Domestic violence survivors have an app to seek justice thanks to UC Davis student

Domestic violence claims fall under civil law, which means paying for legal representation is a significant barrier to those seeking justice in California. The State Bar of California found in its 2019 California Justice Gap Study that 85 percent of Californians received little to no help for their civil legal problems, which include problems at all income levels related to health, finance and employment. Unlike in criminal law, in civil court cases there is no guarantee to an attorney.

That is why UC Davis law student Alison Corn created the Next Steps Advisor app for survivors of domestic violence who want a legal recourse at the Yolo County Superior Courthouse. Corn won second prize this year for her app in the Iron Tech Lawyer Invitational hosted by Georgetown University.

Corn works with the Yolo County Superior Court’s self-help center, which is geared to people without legal representation, with people who want to petition for restraining orders. She said the paperwork is “incredibly complex,” especially for those without a lawyer to guide them through it.

“I noticed that a lot of folks who we helped fill out these forms in order to ask for a restraining order had no idea what to do once they left the self-help center,” Corn said. “The staff at the center doesn’t have the bandwidth to give folks their next step. There’s just too many people and not enough staff.”

The Iron Tech competition came on Corn’s radar in December through the self-represented litigant network email list. With her background in graphic design from before law school, Corn saw an opportunity to develop a tech solution to what she sees as a problem in the civil legal system. According to Corn, people largely go without representation because they are unable to afford it.

As a survivor of a domestic violence situation that she considers herself “lucky to get out of,” Corn was also motivated to help others with less resources than she had using her tech knowledge.

“They can also overcome their situations if they only have a little help,” Corn said. “Often, if not most of the time, they don’t have somebody telling them, hey, this is what you need to do.”

That is where Next Steps Advisor comes in. Those who come to the courthouse at Yolo County and fill out the initial paperwork for a restraining order can then access the Next Steps Advisor app through a web-based URL. From there, they will be able to fill out a “next steps report” about their specific case in either English or Spanish and the app will guide them on exactly what paperwork to fill out and whom to give it to.

Corn’s academic sponsor for the competition was UC Davis adjunct professor Diana Glick, who teaches a class that focuses on barriers to the civil legal system. The barriers include the inability to hire an attorney and Spanish-only language skills, both of which are addressed by the Next Steps Advisor app tailored to Yolo County.

Glick was a natural choice to help Corn in the competition. Academic sponsors provide feedback on the topic and focus of the solution. They work as a “sounding board” for the students, according to Glick, but a rule of the competition is that only the students work on developing the tech.

“There’s a lot of ways people struggle to understand their legal rights and to access them,” Glick said, adding that “Alison did a marvelous job” in creating an app that is accessible, and also strikes a balance between using clear and precise language while keeping users engaged.

“Some people would suggest we provide attorneys, I think there’s a lot to be said for that,” Glick said. “But if we know these numbers of people are coming and are not going to be represented, what Alison is trying to do is addressing this problem. She has come up with another way to help people.”

And helping survivors of domestic violence is more important now than ever, according to Corn.

Because of the stay-at-home order in place for the coronavirus pandemic, “right now is a really hard time,” Corn said. “Not only are folks stuck at home with their abusers, but courts are not operating at full capacity.”

Corn said the Next Steps Advisor app comes in because it doesn’t require courthouse staff in order to use it. People can come in and get the paperwork they need or download it from the courthouse website, then use the app to guide them.

“They can have ownership over this small part of the process which otherwise they wouldn’t have, and that they probably don’t have over many things in their life right now,” Corn said. “It helps lessen the retraumatization of these people who are probably in very critical, stressful, intense situations right now.”

The app helps people seek safety, according to Corn, which is an “emotional benefit” and likely what gave her an edge in a competition looking for “tech solutions to global problems.”

“There was a huge diversity of tech solutions,” Corn said. “It was interesting to see how widely tech can be used to address problems across the planet. I think it’s critical that the legal profession integrate technology moving forward.”

This story was originally published May 5, 2020 at 12:49 PM.