The title of the content as it appears to the user. Use the actual title from the website or document — "How to Respond to an Eviction Notice" not an internal label.
Field slug: title
The Content Index catalogs the actual legal help materials available to the public — the guides on your website, the forms in your court's document library, the self-help videos, the document assembly interviews, the FAQ pages. Each row represents one piece of content.
This table doesn't link to Organizations or Services the way Services links to Organizations. Content is standalone — a guide might be published by a court, used by a legal aid group, and recommended by a hotline. It lives on its own and is matched to user needs independently.
Why index content separately from services? Because the same person who needs a service referral often also needs a guide to understand their rights, a form to fill out, or a video explaining what to expect in court. Content matching is a different kind of help — it's about finding the right information, at the right reading level, for the right jurisdiction, at the right phase of someone's legal journey.
Required fields
Title
RequiredURL
RequiredThe direct link to the content. This should take someone straight to the guide, form, or tool — not to a landing page they have to navigate from.
Field slug: url
Jurisdiction
RequiredWhat jurisdiction does this content apply to? Link to your Jurisdictions reference table, which uses FIPS codes as machine-readable identifiers. A guide about California eviction law should link to the California jurisdiction record; a guide about Cook County small claims should link to the Cook County record.
Field slug: jurisdiction
Never free text. Jurisdiction must always be a linked record to your Jurisdictions table with standardized names and FIPS codes. This is what makes geographic matching reliable.
Recommended fields
These are what make content findable and matchable. Without them, you have a URL list. With them, you have an index that AI tools, court navigators, and hotline operators can search intelligently.
Description
RecommendedA brief description of what this content covers and who it's for. One to three sentences. This is what appears in search results and what AI tools read to decide whether to recommend this content to someone.
Field slug: description
Content format
RecommendedWhat kind of artifact is this? Not what legal topic it covers — but what form it takes. A single resource can be multiple formats (a guide that includes an embedded form-assembly tool).
Field slug: content_format
| Option | What it is |
|---|---|
| written-guide | Article, explainer, guide, or topic page — general information about a legal topic |
| how-to | Step-by-step instructions for doing something specific — responding to a lawsuit, filing a form, completing a process |
| faq | Question-and-answer format |
| document-assembly | A guided interview that generates completed legal documents (built in tools like A2J Author, Docassemble, Suffolk LIT Lab tools, etc.) |
| fillable-form | A PDF or web form the user fills out directly, or a downloadable blank form |
| video | Video explainer, tutorial, or recorded workshop |
| podcast | Audio content — podcast episodes, recorded presentations |
| decision-tree | Branching logic, flowchart, or eligibility screener |
| checklist | A step-by-step task list or preparation checklist |
If you already have content categories: Common existing labels map directly — "Articles Guides" → written-guide, "Step-by-Step How-To" → how-to, "FAQ" → faq, "Document or Form Guided Interview" → document-assembly, "Form Document" → fillable-form, "Videos" → video, "Podcast" → podcast, "Flowcharts Decision Trees" → decision-tree. You can keep your own labels alongside these standard slugs.
Legal issues covered
RecommendedWhat legal topics does this content address? Link to records in your Legal Issues table using LIST taxonomy codes. Be specific — a guide about responding to an eviction notice should use HO-02-03-00-00, not just the top-level housing code.
Field slug: list_codes
Language
RecommendedWhat language or languages is this content available in? If you have separate URLs for different translations, each language version can be its own row, or you can tag one row with multiple languages and use a separate "Spanish URL" field for the alternate link.
Field slug: languages
Uses the same ISO 639 code options as the other tables — en, es, zh-cmn, vi, etc. See the Organizations page for the full list.
Content level
RecommendedIs this content written for the general public or for legal professionals? A self-represented litigant reading a guide needs plain-language content; an attorney researching case law needs technical detail. Matching the right level to the right reader prevents frustration.
Field slug: content_level
| Option | Meaning |
|---|---|
| public | Written for the general public — plain language, avoids legal jargon, assumes no legal background |
| professional | Written for attorneys, advocates, or legal professionals — uses legal terminology, assumes legal background |
Legal position
RecommendedIs this content written from the perspective of a particular party in a legal matter? In an eviction case, a guide for tenants (defendants) is very different from a guide for landlords (plaintiffs). Matching on legal position prevents sending a tenant to a landlord's guide and vice versa.
