Legal Navigator README

About

The Legal Navigator project compiles legal resources freely and publicly for those who need them. At the time of writing, the project is officially used by the states Alaska and Hawaii.

Disclaimer

No form of setup support is guaranteed for this repository. The Installation/Setup section is all that is provided.

Prequisites

Be sure that the following are set up and up to date before continuing:

• NPM & Node JS
• Wordpress (WP)

APIs

In order for Legal Navigator to function as expected, API keys/credentials will need to be created for the following services:

• Google Maps -- Shows organization resources on a map for single resource pages and resource list pages.

• Google Translate -- Translates site searches in Non-English languages as both the site content and SPOT functionality are in English.

• Google Geocode -- Lists organization resources by proximity to user via 'Find My Location' feature on Legal Navigator.

• SPOT -- Maps LIST topics based to natural language input for the Guided Assistant search feature. Setup for this API is covered in the 'API Setup' section of this document.

• Legal Server -- Links Legal Server resources to Legal Navigator, as well as provides support for Legal Server Guided Assistants. Setup for this API is covered in the 'API Setup' section of this document.

• Doc Assemble -- Links a Doc Assemble server to Legal Navigator and allows for populating a list of Doc Assemble Guided Assistants.

Installation/Setup

File Setup

Once an instance of Wordpress (WP) is set up (either locally or on a server):

1. Navigate into the wp-content directory and add the contents of the repository's plugins directory to WP's plugins directory.

2. Add the legalnav theme directory to the themes directory of the WP instance.

3. From the WP dashboard, navigate to 'Appearances->Themes' and select the Legal Nav theme.

4. From the WP dashboard, navigate to 'Plugins->Installed Plugins' and make sure all of the plugins are installed and activated.

Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) Setup

1. ACF Pro is required for all site functionality to work as expected. You can purchase a liscense here: https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/pro/

2. After activating ACF Pro, from the WP dashboard, navigate to 'Custom Fields->Tools' and click the import button on the right hand side

3. Retrieve the acf-fields-export.json file from the repository and select this file for import.

If successful, you should see a message detailing the fields that were added.

If you do not see the ACF Pro tab from the WP dashboard sidebar, make sure that you have added the proper plugins to the plugins directory as detailed in the first step of the File Setup section above.

Search Options

There are two search mechanism available: one controlled through the SPOT API for Guided Assistants, and another for site search, which was disabled on the original site due to some difficulties with it and the the reality that the site wasn't large enough to need a full site search.

API Setup

SPOT API

For information about the SPOT API, visit: https://app.swaggerhub.com/apis-docs/suffolklitlab/spot/0.0.1#/default/post_actions_

1. To get a Bearer Token, navigate to: https://spot.suffolklitlab.org/user/new/ and create a new developer account.
2. After creating an account and logging in, the https://spot.suffolklitlab.org/user/token/ page should show you your 'Bearer Token'. This will be used later in the 'API Configuration' section of this document.

Legal Server API

For information on Legal Server, visit: https://www.legalserver.org/

When adding a new Guided Assitant (GA) post type, you can specify that the GA be of type Legal Server. This will allow for entering a process ID and token that relates to an InCert tool. InCert tools are developed by Legal Server and setting these up must be worked out with Legal Server.

Doc Assemble

For information on Doc Assemble, visit: https://docassemble.org/

In 'Theme General Settings'->'APIs', add the server URL and API key. This allows the custom DocAssemble ACF field to provide a list of the respective server's Guided Assistants. This field shows up when a new Guided Assistant of type Doc Assemble is created.

Note Doc Assemble does not work with Apple's Safari browser. The solution would be to utilize a reverse proxy on the server Doc Assemble is running on. This should resolve the incompatibility.

Court Case Look Up API

In the fields for creating a new State taxonomy, there is a 'Court Look Up API Settings' section. This API is state specific for the main Legal Navigator site and set up for it is not covered in this document.

Note The Court Case Look Up API has not been tested yet.

API Configuration

While some of the APIs can be configured via a settings page in the Wordpress theme, a few APIs must be configured by editing a JavaScript file.

Backend APIs

1. Via the WP dashboard, navigate to 'Theme General Settings->APIs'.

2. Enter credentials for the listed APIs

   • For SPOT, the 'Bearer Token' is revieced when setting up the SPOT API.

   • For Legal Server, setting up the API access should grant you a 'Process ID' along with a 'Token'.

   • For Google Maps, the 'Google Maps Key' is the key you created when setting up the API.

JavaScript APIs

This project uses Gulp in order to bundle all of the source JavaScript files. Before changing any JavaScript files be sure to run npm install from the repository's root directorty in order to use Gulp and its dependencies.

1. Open legalnav/assets/source/global.js. At the top of the file, there should be a config object with two properties.
2. Assign spotBearerToken to the SPOT Bearer Token you revieced from setting up the SPOT API.
3. Assign geocodeKey to the API key you've created for Google Geocode.

Be sure to run gulp after making any JavaScript changes.

If the gulp command does not work, try removing the node_modules directory and package-lock.json file and re-running npm install.

CMS Usage

A user manual for the CMS functions of this WP site is included in the repository. The PDF is entitled CMS_User_Manual.pdf.

Information on Guided Assistants

Guided Assistants (GA's) are surveys that recommend next steps for users seeking information related to a particular legal issue. Legal Navigator supports GA's created by Access 2 Justice (A2J) and Legal Server.

In the case of Legal Server GA's, the interviews are accessed via an API call when a GA of type Legal Server is added.

A2J GA's on the other hand, are comprised of various files exported as a ZIP file from the A2J Author tool: https://www.a2jauthor.org/. Exported ZIP files are uploaded to Legal Navigator and live in the unzipped_gas directory within uploads.

A2J Author

The official Legal Navigator website has worked with the A2J team in order to have their list of resources available from the A2J Author tool (Used to create Guided Assistants). In order for another instance of Legal Navigator to support this functionality, the respective party must reach out to the A2J Author team at CALI.