81 FR 3162 - Request for Letters of Intent To Apply for 2015 Technology Initiative Grant Funding

LEGAL SERVICES CORPORATION

Federal Register Volume 81, Issue 12 (January 20, 2016)

The Legal Services Corporation (LSC) issues this Notice describing the conditions under which Letters of Intent To Apply for Technology Initiative Grants (TIG) will be received. LSC's TIG program was established in 2000. Since that time, LSC has made 647 grants totaling more than $53 million. This grant program provides an important tool to help achieve LSC's goal of increasing the quantity and quality of legal services available to eligible persons. Projects funded under the TIG program develop, test and replicate innovative technologies that can enable grant recipients and state justice communities to improve low-income persons' access to high quality legal assistance through an integrated and well managed technology system. When submitting Letters of Intent, applicants should consider the growth and continued development of technology and the resulting effects on the practice of law, management of legal aid organizations and legal aid service delivery.

[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 12 (Wednesday, January 20, 2016)]
[Notices]
[Pages 3162-3165]
From the Federal Register Online  [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2016-00941]


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LEGAL SERVICES CORPORATION


Request for Letters of Intent To Apply for 2015 Technology 
Initiative Grant Funding

AGENCY: Legal Services Corporation.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The Legal Services Corporation (LSC) issues this Notice 
describing the conditions under which Letters of Intent To Apply for 
Technology Initiative Grants (TIG) will be received. LSC's TIG program 
was established in 2000. Since that time, LSC has made 647 grants 
totaling more than $53 million. This grant program provides an 
important tool to help achieve LSC's goal of increasing the quantity 
and quality of legal services available to eligible persons. Projects 
funded under the TIG program develop, test and replicate innovative 
technologies that can enable grant recipients and state justice 
communities to improve low-income persons' access to high quality legal 
assistance through an integrated and well managed technology system. 
When submitting Letters of Intent, applicants should consider the 
growth and continued development of technology and the resulting 
effects on the practice of law, management of legal aid organizations 
and legal aid service delivery.

DATES: Letters of Intent must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. EST on 
February 29, 2016.

ADDRESSES: Letters of Intent must be submitted electronically at http://lscgrants.lsc.gov.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Jane Ribadeneyra, Program Analyst, 
Office of Program Performance, Legal Services Corporation, 3333 K 
Street NW., Washington, DC 20007; (202) 295-1554 (phone); 
[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

General Information

    The Legal Services Corporation awards Technology Initiative Grant 
funds through an open, competitive, and impartial selection process. 
All prospective applicants for 2016 TIG funds must submit a Letter of 
Intent to Apply (LOI) prior to submitting a formal application. The 
format and contents of the LOI should conform to the requirements 
specified below in Section IV.
    Through the LOI process, LSC identifies those projects that have a 
reasonable chance of success in the competitive grant process based on 
LSC's analysis of the project description and other information 
provided in the LOI. LSC will solicit full proposals for those 
projects.

LSC Requirements

    Technology Initiative Grant funds are subject to all LSC 
requirements, including the requirements of the Legal Services 
Corporation Act (LSC Act), any applicable appropriations acts and any 
other applicable laws, rules, regulations, policies, guidelines, 
instructions, and other directives of the Legal Services Corporation, 
including, but not limited to, the LSC Audit Guide for Recipients and 
Auditors, the Accounting Guide for LSC Recipients, the CSR Handbook, 
the 1981 LSC Property Manual (as amended) and the Property Acquisition 
and Management Manual, with any amendments to the foregoing adopted 
before or during the period of the grant. Before submitting a Letter of 
Intent to Apply, applicants should be familiar with LSC's transfer and 
subgrant requirements at 45 CFR parts 1610 and 1627 (see http://www.lsc.gov/about/laws-regulations/lsc-regulations-cfr-45-part-1600-et-seq), particularly as they pertain to payments of LSC funds to other 
entities for programmatic activities.
    For additional information and resources regarding TIG compliance, 
including transfers, subgrants, third-party contracting, conflicts of 
interest, grant modification procedures, and special TIG grant 
assurances, see LSC's TIG compliance Web page.

Eligible Applicants

    TIG awards are available only to current LSC Basic Field Grant 
recipients that are not subject to any short funding (i.e., less than 
one year) on Basic Field Grants.
    LSC will not award a TIG to any applicant that is not in good 
standing on any existing TIG projects. Applicants must be up to date, 
according to the milestone schedule on all existing TIG projects prior 
to submitting a LOI or have requested and received an adjustment to the 
original milestone schedule. LSC will not award a TIG to any applicant 
that has not made satisfactory progress on prior TIGs. LSC recipients 
that have had a previous TIG terminated for failure to provide timely 
reports and submissions are not eligible to receive a TIG for three 
years after their earlier grant was terminated. This policy does not 
apply to applicants that worked with LSC to end a TIG early after an 
unsuccessful project implementation resulting from technology 
limitations, a failed proof of concept, or other reasons outside of the 
applicant's control.

