ORLANDO, Fla. – SavvySuit, a software development and solutions company focused on building tools for the legal community, was chosen by The Florida Bar Foundation to increase the engagement of skilled lawyers statewide in delivering pro bono services to disadvantaged Floridians through the creation of an interactive website.
Eli Mattern and James Haggard, co-founders of SavvySuit, are experienced legal aid attorneys whose insight was critical to the development of the web site, Florida Pro Bono Matters, which enables attorneys to search for pro bono cases that suit their interests and expertise. Previously, lawyers had no way to search for specific cases online.
Florida Pro Bono Matters is designed to allow any organization that wants to present pro bono opportunities – whether a law school, law firm, or legal aid organization – to display available cases. The site can be easily expanded to include many organizations.
The innovative and user-friendly website is being piloted now in Miami-Dade County where Legal Services of Greater Miami, Americans for Immigrant Justice, and CABA Pro Bono Legal Services are all displaying cases for which they are seeking pro bono attorneys. It will soon include virtually all of the county’s pro bono programs for civil legal aid. Once the SavvySuit website has been well established in Miami-Dade, the Foundation plans to take it statewide.
“This website takes away common fear among attorneys, which is that legal aid organization may send them a pro bono case they aren’t comfortable handling,” Mattern said. “By letting the pro bono attorney choose the case, we’re prioritizing the attorney’s time and input in a way the legal aid system hasn’t been able to do before. To accomplish this we used cutting-edge technology to curate the cases so they can be displayed on any web site that wants to advertise pro bono opportunities making it easier to find a case and help a person with his or her legal issue.”
SavvySuit is a client company of the University of Central Florida Business Incubation Program in the Central Florida Research Park in east Orange County.
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