What a good brief help question and answer system does
Somebody types a legal problem in their own words and wants to know what it means and what to do next. Here is what a good system does, in the order the work happens, with a question for you at each step.
Answer the questions on the parts you know from your own practice. The Commons team reads every answer, fixes what the list gets wrong, and takes the harder questions to the cohort working on this area.
A person writes what happened to them, not a legal category. Before any answer, the system has to work out where they are and what they are actually asking.
What a good system does
Take the question in the person’s own words, with no category to pick first.
Work out which jurisdiction they are in before answering, and ask when it cannot tell.
Classify the question to the shared list of legal issues, so questions can be counted and compared across organizations.
Work out which facts are missing that would change the answer, and ask for them first.
Notice when one question holds more than one legal problem, and take each one.
Carry earlier answers forward through the session, so the person does not repeat themselves.
What do you always have to ask before you can answer this?
Answer this
Part 2
Answering the legal question
The answer has to come from real content about that jurisdiction, in words the person can use, and it has to be honest about what depends on facts nobody has yet.
What a good system does
Take every legal statement from retrieved content rather than from what the model happens to know.
Name the legal issue in plain language, without the person having to know the doctrine.
State the rule that applies to this person’s place and situation rather than the general rule.
Say how the law applies to the facts the person gave, where the content supports it.
Separate what is settled from what depends on facts the person has not given.
Treat citations as something available on request, since a wall of citations is not an answer.
Give staff and navigators the supporting authority for each statement, on the same answer the public sees without it.
What it must never do
Give a rule, a form, or a contact from a different jurisdiction than the person’s.
What does a good answer to this kind of question look like in your office?
Answer this
Part 3
The plan for what to do next
An answer that explains the law and stops there leaves the person where they started. The plan is the part they act on.
What a good system does
Give an ordered list of steps rather than a description of the options.
Say for each step who does it, where it happens, and by when.
Tell the person what to gather or prepare before each step.
Give the plan in a form they can keep, printed, emailed, or saved.
Change the plan when the person says a step is not open to them.
What it must never do
Use the advice to see a lawyer as the substance of an answer, where the person could act for themselves.
Which step do people get stuck on?
Answer this
Part 4
Deadlines and dates
A wrong deadline is the fastest way to lose somebody a case, so this part never runs on generated text.
What a good system does
Work out every deadline in code that reads from one register of rules.
Trace every deadline to a pinpoint citation held in the knowledge base.
Count the days the way the rule counts them, including court days against calendar days, and the extensions for service and mailing.
Show the deadline as a date rather than only as a number of days.
Say when a deadline has probably passed, and give the options that remain.
Escalate straight away when the person names a hearing or a filing date that is close.
Which deadline in this area gets miscounted where you are?
Answer this
Part 5
Forms and documents
Naming the wrong form, or an old version of the right one, sends somebody to the counter to be turned away.
What a good system does
Name the form by its number and current revision rather than by description.
Link to the form as the issuing authority publishes it, rather than to a copy.
Confirm the form matches the jurisdiction and the kind of proceeding before recommending it.
Explain what the form does and what happens after it is filed.
Hand off to a guided interview or an assembly tool where one exists for that form.
Notice when a form version has changed, and stop recommending the old one.
What it must never do
Write a court form, a pleading, or a filing from scratch.
Which forms do people get wrong in your court?
Answer this
Part 6
Handing off to a person
Some of these questions end with a person, and a referral that is vague or out of date wastes the only attempt somebody makes.
What a good system does
Name specific organizations with contact details rather than telling the person to find a lawyer.
Match every referral to the person’s jurisdiction, issue, and likely eligibility.
Carry the current hours, the intake mode, and the languages served, and show them.
Say what to expect, including what to bring, what will be asked, and how long the wait tends to be.
Say what to do when the place is closed at the moment the person is reading.
Pass the session into intake with the person’s consent, so they do not start over.
What do people need to know before they make a referral call?
Answer this
Part 7
Refusing, and spotting danger
Knowing when not to answer is part of the work, and so is noticing when the person is in danger rather than in a legal process.
What a good system does
Refuse when the search returns nothing good enough, rather than answering from general knowledge.
Screen every message for a high-risk situation and interrupt the flow when one appears.
Send a detected emergency to a specific named resource, including emergency services where that is right.
Say what the practical risk is before the person acts on a right that is dangerous to use without help.
Log every refusal with the question that caused it, and review that log on a stated schedule.
Say plainly when a matter is outside what the system covers, and say what is outside before the person asks.
What it must never do
Use a blanket disclaimer that puts somebody off a step they could safely take.
When does a good system here refuse to answer?
Answer this
Part 8
Language, access, and dignity
The answer has to reach the person who asked, in their language, on the phone they have, without talking down to them.
What a good system does
Answer in the language the person used, for the whole session.
Measure quality separately in each language, on questions written by speakers of that language.
Write to a stated reading level and test against it, and offer the same answer at another level on request.
Leave the person able to deal with the problem rather than dependent on paid help.
Acknowledge how hard the situation is without lecturing or blaming.
Work with a screen reader and on a slow mobile connection.
What it must never do
Give different information based on an identity the person did not disclose, or take a side in a dispute where their role has not been established.
What does a condescending answer look like to you?
Answer this
Part 9
Supervision and measurement
A question and answer system drifts quietly, so somebody has to watch it with real conversations and a fixed set of questions.
What a good system does
Log every answer with what content it used and what each automated check returned.
Keep the content in one place and push updates to the retrieval layer automatically.
Hold a fixed set of questions with verified answers, and run it before every change to content, prompt, or model.
Have a qualified person review a sample of real conversations on a stated schedule, and route the high-risk ones to review automatically.
Strip personal information before logging, and publish how long logs are kept and how they are deleted.
Measure where people give up, separately for each way into the system.
Record the model name and version with every answer, so results still mean something after an upgrade.
Commission an independent audit at a stated interval and be able to publish the result.
Feed the refusal log back into content planning as the ranked list of what to write next.
What would the person watching this need to see each month?
Answer this
What happens to what you write
Every note comes to the Commons team. We read it against the detailed agenda, correct what is wrong, and publish a new version saying what changed. The questions that need practitioners to argue them out go to the cohort for that area.
A note about one line is as useful as a note that adds a whole step. If what you know is which form number your court actually accepts, write about that.
The two agendas for this workflow
You are reading this one
Step-by-step agenda
This is the first round, and it collects what the people who do this work say a tool has to do, in the order the work happens and in plain words. Read it to argue with it, to correct it, and to say what your jurisdiction needs.