Funding Availability

    LSC has received an appropriation of $4 million for fiscal year 
2016 to fund TIG projects. In 2015, 36 TIG projects received funding 
with a median funding amount of $86,200. (See TIG's past awards Web 
page for more information on past grants.) LSC recommends a minimum 
amount for TIG funding requests of $40,000, but lower requests will be 
considered. There is no maximum amount for TIG funding requests that 
are within the total appropriation for TIG.

Collaborations

    The TIG program encourages applicants to reach out to and include 
in TIG projects others interested in access to justice--the courts, bar 
associations, pro bono projects, libraries, and social service 
agencies. Partnerships can enhance the reach, effectiveness and 
sustainability of many projects.

Grant Categories

    LSC will accept projects in two application categories:
    (1) Innovations and Improvements
    (2) Replication and Adaptation

Grant Category 1: Innovations and Improvements

    The Innovations and Improvements Category is designated for 
projects that:

[[Page 3163]]

(1) Implement new or innovative approaches for using technology in 
legal services or (2) enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of 
existing technologies so that they may be better used to increase the 
quality and quantity of services to clients.
    Although there is no funding limit or matching requirement for 
applications in this category, additional weight is given to projects 
with strong support from partners. Proposals for initiatives with broad 
applicability and/or that would have impact throughout the legal 
services community are strongly encouraged.

Grant Category 2: Replication and Adaptation

    The Replication and Adaptation category is for proposals that seek 
to replicate, adapt, or provide added value to the work of prior 
technology projects. This includes, but is not limited to, the 
implementation and improvement of tested methodologies and technologies 
from previous TIG projects. Applicants may also replicate technology 
projects funded outside of the TIG program, including sectors outside 
the legal aid community, such as other social services organizations, 
the broader non-profit community, and the private sector.
    Project proposals in the Replication and Adaptation category may 
include, but are not limited to:

A: Replication of Previous TIG Projects

    LSC requires that any original software developed with TIG funding 
be available to other legal services programs at little or no cost. 
Applicants should look to previous successful TIG projects to determine 
how they could be replicated at a reduced cost from the original 
project, and/or how they could be expanded and/or enhanced. Projects 
where original software or content has already been created lend 
themselves to replication, and LSC encourages programs to look to these 
projects to see how they could benefit the delivery systems in their 
state.

B: Automated Form Replication

    LawHelp Interactive (LHI \1\) is deployed across the country with 
thousands of active HotDocs templates and A2J Author modules hosted on 
the LawHelp Interactive National HotDocs Server at https://lawhelpinteractive.org. Despite differences from state to state in the 
content and format, many of these forms can be edited for use in other 
jurisdictions with less effort, hence a lower cost, than developing the 
document from scratch.
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    \1\ LHI is an automated document server powered by HotDocs 
Server and made available to any LSC funded program at no charge. 
See https://lawhelpinteractive.org.
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    Even if a form differs from one state to another, the information 
needed to populate a form will, for the most part, be similar. (What 
are the names of the plaintiff, the defendant, the children, etc.?). 
This means the interviews are more easily replicated than templates. 
All of these templates and interviews are available to be modified as 
needed. Applicants should identify which forms and templates are to be 
adapted, and then estimate the cost to do this and compare that to the 
cost of developing them from scratch.
    LHI has the capacity to support Spanish, Vietnamese, Mandarin and 
Korean language interviews. In addition, LHI has been integrated with 
other systems to allow the flow of information between LHI and court e-
filing systems, and legal aid case management systems. The ``Connect'' 
feature enables pro bono programs from across a state to use LHI 
interviews and forms to assign pre-screened pro bono cases and their 
documents to panel attorneys. For additional information, including 
examples, best practices, models and training materials, see the 
LawHelp Interactive Resource Center at http://www.probono.net/dasupport 
(you may need to request a free membership to access this Web site).

C. Replication of Technology Projects in Other Sectors

    In addition to replicating other TIG funded technology projects, 
LSC encourages replication of proven technologies from non-LSC funded 
legal aid organizations as well as sectors outside the legal aid 
community. Ideas for replication may be found through resources and 
organizations such as LSNTAP, the ABA, international legal aid 
providers such as the Legal Services Society of British Columbia and 
HiiL's Innovating Justice project (http://www.innovatingjustice.com), 
Idealware (see the article on Unleashing Innovation), NTEN, and 
TechSoup.

