Several kinds of non-case "matters" are performed for individuals who have applied for legal assistance to a legal services program or hotline. These include the following:

• Referral of an applicant or hotline caller to other agencies or sources of assistance;
  
• Provision of legal education materials in lieu of further legal assistance, e.g., printed brochures, videos, CD-ROMs ;
  
• Provision of pro se assistance materials, e.g., self-help divorce kits, pro se forms, instructions on how to proceed in Small Claims court;
  
• Help desk at court.

The overall approach we are proposing is to create a list of "Matters Codes" to track non-case "matter" categories. All LSC grantees are familiar with the LSC Legal Problem Codes ranging from 1-99. We have created the LSC Matters Codes ranging from 101-159. This will allow programs to collect information on matters in individual cases by providing this one additional field to their case management system (CMS). With minor modifications, these CMS systems or forms can be used to collect and tabulate data on completed non-case "matters."

Currently LSC uses legal program codes for areas of law reported on the CSR reports. The new LSC system to report Matters has six different types of Matters: Community Legal Education, Pro Se Assistance, Referred, Outreach, Indirect Service, and Other. These six areas are divided into different areas, called Models.

To help you keep track of the matters you perform, we have developed Matters Codes, similar to the legal problem codes with which you are familiar. Below is a list of the codes:

This approach allows you to record the information needed to report to LSC with only minor modifications to your case management systems. These include:

• Addition of a field to record the Matters Code, with a drop-down list of the codes.
  
  
• Modification of queries to select cases with "Matters Codes" from "closed cases"
  
  
• Development of reports to summarize the matters data by type of matter. (Additional reports can be developed to tabulate the data in various ways for local use — e.g., cross-tabulations of "referral" categories by legal problem.)
  
  
• Appropriate re-labeling of input screens to make the distinction between "Closed Cases" and "Completed Matters" clear to the intake staff or advocates who are entering the data.
  
  
• Properly train the staff who to use both the Matters Code and the Legal Problem Code to record matters. Since matters must be reported both by totals for Models and for Case Type, both numbers are needed. This is why you may not simply add the Matters Codes to the Legal Problem Codes.
  
  
• Add two new Legal Problem Codes to your current list. These two codes will be used with referrals. They are 97-Other Problems (non-legal) and 98-Criminal referrals.
  

These types of matters include the following:

• Legal education workshops and presentations
• Pro se clinics and workshops
• Legal education for lay service providers

• Numbers of people who directly receive the services;
• Narrative overview of the services provided; and
• Vignettes, or "good stories" that can be used to illustrate the results and benefits that are achieved as a result of these services.

Situation (1): Small numbers of events. If your program does not offer a large number of these kinds of events each year, this information can be collected very simply. The staff members responsible for these services can usually draft the narrative information readily from notes or memory. The numbers can be estimated by consulting the calendar and writing down all the community presentations made during the year along with an estimate of the number of people who attended.

Situation (2): Large numbers of events. You will need to have a tracking system in place if you have an ambitious community legal education or pro se assistance program. This system need not be complex or burdensome. For example, the person responsible for reporting can ask the people who make presentations or conduct workshops to provide brief reports, using a simple form provided for this purpose.

This report would capture the following information about each event:

• Date of the event, title and name of the person completing the report;
  
  
• Type of event (community legal education, pro se assistance, etc.)
  
  
• Number of participants
  
  
• Brief narrative (2-3 sentences) describing the event.
  
  
• "Good story" — If the event had especially good results or had an especially compelling impact on participants, the presenter can include a brief vignette in her report.

These reports can be kept in a "reporting" file and used to tabulate the numbers of "matters" completed report at the time the matters report is due.

In many instances, procedures are already in place that can be tapped into for capturing the required information. For example, many pro se clinic projects keep sign-up sheets or attendance logs capturing data on the number of people attending each session. All that is needed is a way of summarizing this information for the annual "matters" report.

Some case management systems already have provisions for collecting this information. Kemp’s Clients, for example, has an "Other Services" input screen for capturing information on community legal education workshops, pro se clinics or other events that meet the definition of "matters." With minor modifications, this system will work for collecting the information needed to report your matters to LSC. We have worked with Kemps Caseworks so that they will have information on how to make these changes available on their web site.

Also, we have worked with the Western New York Law Center to be sure they have time to modify their TIME system so that it can capture the information as well.

These kinds of provisions can be added to most database management programs without extensive programming. Grantees should consult the people responsible for maintaining their case management systems to see what would be involved in adding this capacity.

Preparations for collecting this information. These consist of three steps:

• Establishing who is responsible for keeping track of this information,
  
  
• Setting up a simple procedure for ensuring the numbers and narratives are recorded and fed to the person who prepares the end-of-the-year report, and
  
  
• Checking from time to time, including running trial reports, to make sure that the data are being captured and that suitable reports can be tabulated at the time they are needed.

3. Data collection on "matters" representing services provided to the low-income population as a whole

These kinds of matters include the following: