Empire Justice Web Statistics Grow Steadily

August 1, 2007

Author: Nancy C. Krupski

As the technical assistance and support center for civil legal services, one of the things we do is maintain an every-growing website that brings to the community a variety of resources to help in their work.

The general website – www.empirejustice.org – is our hub.  Here you will find all kinds of information and materials organized by substantive law topic.  Our main topic areas, listed on the right side of the page, include:

• Child Care
• Child Support
• Civil Legal Services
• Civil Rights
• Consumer & Community Development
• Disability Benefits
• Domestic Violence
• Education
• Employment
• Health
• Housing
• Immigrant Rights
• Language Access Resources
• Public Benefits

Within each of those areas are numerous sub-areas and cross-cutting areas which will pop up on a left-sided menu.  We currently have over 1,800 pages on our web, covering over 325 discrete categories.  Each page contains any number of documents.

From January through June this year, the website has seen almost 140,000 visits or “sessions” – an average of 764 per day.  There have been over 652,000 page views, with an average of 3,600 per day.  We also maintain the OnLine Resource Center with the Western New York Law Center (WNYLC) which can be accessed through either our website or their’s at www.wnylc.net.

The ORC contains a number of vibrant resources, including a number of closed areas that are “for advocates only.”  These include the Domestic Violence Case Law Update, Benefits Law Database, Resources for Disability Benefits Advocates, and the Computer Assistance Tenant Representation Advocacy Program (CATRAP).  Also included in the OnLine Resource Center are a number of public resources, including policy directives and forms from state and federal agencies and resources in Health Care, which contains information on Medicaid, Family Health Plus, Child Health Plus, Managed Care, Medicare and Part D.

This public area also houses the Fair Hearing Bank which provides registered users access to a growing number of Fair Hearing decisions rendered in areas including Public Benefits, Food Stamps, Child Care and Medicaid.

We have seen 290 new registered users in the fist six months of 2007 and now have just over 3,100 registered users.  We’ve also continue to see an increase in Fair Hearing submissions and the Bank now has over 2,230 summarized and searchable Fair Hearing decisions with links to redacted, printable versions of the decisions themselves.

The Fair Hearing Bank is a unique resource – one that depends on the community to build it.  Each decision that is added to the Bank is submitted by advocates from across the state who recognize and submit local decisions that have the potential for statewide impact.  Knowing about and being able to retrieve these decisions – both favorable and unfavorable – helps other advocates in their representation of clients.
As a way of recognizing the community contributions, each month we identify an advocate who has submitted a hearing with far-reaching impact and offer him/her the Fair Hearing of the Month award.  The advocate receives a certificate (suitable for framing!) and the Hearing is highlighted on the front page of the Empire Justice web site, so keep those decisions coming!

New to the OnLine Resource Center is the On Line Training Center, an area we hope to grow in the coming years.  There are currently 13 viewable training sessions with Continuing Legal Education (CLE) credit available to viewers.  Between January and June of this year, these trainings were played by 390 unique visitors.

We hope to continue to build and grow these resources so that we can best meet the needs of the community.  We hope you find them helpful and always welcome your feedback