in these
efforts.

Legal Education & Assistance Program (LEAP)/ “Lawyers in Libraries”

LEAP is a partnership between the LSBA, Law Library of Louisiana, legal aid organizations, and
public libraries statewide. The program provides libraries with specialized resources on frequently-
sought topics, training for library staff on how to respond to (but not answer) legal inquiries from
the public, and supplemental research support from the Law Library of Louisiana (located at the
Louisiana Supreme Court). These services are available to all public libraries in the state but are
especially impactful in areas without a physical legal aid office and/or pro bono program.

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