Field slug: legal_position
| Option | Meaning |
|---|---|
| neutral | Not written for one side — general information about rights, processes, or the law |
| plaintiff | Written for the person initiating an action — the petitioner, applicant, or claimant |
| defendant | Written for the person responding to an action — the respondent, tenant in eviction, debtor in collections |
This field is especially important for housing, family law, and debt content where the same legal issue looks completely different depending on which side you're on.
Publisher / source site
RecommendedWhich website or organization published this content? Helpful for tracking source authority and for users who want to find more content from the same publisher.
Field slug: publisher
Optional fields
These add depth to your content index. Especially useful when your catalog grows large and you need finer-grained matching.
Jurisdiction depth
OptionalHow location-specific is this content? Separate from the jurisdiction field (which says which jurisdiction), this says how narrow the content is. This matters for knowing whether a guide from another state might still be useful for general understanding.
Field slug: jurisdiction_depth
| Option | Meaning |
|---|---|
| federal | Covers federal law — applies across all states |
| state-specific | Written for a specific state's law or procedures |
| county-local | Specific to a county, city, or local jurisdiction |
| court-specific | Specific to a particular court's local rules and procedures |
| universal | Not jurisdiction-dependent — general legal literacy, negotiation tips, emotional support resources |
Phases of legal journey
OptionalAt what phase of someone's legal journey is this content most relevant? Uses the same options as the Services table: understanding-rights, prevention-planning, negotiation-resolution, application-filing, pre-lawsuit, responding-to-action, active-case, post-decision, emergency.
Field slug: phases_served
Audience served
OptionalIs this content specifically for a particular audience? Most legal help content is for the general public and doesn't need this tag. But a guide written specifically for veterans, or a toolkit for immigrant communities, should be tagged so it surfaces when someone from that audience is looking for help.
Field slug: audience_served
Same options as the Organizations table.
Spanish URL
OptionalIf this content has a Spanish-language version at a different URL, put the link here. This is a convenience field for the most common translation — other language URLs can go in the notes field or be added as separate content records.
Field slug: url_spanish
Last reviewed date
OptionalWhen was this content last reviewed for legal accuracy? Stale legal information can be worse than no information — laws change, forms get updated, procedures shift. Even an approximate date is valuable.
Field slug: last_reviewed_date
Currency status
OptionalHow current is this content? You can set this manually, or compute it automatically from the last reviewed date.
Field slug: currency_status
| Option | Meaning |
|---|---|
| current | Reviewed or updated within the last 12 months |
| aging | Last reviewed 1–2 years ago — may still be accurate but should be verified |
| stale | Not reviewed in over 2 years — use with caution |
| unknown | Review date not known |
Content notes
OptionalAnything the structured fields don't capture: known limitations, specific court or form numbers referenced, accessibility features, relationship to other content, planned updates.
Field slug: content_notes
Example: "Covers California eviction process under AB 1482 rent cap. Does not address commercial evictions or mobile home parks. Includes embedded document assembly for UD-105 Answer form. Spanish translation in progress."
Content safety fields (coming soon): As AI-generated legal content proliferates, we're developing additional fields for content provenance (human-authored vs. AI-generated), accuracy verification (who reviewed it, when, against what law), and disclaimer presence. These will follow the same slug-based pattern and will be added to the standard as they're ready.
Keep your internal categories too. If your content management system already has its own classification — like internal category tags, topic hierarchies, or editorial workflow statuses — keep them. The Legal Help Commons standard fields sit alongside your internal fields, not instead of them. You can map between them using a crosswalk or an Airtable formula.
Next steps
Now that you have all three tables, you have a complete picture: who provides help (Organizations), what help they provide (Services), and what information resources exist (Content Index). All three share the same vocabulary for audiences, languages, legal issues, and jurisdictions — so matching works across all of them.
If you want to understand how these fields connect to Schema.org markup on your website or the HSDS / Open Referral standard used by 211 and other directory systems, see the Crosswalk.