Areas of Interest

    LSC welcomes applications for a wide variety of projects. For 2016, 
LSC has three areas of particular interest in which programs are 
encouraged to submit proposals for innovative technology approaches. 
The designation of these areas does not in any way limit the scope of 
proposals in which LSC is interested. The 2016 areas of particular 
interest are:
    A. Achieving ``100 Percent Access.'' LSC's 2013 Technology Summit 
Report, available at http://www.lsc.gov/media-center/publications/report-summit-use-technology-expand-access-justice, proposed an 
integrated service-delivery system that would ``move the United States 
toward providing some form of effective assistance to 100 percent of 
persons otherwise unable to afford an attorney for dealing with 
essential civil legal needs.'' Recently, the Conference of Chief 
Justices and the Conference of State Court Administrators adopted a 
resolution advocating a similar access goal:

    NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Conference of Chief 
Justices and the Conference of State Court Administrators support 
the aspirational goal of 100 percent access to effective assistance 
for essential civil legal needs and urge their members to provide 
leadership in achieving that goal and to work with their Access to 
Justice Commission or other such entities to develop a strategic 
plan with realistic and measurable outcomes;

and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Conferences urge the National 
Center for State Courts and other national organizations to develop 
tools and provide assistance to states in achieving the goal of 100 
percent access through a continuum of meaningful and appropriate 
services.

    With this area of interest, LSC seeks proposals that use technology 
to further the goal of 100 percent access to effective assistance for 
essential civil legal needs, particularly through projects that advance 
related objectives developed by the Access to Justice Commission in the 
applicant's state.
    LSC's Technology Summit Report provides examples of strategies for 
achieving 100 percent access, but proposals should not be limited to 
approaches discussed in the report. Applicants should work with their 
local commissions (where they exist) and/or other stakeholders to 
determine the best ways to use technology to move toward achieving this 
goal.
    B. Projects to Move Organizations above the LSC Technology 
Baselines. ``LSC Baselines: Technologies That Should Be in Place in a 
Legal Aid Office Today,'' available at http://www.lsc.gov/sites/default/files/TIG/pdfs/LSC-Technology-Baselines-2015.PDF, provides a 
detailed overview of the technologies that enable modern legal aid 
offices to operate efficiently and effectively. While LSC's policy is 
that TIGs cannot be used to bring grantees up to the baselines in an 
area, we encourage applicants as they implement a baseline capacity to 
think about how they can do more than just the minimum. This area of 
interest focuses on initiatives that advance organizations beyond the 
2015 Baselines by developing innovative, creative

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technology solutions that not only address one or more Baseline 
capacities, but also exceed them. Grantees applying under this area of 
interest should address how their project could establish a new 
technology best practice that could be incorporated into future 
versions of the Baselines.
    C. Innovations in Legal Information Design and Delivery. Legal 
tools and content should be developed with the end user in mind, but 
too often the result reflects what the developer determines the end 
user will need, rather than what the user understands and finds 
helpful. Technology provides an opportunity to design and deliver legal 
information optimized for the end user, and there are good examples of 
how user-centric design can improve legal innovation (see 
www.legaltechdesign.com and www.nulawlab.org). Projects in this area of 
interest could incorporate new approaches to visual law, online 
learning, and user interaction in the design and delivery of content. 
In one example from the 2015 TIG cycle, a grantee received funding to 
develop a courtroom experience app that delivers just-in-time support 
directly to litigants' smartphones as they navigate various stages of 
the court process, increasing effective self-representation. Projects 
could also focus on low/no-literacy and Limited English Proficiency 
(LEP) communities or others who are under-served by traditional 
methods.

Specific Letter of Intent To Apply Requirements

One Project per Letter of Intent

    Applicants may submit multiple LOIs, but a separate LOI should be 
submitted for each project for which funding is sought.

