Maryland Center for Legal Assistance outlines in‑house app features to speed brief legal help while protecting safety

Lindsay Bramble, deputy director for remote services at the Maryland Center for Legal Assistance (MCLA), described tools the nonprofit is using to speed high‑volume, limited‑scope legal advice and reduce staff burnout.

"Everything we're talking about today grew out of our staff or those we were serving saying this isn't working, and us trying to figure out how to fix it," Bramble said, opening a demonstration that covered a Related tab for consult continuity and a Link Manager that sends litigants template documents by text or email.

The Related tab links prior consults to an active session by phone number so attorneys can see previous notes while keeping each encounter a discrete limited‑scope attorney‑client consult, Bramble said. The feature is visible only during an active consult and supervisors retain controlled access; monthly locks prevent browsing old notes. "The related tab enables us to have shorter consults, less re‑explaining, easier hotline to walk‑in handoffs, earlier identification of overuse, and improved consistency across staff and state," she said.

Program leaders said training and role‑based access were built in to reduce bias and note‑quality problems. In a staff testing period they reported more than 7,000 consults and said they identified one conflict related to prior notes. To protect litigant safety, staff can mark records confidential so prior notes are hidden from subsequent staff when safety concerns exist. Presenters also said the team asks safety screening questions (for example, whether it is safe to text) before sending messages.

The Link Manager produces public links to internally stored templates and fillable PDFs so staff can text or email litigants without creating external file‑share permission issues. "He came up with a solution that I didn't even think of could work," Bramble said of Russ Bloomquist, the developer who built the app; Bloomquist said the system stores documents encoded in the database and serves previewable links. In a 2025 beta, presenters said they sent more than 71,000 messages containing links and currently maintain roughly 109 templates.

Presenters described practical constraints and design choices: the app was built in‑house beginning in 2017 after MCLA outgrew paper‑based tracking; its back end uses PHP, the front end uses JavaScript/jQuery and Bootstrap, Twilio handles texting, and MySQL stores data. Bloomquist said the app is intentionally lightweight so it runs on standard web hosting and is inexpensive to maintain.

MCLA leaders noted organizational context matters: they operate Maryland Court Help Centers under a contract with the Maryland judiciary and said MCLA does not receive Legal Services Corporation (LSC) funding, which they said affects what they can do and reduces some regulatory barriers. "We don't receive any LSC funding, which means we don't really have any barriers to assistance," Bramble said; later Bloomquist joked, "Sorry LSC."

Attendees asked about sharing the software. Presenters said the code has been developed in‑house and is not yet public, but the executive team has mandated open‑source releases for internally developed tools and they hope to publish a version; Bloomquist offered to share his lessons or code with interested developers. On compatibility with LSC‑funded programs, Bramble said the app is not designed to replace full case‑management systems used in LSC programs but they are discussing warm referrals that would populate Legal Server (a case‑management product) with basic information for a fuller intake by legal aid staff.

Bramble also described an internal knowledge base called Flolu (provided by the Maryland courts) used for training and a daily Teams chat where staff request help in real time. Presenters noted operational constraints—phone and chat hours, a 90‑second post‑call wrap up goal, and no hard time limits on consults—and emphasized that training and supervisor oversight remain essential complements to the software.

Presenters closed by urging feedback and follow‑up questions; Bloomquist provided contact information for developers who want to learn from MCLA's implementation. They also encouraged attendees to complete a post‑session survey and said they hope an open‑source release will be available in the coming year.