What
A Resource Sharing tool presents a collection of materials on a legal issue, in a public site (or physical place) so that many others can use these materials for their own work. It could be user-facing, for people trying to understand their legal issue and pursue help for themselves. Or it could be for a community of professionals, to pool the work product and research that they have done on their own to be used and remixed by their colleagues.
When
Set up a Resource Sharing tool when there is a topic that professionals and laypeople need to understand details about it — and you have documents, maps, examples, templates, etc. that could help them with this topic.
Why
Use a Resource Sharing tool to give users — especially whose who are using limited professional assistance or doing it on their own — a bank of things that can help them understand the law better and know how to use the legal system to their own benefit.
It also helps other legal professionals to borrow from the resources that you have gathered, to efficiently spread expertise and legal knowledge.
How
What makes for a good resource?
- Information is staged
- Resources are not exclusively in PDF attachments, but they are in the web experience to be seen immediately and copy/pasted
- Minimal clicks to get to the resource
- All the resources are dated, and with ‘expiry dates’
- The platform makes clear recommendations on what outside resources or links to be clicking to
- The resources’ contents are searchable from central places — you don’t need to go into the resource itself to find what’s inside, or to search for a specific thing
- Resources are differentiated: guides, vs. sample examples, vs. forms, vs. others