Letter Requirements and Format

    Letters of Intent must be submitted using the online system at 
http://lscgrants.lsc.gov. Additional instructions and information can 
be found on the TIG Web site, http://www.lsc.gov/grants-grantee-resources/our-grant-programs/tig. This system will walk you through the 
process of creating a simple two-page LOI. The LOI should concisely 
provide the following information about the proposed project:
    1. Category--Select the appropriate category from the drop down 
list.
    2. Description of Project (maximum 2500 characters)--Briefly 
describe the basic elements of the project, including the specific 
technology(ies) the project will develop or implement; how they will be 
developed, how they will operate, the function they will serve within 
the legal services delivery system, their expected impact, and other 
similar factors. (Only the impact should be highlighted here; more 
details about the system's benefits should be provided below.)
    3. Major Benefits (maximum 2500 characters)--Describe the specific 
ways in which the project will increase or improve services to clients 
and/or enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of program operations. 
To the extent feasible, discuss both the qualitative and quantitative 
aspects of these benefits.
    4. Estimated Costs (maximum 1500 characters)--Start by stating the 
amount of funding you are seeking from the TIG program, followed by the 
estimated total project cost, summarizing the anticipated costs of the 
major components of the project. List anticipated contributions, both 
in-kind and monetary, from all partners involved in the project.
    5. Major Partners (maximum 1500 characters)--Identify organizations 
that are expected to be important partners. Specify the role(s) each 
partner will play.
    6. Innovation/Replication (maximum 1500 characters)--Identify how 
and why the proposed project is new and innovative and/or is a 
replication or adaptation of a previous technology project. Identify 
how and why the proposed project can significantly benefit and/or be 
replicated by other legal services providers and/or the legal services 
community at large.

Letter of Intent To Apply Deadline

    Letters of Intent must be completed and submitted into the online 
system at http://lscgrants.lsc.gov no later than 11:59 p.m. EST, 
Monday, February 29, 2016. The online system may experience technical 
difficulties due to heavy traffic on the day of the deadline. 
Applicants are strongly encouraged to complete LOI submissions as early 
as possible.
    LSC will not accept applications submitted after the application 
deadline unless a waiver of the deadline has been approved in advance 
(see Waiver Authority). Therefore, allow sufficient time for online 
submission.
    LSC will provide confirmation via email upon the completed 
electronic submission of each Letter of Intent. Keep this email as 
verification that the program's LOI was submitted. If no confirmation 
email is received, inquire about the status of your LOI at 
[email protected].

Selection Process

    LSC will initially review all Letters of Intent to Apply to 
determine whether they conform to the required format and clearly 
present all of the required elements listed and described above. 
Failure to meet these requirements may result in rejection of the 
Letter of Intent.
    LSC will review each Letter of Intent to identify those projects 
likely to improve access to justice, or to improve the efficiency, 
effectiveness, and quality of legal services provided by grantees. The 
Letters of Intent will also be reviewed to determine the extent to 
which the project proposed is clearly described and well thought out, 
offers major benefits to our targeted client community, is cost-
effective, involves all of the parties needed to make it successful and 
sustainable, and is either innovative or a cost-effective replication 
of prior successful projects. LSC will invite those applicants that 
satisfy these criteria to submit full applications.

Next Steps for Successful Applicants

    LSC will notify successful applicants by April 11, 2016. Successful 
applicants will have until 11:59 p.m. EDT, Friday, May 20, 2016 to 
complete and submit full applications in the online application system.

Waiver Authority

    LSC, upon its own initiative or when requested, may waive 
provisions in this Notice at its sole discretion under extraordinary 
circumstances and when it is in the best interest of the eligible 
client community. Waivers may be granted only for requirements that are 
discretionary and not mandated by statute or regulation. Any request 
for a waiver must set forth the extraordinary circumstances for the 
request and be included in the application. LSC will not consider a 
request to waive the deadline for a Letter of Intent to Apply unless 
the waiver request is received by LSC prior to the deadline.

Contact Information

    For information on the status of a current TIG project, contact 
Eric Mathison, Program Analyst, Telephone: 202-295-1535; Email: 
[email protected].
    For questions about projects in CT, IL, IN, ME, MA, MI, NH, NJ, NY, 
OH, PA, RI, WI, WV, VT, contact David Bonebrake, Program Counsel, 
Telephone: 202.295.1547; Email: [email protected].
    For questions about projects in AK, AZ, CA, CO, GU, HI, ID, IA, KS, 
MP, MN, MT, NE., NV, NH, NM, ND, OK, OR, SD, TX, UT, WA, WY, contact 
Glenn Rawdon, Program Counsel, Telephone: 202.295.1552; Email: 
[email protected].

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    For questions about projects in AL, AR, DC, FL, GA, KY, LA, MD, MS, 
MO, NC, PR, SC, TN, VI, VA, contact Jane Ribadeneyra, Program Analyst, 
Telephone: 202.295.1554, Email: [email protected].
    If you have a general question, please email [email protected].

     Dated: January 12, 2016.
Stefanie K. Davis,
Assistant General Counsel.
[FR Doc. 2016-00941 Filed 1-19-16; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 7050-01-P