the Legal aid society of new york
LAS SharePoint Portal
Client Overview
Since 1876, The Legal Aid Society has provided free legal
services to New York City residents who are unable to afford
private counsel. Annually, through their criminal, civil
and juvenile offices in all five boroughs, their staff handles
about 250,000 cases for poor families and individuals. Their
clients are as diverse as New York City itself: homeless
children, newly arrived immigrants, the elderly poor. The
services they provide reflect the entire gamut of their
clients?? needs.
By contract with the City, the Society serves as the primary defender of poor people prosecuted in the State court system. Although other public defender agencies provide assigned counsel services in New York City, the Society continues to play the central defense role in the City??s criminal justice system. As the City??s largest provider of defense services, the Division has long been active in the struggle to find more effective solutions to drug abuse, and recently established a program that provides integrated defense and social work services to mentally ill, addicted clients, to ensure that they can secure treatment and housing after their criminal cases are concluded.
The Society is in a unique position to testify about the injustices created by the Rockefeller Drug Laws. Their Criminal Defense Division represented defendants in more than 57,000 drug cases in a single year. In both their criminal and our civil work, they are confronted daily with the inequities and tragedies created by these harsh laws.
Client Objective
Legal Aid was looking to modernize its information technology
assets to allow a single point of access for all documents,
calendars, and other data systems for its 1600
employees located in 11 different offices across New York.
Glyphic Solution
Glyphic Technologies was selected to architect Legal Aid??s
multi-practice SharePoint portal accessible to all 1,600
employees spread across 11 separate offices. Glyphic architected,
designed and developed a site that included the
following practice groups and divisions: Criminal, Civil, Juvenile,
Law Reform, Pro Bono, Administrative Department,
Professional Support, Human Resources, MIS, Training &
Library. This allowed for the practice groups and divisions
to locate information specific to their practice.
Search Functionality
Glyphic Technologies, Inc. also designed a search tool that
indexed all content and documents at the firm, making all
Microsoft Word and Adobe PDF documents searchable on
the SharePoint Portal. The search tool is able to generate
context based reports, similar to Westlaw and Lexis search
engines, highlighting terms and ranking them by relevance.
Document Management & Document Security Functionality
Glyphic designed and developed a tool for the ??bulk
uploading? of documents. The tool enables Legal Aid users
to assign certain metadata elements to some or all
documents in the group to be uploaded. For example, if
50 documents were produced in response to a discovery
request, the user can ??bulk upload? the 50 documents
with the bulk upload tool that enables the user to assign
metadata elements that are common to all the documents
such as date uploaded, category of document, and users
who have access to the document. Key metadata elements
for a document are displayed by the document libraries in
an easily-read chart or display. Key fields include the document
title, date, category, and author. Each document
is assigned one or more metadata elements that specify
which users, or groups of users, may access the document.
External Access & Site Security Functionality
Glyphic architected and implemented the Legal Aid SharePoint site so that it is accessible from outside the firewall
in two ways: to employees wishing to access the site via
the Legal Aid Citrix server; and to non-employees who have
been provided a login and password by Legal Aid. Glyphic
provided an authentication mechanism for non-employee
users who have rights to access the SharePoint site and to
specify those areas of the portal to which they have access.
External users have access to the site only to the extent specifically granted. The site administrator has the ability to specify portals, or sub-pages of a portal, that are accessible only to specified users (employees and/or authorized non-employee users) who have been granted rights to access those pages.
User Forms & Blogs
Glyphic implemented user forms to allow users to complete
information and submit it to the portal administrator.
For example, the Human Resources portal provides
users with a form for making selections regarding their
employee health benefits or concerning other aspects of
their employment which now provides for an automated
workflow. Glyphic also implemented the site with the ability
to host a blog in which authorized users can post new
messages. The Legal Aid SharePoint portal administrator is
also able to grant authorization to users to post new messages
to the blog.
Architecture, Configuration & Custom SharePoint Portal Development Training
Glyphic was responsible for the architecture, configuration
and implementation of all software and hardware.
Glyphic also provided Legal Aid with customized SharePoint Portal development training.
Tools/Technologies
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, SQL Server 2005.
One of the keys to our success is the trusted advisor relationships we build with our clients. Our customers have come to rely on Glyphic to:
> Provide strategic road maps for their specific environment. A Road Map is compiled with
information Glyphic has garnered by closely
working in their environment with their
technical staff.
> Provide focused briefings and technical data to various levels in the organization while avoiding inundating clients in a sea of irrelevant information and data.
> Educate clients on the latest vendor information and market trends involving their systems.
> Help decipher the vendor maze.
> Provide expertise for faster, more successful absorption of software.
Glyphic works through and cleans up the details that all too often have the propensity to fall through the cracks; in short, Glyphic provides highly personalized service that is second to none.
> Provide focused briefings and technical data to various levels in the organization while avoiding inundating clients in a sea of irrelevant information and data.
> Educate clients on the latest vendor information and market trends involving their systems.
> Help decipher the vendor maze.
> Provide expertise for faster, more successful absorption of software.
Glyphic works through and cleans up the details that all too often have the propensity to fall through the cracks; in short, Glyphic provides highly personalized service that is second to none.
