Ohio Legal Help empowers low-income, underserved and vulnerable Ohioans to understand their legal options, make informed decisions and take action. Using technology and innovative solutions, we remove barriers to justice and help people improve their lives.

In 2022, we served 740,560 families as we worked to fulfill our mission of increasing access to the civil justice system and empowering action for Ohioans with legal issues. Our users represent all 88 counties in Ohio. More than half are women, and nearly 75 percent are below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. The average family household size of our users is 3.

This past year, our work was recognized nationally. An evaluation conducted by the Pew Charitable Trusts identified Ohio Legal Help as a national leader in providing accessible and high-quality legal information.

While creating better access to information, forms and resources is critical, empowering our users to take action is equally important. This past year, we conducted a study to learn about Black Ohioans’ legal needs and trust in the civil justice system. We learned that although Black Ohioans reported low levels of trust in the system overall, those who had direct experience with the civil justice system had more positive attitudes and a higher level of trust. Earning the trust of Black Ohioans is a critical bridge to closing the civil justice gap.

The study also told us that Black Ohioans trust racial equity and community-impact focused organizations, such as the NAACP. Partnering with trusted organizations is an essential strategy for helping Black Ohioans navigate and gain trust in the civil justice system. We hope that meaningful partnerships like the ones we have developed will provide more access to legal information and empower Ohioans to solve their legal issues.

Ohio Legal Help works to increase access to the civil justice system while considering the diversity and needs of our users through fairness by design. Language should never be a barrier to accessing legal information and resources. In 2022, Ohio Legal Help launched a Spanish-language version of the website. Providing this website gives our Spanish-speaking users greater access to the civil justice system.

The critical nature and value of our work has also been recognized at the state level, with more requests to expand our content and self-help tools from our judicial, clerk of courts, legal aid, local bar and nonprofit partners. For example, this year we launched a youth and foster law content module through a partnership with the Ohio Youth Advisory Board. By listening to invaluable partners like the Youth Advisory Board, we can learn how best to serve vulnerable populations and communicate legal information effectively.

As we move forward in 2023 and beyond, we remain grateful for what the Ohio Legal Help team and our partners have accomplished. We invite you to read through the 2022 Impact Report and learn about Ohio Legal Help's mission to empower Ohioans by removing barriers to the civil justice system.

access

Our team and the partners that guide our work have always recognized the need for increased access to justice. In order to provide the best legal help information, interactive self-help tools and connections to local legal and community resources, we have listened to the needs of our users and our partner organizations that serve low-income, underserved and vulnerable communities.

Through our data gathering, we know that our typical user visits the website on their mobile phone at all hours of the day and night. They are often in a household of at least 3 people, and their household income is less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level. Nearly half of our users are facing homelessness, experiencing or have experienced violence or abuse, over the age of 60 or a veteran. This means the design of our website and the information it contains must be user friendly, easy to understand and action oriented in order to provide accessible legal help.

We also monitor the pages that are visited the most. Our top pages visited in 2022 were our Eviction Timeline, the Divorce Process in Ohio, Landlord Repairs, Dissolution, and Protection Orders. This information coupled with our user demographics, show that as coronavirus (COVID-19) benefits ended, our users turned to Ohio Legal Help to solve core legal issues impacting their daily lives. 

In addition to serving 740,560 users in 2022, we also made over 206,000 referrals to Ohio’s courts, legal aids, private bar associations and local social service agencies.

In addition to our own analysis for continuous improvement of our website, we were selected by the Pew Charitable Trusts for an independent evaluation examining online legal assistance portals. Ohio Legal Help was recognized as a national exemplar in providing accessible and high-quality legal information. Evaluators highlighted our digital inclusiveness strategies as best practices that enable people with low educational levels or disabilities to use our site. We believe that literacy levels and disabilities should never be a barrier to accessing legal information.

empowerment

This past year we commissioned a study to learn about Black Ohioans’ legal needs and trust in the civil justice system. While research exists about the Black community’s perception of the criminal justice system, there is very little public research about the community’s views of the civil justice system. The results of the study provide valuable insight for developing strategies to make the civil justice system more accessible to Black Ohioans. The study was conducted through an online survey of 277 respondents who self-identified as Black or African American.

