This powerpoint covers the CLUE program (Client Legal Utility Engine) developed by Matthew Stubenberg, IT Director at Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service. It also covers the TRACE program developed at Maryland Legal Aid. The programs discover unknown client issues by checking their information across a number of public databases. Currently it checks to see if you have an expungeable record, a water bill, and a current property tax.
1. JANUARY 15, 2016
DISCOVERABLE CLIENT ISSUES
USING PUBLIC BIG DATA
Russ Bloomquist
MARYLAND LEGAL AID
Matthew Stubenberg
MARYLAND VOLUNTEER LAWYERS SERVICE
2. CLUE/TRACE OVERVIEW
1. Client applies for services at Maryland Legal Aid or
MVLS.
2. Name, DOB, and address are run through a series
of databases to see if there are any hits.
3. If there is a hit the results are analyzed to see if
there is a problem.
4. If there’s a red flag the attorney is automatically
alerted.
3. PUBLIC DATABASES & EXAMPLES
Every State has public record databases. Public
record databases contain information from state
and local government agencies including: utilities
records, tax records, housing records, court
records and more.
EXAMPLE DATABASES:
1. Case Search:
http://casesearch.courts.state.md.us/casesearch
2. Water bills:
http://cityservices.baltimorecity.gov/water
3. Property Taxes:
http://cityservices.baltimorecity.gov/realproperty
4. WHY EXPUNGEMENTS?
An expungeable record can cause many legal
ramifications including:
1.Employment Discrimination
2.Housing Discrimination
3.Financial Hardship
4.And Other Issues…
5. WHY WATER BILLS?
A water bill over $350 in Maryland can result
in major legal issues for low-income people
across the state including:
1. Tax Sale Foreclosure
2. Bankruptcy
3. Eviction/Homelessness
4. 40% rise in water bill rates over the last 3 years.
5. Utility Shut Off – Life health and safety
6. WHY PROPERTY TAXES?
Overdue property taxes in Maryland can result
in major legal issues for low-income people
across the state including:
1.Tax Sale Foreclosure
2.Bankruptcy
3.Eviction/Homelessness
4.Loss of home
5.Utility Shut Off – Life health and safety
7. WHAT IS DATA SCRAPING?
Data scraping (also called web scraping) is the
process of extracting information from
websites. Data scraping focuses on
transforming unstructured website content into
structured data which can be stored in a
database. The Google bot is a perfect example
of data scarping. The Google bot comes to your
website and looks at all your content and then
stores that content in its database that users can
search on a website called Google.com.
10. Maryland Legal Aid - ANALYTICS
97%
3%
Expungements
Water Bill
Property Tax
Breakdown of Discovered Cases
70%
40%
18%
• 97% of clients opted into the program
Only 22% of applications had a discoverable
issue
• 70% of clients had unpaid taxes over $750
• 40% of clients had a water bill over $350
• 18% of records found were expungeable
Program Participation
12. 62%
38%
Expungeable Not Expungeable
MVLS – Expungement ANALYTICS
• The program successfully found criminal
cases for 25% of clients with an average
of 5.3 cases per client
• 62% of those cases are expungeable
13. 22%
78%
Water Bills Over $350
Less than $350
MVLS – Water Bill ANALYTICS
• The program successfully found a water
bill for 50% of Baltimore City clients
• 22% of clients had a water bill over $350
• 26% of clients had a shutoff notice in
place.
14. 16%
84%
Unpaid taxes
No Tax issue found
MVLS – Property Tax ANALYTICS
• The program successfully found a property
tax issues for 44% of Baltimore City clients
• 16% of clients had unpaid property taxes
• 41% were principal residences
• 16% had applied for the City homestead tax
credit
• 6% had received the State Homeowners tax
credit
15. LESSONS LEARNED
o Decide what data you want to record
early on.
o Spend a lot of time crafting your
database and focus on the format in
which you will store the information.
o Build each piece as an individual
component so it can be shared with other
organizations that want to implement it.
16. HOW TO IMPLEMENT
1) Identify public and free databases in your
state.
2) Will that information significantly benefit
your organizations purpose? (Think both on
the individual level and the database as a
whole)
3) Estimate the success rate of being able to
pull the information or connect it with an
individual client and whether that rate is
high enough.
4) Estimate cost of both building the system
AND connecting the system to your current
Case Management System.
17. ETHICS
1) Finding issues our clients didn’t ask us to
find.
2) Public databases that prohibit data
scraping.
3) Security of collected public data.
