A new legal kiosk is set up at the Division of Community Care in Northampton and is believed to be the first in Hampshire County. STAFF PHOTO/ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL
NORTHAMPTON — Inside of the Division of Community Care building downtown, there stands a new desk, with a computer desktop and a scanning device mounted on top of it. On the computer screen, various applications are displayed on the homepage, with typical Microsoft Office and Zoom apps found on most computers with another one unique to this desktop — an application titled “Kiosk Home.”
The computer system set up is known as a legal kiosk, the first of its kind set up in Hampshire County. The kiosk is the result of a collaboration between the city of Northampton’s Department of Health and Human Services and the Center for Social Justice at Western New England University’s School of Law.
Dina Fein, the interim director of the Center for Social Justice, founded in 2019 at WNE’s law school to provide pro bono legal assistance for issues like consumer debt and gender-affirming care, said the legal kiosk program had been started to address issues of digital inequality for accessing legal resources online, a problem highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The purpose of the kiosk is to both bridge the digital divide, make digital tools available to folks that may not have their own access to devices or the internet and assist them in obtaining legal information, legal assistance and access to the court system,” Fein said. “We have trained the staff at host sites to be able to navigate the kiosk content effectively and assist members of the public in doing so.”
Fein said the DCC is a good location for the kiosk because its a centralized location that already has a steady stream of people likely to need the service. The DCC opened last year as an alternative response unit to address mental health, homelessness and social inequities in the city.
“We’re interested in placing these kiosks at sites where there are a critical mass of people coming through who are likely to need legal information and assistance,” Fein said. “When we spoke with members of the community about such sites in Hampshire County and Northhampton, DCC was identified as a place that folks thought would fit those criteria.”
The kiosk allows visitors to apply for free legal help, check court records, complete and submit forms for court cases and scan and print documents. Computers are installed with various applications, including Zoom, allowing those using the kiosk to meet with lawyers or attend court hearings from the DCC building.
In addition, the kiosk can also provide resources about various legal topics, such as immigration, debt and health care-related laws. Northampton Health Commissioner Merridith O’Leary said the kiosks could be used to help with legal matters relating to housing insecurity, a key issue that the DCC is looking to address in the city.
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“It can give them the eviction procedures, it can give them templates and forms that need to be filled out, (such as) family law, resources for divorce, child custody, child support and domestic violence,” O’Leary said. “There’s a lot of different legal issues that you can get solid information from.”
Although the kiosk is the first of its kind in Hampshire County, there are kiosks in Holyoke and Greenfield, as well as several in Springfield, some of which are open 24 hours a day. The Northampton kiosk is available during normal hours of operation of the DCC, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Fein added that the center was looking to expand its kiosk system to additional locations in the future.
“We’re looking to place others elsewhere in western Massachusetts and beyond,” Fein said. “None that are far enough along to identify, but we are in discussions with others that have expressed interest in hosting a case.”
Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.
