What is the Legal Services XML (LSXML) Coalition & Project?
A few pioneers in the legal aid community saw the vision for XML in the practice of poverty law. A group of organizations created a project to respond and further develop their initial vision.
In 2001, Marc Lauritsen and Richard Farell of Capstone Practice Systems wrote Toward A Legal Services Grid, which laid out a vision in which "disparate collections of texts and other resources pertinent to the legal needs of the poor [were] more easily shared, accessed, and coordinated." (Read their article here.)
The Legal Services XML Project (LSXML) is an effort to respond to this vision by creating XML standards that will allow programs to share information such as training manuals, briefs and pleadings, and forms between different statewide websites, between websites and program case management systems, and even between case management systems and GIS mapping software.
The goal of LSXML is to make the exchange of data between various members of the equal justice community easy and efficient by creating standards for sharing data, managing pilot testing of those standards, and working with providers to implement and train users on those standards.
The LSXML Project is a working coalition of Pro Bono Net, NTAP, LSC, and Illinois Legal Aid Online to convene vendors and program staff on applications for using XML.
LSXML Tools
LSXML Project has created and maintains several tools which form the core standards for XML projects in the legal aid community. These include:
- The National Subject Matter Index (NSMI)
The NSMI is a directory of legal services problem types that provide consistent categorizing of legal issues, including legal content on statewide websites and legal matters in case management systems. Read more about the NSMI here.
- National Subject Matter Index Updater Tool
The NSMI Index Updater Tool is the coalition's mechanism for keeping the NSMI updated. Submit an update to the NSMI here.
- A Document Type Definition (DTD) to Share Legal Information Documents
This DTD defines the elements necessary to effectively share information about website content with other applications (such as other websites and case management systems). Common elements in that standard include title, description, link, problem code, and audience.
- A Schema for Case Management Data
The Schema provides a common way to share case information between applications, including CMS to CMS transfers, between websites and CMS systems, between CMS and GIS, or between CMS and document assembly. Maine, Iowa, Michigan, and Ohio have all worked on projects using this schema. Seek more information about the Schema here.
- The National RSS Server
The Legal Services XML group has created a National RSS server to serve as a central database for legal aid RSS feeds. The RSS server supports news, events, and calendar feeds. Currently, the server is home to feeds from NLADA, LSC, CLASP, MIE, Illinois Legal Aid Online, Massachussetts Legal Services. To learn more about how to use the RSS server, read Using XML to Share Content: RSS for News, Jobs, and Events.
