Legal Services NYC Awarded $2.5 Million to Connect More Than 85 Legal Service Providers Across New York State

The IOLA Fund awarded the grant to Legal Services NYC and its partners to build a first-of-its-kind statewide knowledge sharing platform that will help providers share resources, work more efficiently, and better serve low-income New Yorkers.

New York, NY — Legal Services NYC (LSNYC) has been awarded a $2.5 million grant from the New York State Interest on Lawyer Account (IOLA) to create a first-of-its-kind statewide knowledge sharing platform to assist legal service providers across New York. In partnership with Scale Justice, Legal Services of Long Island, and Legal Aid Society of Mid-New York, LSNYC will design, build, and implement the platform to empower more than 85 legal providers across the state to share, discover, and reuse legal resources and tools to better serve low-income New Yorkers. 

The knowledge platform will be developed and led operationally by LSNYC and governed by a council of organizations from across New York State. LSNYC brings extensive experience in knowledge management, having developed an internal Knowledge Management platform that won the LexPrize award in 2024 and helps its advocates quickly access resources and collaborate more effectively.

“Statewide knowledge management is a transformative step forward for civil legal services across New York,” said Alexander Horwitz, Chief of Operations at Legal Services NYC, who is leading the project. “A system that meaningfully connects the knowledge and practices of so many organizations across a state as diverse as ours is a first. By bringing together the collective expertise of advocates from every corner of the state, legal service providers large and small will have the shared tools, collective intelligence, and critical resources they need to work smarter, faster, and more effectively on behalf of clients. We are deeply grateful to IOLA for their vision and commitment to the infrastructure our sector needs to serve low-income New Yorkers and help them seek justice, and we are thrilled to start building this innovative tool.”

“We’re proud to receive this grant from IOLA and excited to build the infrastructure needed to make civil legal services stronger and more effective across New York,” said Shervon Small, Executive Director of Legal Services NYC. “When providers can easily share what they know and build on each other’s work, we spend less time reinventing the wheel and more time focused on our clients—leading to stronger advocacy, better outcomes, and greater access to justice for low-income New Yorkers.”

The Platform

Built on a foundation of proven knowledge-management tools and modern AI-assisted services, the platform will house three core functions: 1) flexible online spaces that provide for the fast sharing of updates, documentation, and other kinds of resources; 2) a sample and resource bank where advocates can search for and find high quality briefs, pleadings, motions, forms, and other work product; and 3) a collaborative system that will help providers across New York work together to develop high quality pro se materials.

The platform will allow any member organization to contribute their knowledge to the wider legal services community, with modern security and privacy technologies built in, and quality control mechanisms throughout workflows to ensure shared materials meet the needs of advocates and address the legal problems clients face.  

Expanding the Capacity of Civil Legal Aid

The platform will help legal service providers work more efficiently by making high-quality legal resources and expertise easier to find and reuse. By connecting providers across urban, suburban, and rural communities, the platform will also give smaller and under-resourced organizations greater access to expertise and resources from across the state.

Ultimately, the initiative will modernize how legal knowledge is created and shared across New York’s legal services community, allowing providers to spend less time duplicating work and searching for answers, and more time advocating for their clients.

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About Legal Services NYC

Legal Services NYC fights poverty and seeks racial, social, and economic justice for low-income New Yorkers. For over 50 years, LSNYC has challenged systemic injustices that trap people in poverty and helped clients meet basic needs for housing, income and economic security, family and immigration stability, education, and health care. LSNYC fights every day to ensure New Yorkers, and their families have access to the services, resources, and protections they need to survive. www.legalservicesnyc.org.