Although more than 75 percent of respondents said they had moderate, a little or no trust in the civil justice system, we learned that Black Ohioans who had direct experience with the system had more positive attitudes and a higher level of trust in the system. This tells us that earning the trust of Black Ohioans is critical to closing the justice gap.

Black Ohioans also said they do trust racial equity and community-impact focused organizations like the NAACP, the Urban League, and 2-1-1 or United Way. Additionally, 86 percent of study respondents said they were open to using a website to resolve their legal issues. Respondents also said that messages related to empowerment and access to legal information or resources resonated the most them. Providing Black Ohioans a trusted website can empower them to take action to resolve their legal issues.

Prior to the findings of the study, Ohio Legal Help began a partnership with the Cleveland Branch of the NAACP. Through this partnership came a joint project to create a new, streamlined online intake form for racial discrimination complaints. This past year, the Ohio Legal Help team built and launched the new intake form in partnership with the NAACP. In July 2022, the new form launched and the NAACP legal team reviews each complaint to determine whether they can aid in the claim or provide a referral to another community resource. The Civil Justice Study findings only solidified that this partnership is critical to empowering Black Ohioans to take action to resolve their legal issues.

As we work to build trust with Black Ohioans and other underserved communities, we use data to guide our content and action plans. For example, the Civil Justice Study found that debt collection was the most common legal issue our respondents had faced. Yet while 52 percent of them reported direct experience with debt collections, only 17 percent sought help from a lawyer. Thanks to a generous grant from the Columbus Bar Foundation, Ohio Legal Help is partnering with the Franklin County Municipal Court’s Self Help Resource Center to develop legal information, court forms and tools to help Franklin County residents deal with issues related to debt collection.

equity

The core principle of user-centered and fairness by design is to meet users where they are. From our organization’s inception, translating the website into Spanish has been a top priority to improve access to legal information and community resources. In 2022, Ohio Legal Help reached a milestone as we launched the Spanish-language version of the website with over 203,000 words translated through a generous grant from the Ohio State Bar Foundation. The site offers information on core issues including housing, family law, consumer protection, public benefits, immigration, domestic violence and sealing of criminal records.

Nearly 25 percent of Ohio’s Spanish-speaking households – about 62,000 people – live below 100 percent of the federal poverty level. With the Spanish-language version of Ohio Legal Help, we can provide increased access to the civil justice system for Spanish-speaking Ohioans.

To further reach Spanish-speaking users, we developed a relationship with La Mega Media, the largest Hispanic media platform spanning the state of Ohio and reaching into Pittsburgh and Northern Kentucky. La Mega ran Ohio Legal Help public service announcements in Spanish and helped us reach their 300,000 radio listeners.

Our work to expand our content and self-help tools to a broader audience did not stop there. Through a partnership with the Ohio Youth Advisory Board, we also launched a youth and foster law content module this past year. The Ohio Youth Advisory Board is a statewide organization of young people (aged 14-24) who have experienced foster care and acts as the voice that influences policies and practices that affect all youth who have or will experience out-of-home care.

Thanks to their expertise, foster youth can come to Ohio Legal Help to see what legal rights they have and learn about programs that may be able to help them navigate different challenges. In order to meet foster youth where they are with technology, it was important that the content and self-help tools be mobile-first. Incorporating fairness into design can transform lives.

financials
board and advisory committee
our team

Our team

Susan Choe
Executive Director

Rachel Harris
Content Manager

Matthew Keister
Product Manager

Sangeetha Natarajan
Forms + Data Specialist

Diana Wiebe
Communications + Program Manager

thank you

In 2023 and beyond, Ohio Legal Help will continue working to empower Ohioans to understand their legal options, make informed decisions and connect to the right resources for their needs. We will keep using technology and innovation to help Ohio families navigate the justice system and improve their lives.

We could not do this work without the support of our partners, funders, Board, and Advisory Committee. Thank you to all of our partners, funders, and supporters who have helped Ohio Legal Help achieve its mission of removing barriers so that Ohioans are empowered to resolve their legal issues.

Most of all, we are grateful and inspired by our users who let us know how Ohio Legal Help has helped them. They remain our most important voice in deciding what content to offer and how to design our tools. Jean* told us, "I feel confident that you have prepared me to take charge and not stress about this whole process. God bless you all and thanks for all the work you wonderful people do! I know what I have to do now."

Each day that we work to add new content, forms and features to the website, we are thinking of people like Jean.

*Names have been changed to protect user privacy.