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Virtual Court: Video Game Could Help Litigants Who Don't Have A Lawyer [The Hartford Courant](Hartford Courant (CT) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Sept. 16--In the online world, would-be pilots pretend to land airplanes, medical residents replicate surgeries, and future investors manage fantasy portfolios in a virtual stock exchange in video games designed to simulate actual situations. Now, legal aid lawyers in Connecticut and NuLawLab of Boston's Northeastern University School of Law hope creating a video law game that puts litigants before a virtual judge will help the increasing numbers of people representing themselves in civil legal proceedings throughout the state and nation. Though the game is still in its early stages of development, the idea of demystifying the courtroom for those who cannot afford legal representation already has caught on internationally. The concept, with funding from the Legal Services Corporation's Technology Initiative Grants program, is vying for an Innovating Justice Award from the Hague Institute for the Internationalization of Law in the Netherlands. As of Monday afternoon, the Statewide Legal Services of Connecticut, NuLawLab and New Haven Legal Assistance project had received 788 votes, one of the top vote-getters in a field of 17 innovators. Voting at innovatingjustice.com/innovations or ctlawhelp.org/game ends on Wednesday. Dan Jackson, NuLawLab's executive director, said in the United States, about 80 percent of litigants in nearly every demographic group appear in court without lawyers to argue cases where there is a lot at stake -- the custody of children and child support, the loss of a home and debt collection. Gaming technology, Jackson said, is yet another tool the justice community can use to teach people going it alone in court how to address a judge, question a witness or offer documents into evidence. "We want to try and create an experience that will help diminish anxiety for self-represented parties by giving them the opportunity to practice before actually going to court," Jackson said. When the game goes online, it will be free. The top three selected for The Hague's innovating justice award go to a final round, which includes an invitation to The Hague. Jackson said a win would give the project high-profile recognition for the creative efforts of Connecticut's legal services community to address the issue and additional support for the project. A Staggering Increase Connecticut for years has seen increasing numbers of residents representing themselves in legal matters. The struggling economy and unemployment has made it especially difficult for litigants in civil and family cases to find affordable legal counsel. State Supreme Court Justice Chase T. Rogers discussed the trend during an April 2010 lecture she gave at the University of Hartford in which she cited a staggering statistic: The number of self-represented parties in civil cases in the state in 2005 -- 12,356 -- jumped to 26,252 by 2009, a 112 percent increase. And those numbers remained steady. Last year, there were 27,807 cases in the state's family courts with at least one self-represented party, 11,684 of which had both the plaintiff and the defendant representing themselves. The state's judicial branch has responded by forming the Self-Represented Parties Committee, a group of legal professionals who have worked since 2008 to find ways to help pro se litigants. Such improvements include the rewriting of legal forms in plain language, the posting of how-to videos on the judicial branch's website, setting up court service centers and public information desks and organizing a volunteer-attorney pilot program. Superior Court Judge Elliot N. Solomon, a member of the committee, said a video game simulating aspects of an actual legal proceeding could offer something other initiatives lack -- what it feels like to be in an actual courtroom. "When legal aid came to us and presented this idea to us, we viewed it as an access to justice program," Solomon said. "The judicial branch has spent a lot of time and effort making the courts more open and accessible. But even with those strides, a litigant going it alone without a lawyer still does not know what it is actually like to argue before a judge." Solomon added: "The hard part in all of this is to allay, to the extent that you can, the anxiety of someone walking into the courtroom. I don't know how you can give them a true experience until they actually get there, but I reviewed legal aid's plan and I felt it was a good way to some extent to help with the the anxiety that some feel." Online lawyering is already part of websites designed to familiarize people with the legal system. In the video game, "Argument Wars," players in the guise of cartoon lawyers in dark suits take on a virtual Supreme Court, arguing with the push of a button such landmark cases as Brown v. Board of Education and Miranda v. Arizona. The game, available at iCivics.org, a non-profit web-based project, was included in retired Associate U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's plan to use video games to help spark students' interest in the judicial system and increase their knowledge about how government works. 'Frustrated' And 'Overwhelmed' More and more video games are being created to do more than just entertain. Educators and gaming experts say games help users develop critical-thinking skills and enhance their understanding of whatever topic is at the heart of the game, whether it is to fine-tune a physics grade or further knowledge of economic and social issues. Gillian Smith, an assistant professor in Northeastern's Game Design Program, who is creating the law video game along with Casper Harteveld, also an assistant professor in the school's Game Design Program, said designers now look beyond entertainment when designing games, looking to further users' understanding of social issues and how to handle real-world problems. "Gaming holds a lot of promise," Smith said. Harteveld said one of the first steps in creating the game will be interviewing pro se litigants about what roadblocks they have encountered in court. A recent report by the National Self Represented Litigants Project in Canada said pro-se litigants within a short time "became disillusioned, frustrated, and in some cases overwhelmed by the complexity of their case and the amount of time it was consuming." Citing the report, Susan Garcia Nofi, executive director of New Haven Legal Assistance Association, said it shows that self-represented parties feel so out of their league when going to court and want more skills training. A virtual court experience, she said, is an engaging, non-threatening way to give them practice. Creation of an online game follows such self-help guides as how-to videos and comic books depicting courtroom scenarios, the latest tools self-represented parties are using when they can not afford a lawyer or qualify for legal aid. "No YouTube video is ever going to take the place of having a lawyer," Garcia Nofi said. "In a perfect world, we would want to be able to hire more lawyers. That's when the system works best because it was built on the idea that people would be represented. This is our way, though, of at least trying to level the playing field a little more. Gaming does have a way of getting some basic concepts across." Once the game is completed, it will be available at ctlawhelp.org. Garcia Nofi said the site received 121,736 visits in August, 20,883 of which were people in Connecticut. Harteveld said the project also reflects how the serious-games movement has grown since its beginnings in early 2000. "Greater interest in this kind of initiative requires people to rethink what gaming is," he said. "You can think of any type of domain and a game may be developed for that. The field is really maturing and growing in all kinds of directions." ___ (c)2014 The Hartford Courant (Hartford, Conn.) Visit The Hartford Courant (Hartford, Conn.) at www.courant.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |