Thanks to a grant from the Pro Bono Innovation Fund (PBIF), PSLS  undertook an intake improvement project with A2J Tech. Our team visited the PSLS offices in-person to speak  to a variety of team members about their intake processes and pain points. A2J Tech identified, among others, 3 major challenges:

• PSLS, as one of the largest legal aid organizations in its area, has a vast network of case acceptance priorities, each with nuanced limitations or exceptions depending on funding or attorney capacity at the local office.  In order to standardize intake processes across the offices and to improve communication over such a widely-spread out team, as well as improve the placement of cases appropriately to the different offices, the team needed to be able to communicate nuanced directions and limitations to case acceptance priorities, and have these changes implemented in real time. 
• PSLS had over 200 phone numbers, some no longer in use, and some linking to a behemoth phone tree that clients found difficult to navigate. This not only led to aggravated clients, but also overwhelmed staff who had to bear the brunt of their frustrations on top of regular casework.
• PSLS prizes its relationship with its community partners, but their case referrals were often sent to individual staff members, which could easily become lost if those members left the organization or were out of office. 

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