free online legal help

this video provides information about free online legal resources for court users including legal information brochures, interactive forms and videos. this video will review how to find and use these resources. legal aid has more than 100 legal information brochures available online at www.lawhelp.org/hi. you can also find these resources on legal aid's website www.legalaidhawaii.org under self-help, brochures. the lawhelp home page is organized by topic and includes family and juvenile, consumer, disaster relief, housing, public benefits, immigration, tax, life planning and seniors. select one of the topics to find resources including general information

about your legal rights, the law and the courts, legal forms and more. when you select a legal topic, the next page will have a list of subtopics. for example under the topic of family and juvenile, the subtopics include divorce, custody/visitation, and domestic violence. you can select a subtopic to find a list of self-help information which can include legal information brochures, interactive forms and links to other resources. legal aid's legal information brochures contain information about the law and can provide directions about what steps you can take. divorce law in hawaii and what do if you receive divorce papers from

your spouse are examples of brochures available.the brochures can be printed or saved as a pdf. the lawhelp website has a search box where you can type in your legal issue. for example if you type the words "security deposit" and select search, a list of resources will appear related to the term "security deposit". this is a quick way to find a list of resources related to a specific legal topic. legal aid in partnership with the hawaii state judiciary developed online online interactive interviews utilizing a2j author document assembly software. the interactive interviews ask a series of questions to complete a legal form or court approved

document. the interview also provides helpful information and instructions for what to do next. the interviews are available online at www.lawhelp.org/hi. you can also find these resources on legal aid's website www.legalaidhawaii.org under self-help, a2j self help interviews. the lawhelp website’s home page displays a green box called form helper. click on this box to go to the main page for the hawaii self-help interactive forms. this page lists all of the interviews that are available in a range of topics including family, consumer, housing, public benefits, individual rights and disaster relief.

select the interview you want to complete. you will be taken to a page which includes information about using self-help forms, technology safety, and what information you need to get started. this page also includes frequently asked questions and related materials for reference with links to legal information brochures. this is helpful to review before you start the interview. when you are ready, select the interview. a new browser window will open to the national server called lawhelp interactive. this server is safe and secure. you can choose to fill out your legal forms immediately by clicking proceed

or you can sign-up for an account. it is highly recommended to create an account so you can save your work. it may take you several sessions to complete an an interview or you may need to access the interview at a later time if you are missing information. the next page explains the terms of use. to use the forms you must acknowledge that the site does not give legal advice. second, this site is not for commercial use. and finally this site is for low-income people and self-represented litigants. after you review the terms of use, you must agree to the terms and select continue. you can now begin working on your legal forms. an avatar

will appear on the screen. she will ask simple and direct questions to get all the information needed to complete your legal form. as you complete the information and progress through the interview you will get closer to the court house. when you reach the court house the interview will be complete and your form will be automated with your responses. at the top of the screen you will see the ‘my progress bar’. if you click on the bar you can see the question you are on as well as the questions that you have answered. if you need to return to a previous screen for any reason, you can use the ‘my progress bar’ or click on the back button located to the left of the progress bar. once you

complete the questions on each screen select the continue button to move on to the next screen. if you cannot move on, check to make sure you have filled out all the required fields. if you do not have the information it is asking for, save your work and return to the program when you have the missing information. on some pages a learn more bubble will appear. if you click on this bubble, additional information will appear to help you answer the question. if for some reason you answer a question that stops you from continuing the program, it is only because the program is not right for your needs. this does not mean that you do not have a valid legal claim. if

this occurs, call the legal aid society of hawaii or attorney referral program. when you finish the interview you will be taken to a page to get your document. you can choose to save your answers or go back to the interview. select get document to download your legal document. it will download as either a word or pdf document. remember you are responsible for handling your own case. you are responsible for completing your next steps such as filing the form and representing yourself in court.