An access-to-justice initiative tested in Clay County will soon be available to Floridians statewide.
The Florida Legal Access Gateway pilot program offered residents do-it-yourself-type help for dealing with simple divorces and landlord-tenant issues.
Clay Court Clerk Tara Green said the point was to see if the public needs this kind of hands-off legal guidance.
The answer, she said, was a resounding “yes.”
“There are a lot of people out there that really don’t understand or know how to use the legal system because they don’t know where to go to get the information. There were a lot of people, that’s what they were looking for…and it just wasn’t out there,” said Green.
Related: Free Legal Service For Low-Income Floridians Available Online
According to Green, more than 5,700 people visited the county’s legal portal. That site has since been removed and is being retooled for a statewide rollout, which Green said could take a couple of years.
The Gateway should be available to anyone seeking legal guidance, unlike the Florida Bar’s free-legal-answers website, which is only for low-income people.
That service is entering its second year.
Contact reporter Cyd Hoskinson at choskinson@wjct.org, 904-358-6351 and on Twitter @cydwjctnews.
