For me, one of the best things about working at Illinois Legal Aid Online is getting to be a part of really cool projects. Last Thursday, in front of 420 Illinois advocates at our statewide conference, we got to premier our latest video project, Doing Justice: Stories from the Front Line of Legal Aid, which in my opinion is one of our coolest projects ever. Forget the technology (for us geeks: the web version of the video is in widescreen, high-definition running on an Adobe Flex-based player), it’s the content of the video that makes this such a great project.

Susan Muirhead, ILAO’s multimedia producer (and video producer, director, editor, etc) put seven Illinois advocates in front of the camera and let them talk about what they do. Prompted with questions like what was your best day in legal aid to what was your worst day, these seven “interviews” represent some of the best of working in legal aid, how sometimes it sucks (but we keep on doing it), and brings home some of the challenges facing those who work in legal aid. There is also a great segment titled “You know you’re a legal aid lawyer when…” full of statements that I suspect many advocates can relate to. For me personally, this video is a reminder of why I'm here.

Thursday and Friday, Susan ran a video booth at the conference where advocates from across Illinois were able to come in and tell their stories. We don't quite know what we will do with all of that footage (yet) but expect to see some of it on IllinoisLegalAdvocate in the future. The video can be found at http://www.illinoislegaladvocate.org/doingJustice and for more information on the project, contact Susan Muirhead at smuirhead @ illinoislegalaid.org.

--Gwen Daniels
Illinois Legal Aid Online