App matches pro bono lawyers with inmates awaiting trial in Nigeria

Global Legal Hackathon team in Lagos works to solve country’s devastatingly slow justice system

Hyginus Ajibo spent 16 years behind bars while awaiting trial Nigeria. Although Ajibo was finally released on bail, countless others like him are still imprisoned. In fact, data show that over two-thirds of Nigeria’s inmates have not been sentenced, many of whom may be innocent of any crime. So, how do we fix this bottlenecked system?

Without sounding too glib, there’s an app for that. A group of passionate justice innovators in Lagos, Nigeria, built LemonAid, an app to match people awaiting trial behind bars with lawyers to represent them pro bono.

The group developed a prototype for LemonAid during the local round of the Global Legal Hackathon in Lagos, Nigeria, hosted by SPA Ajibade & Co. Most of the team had never met each other before attending the hackathon and yet over the last six weeks have invested their time and incredible human capital into a project that has the potential to significantly improve Nigeria’s justice sector.

The team will face off against 13 other hackathon teams around the world on April 21 in New York City at the final round of the Global Legal Hackathon. (You can support the finalists in person at the GLH Gala in NY; tickets are available here.)

We spoke to Team Lemon about how their app could reduce turnaround time for inmates awaiting representation and how they intend to overcome the challenges associated with tackling the “intractable problem of prison congestion in Nigeria,” as team member Justus Imafidon describes it. Here’s what the team told us about their app and their experience building it.

Could you tell us a little bit about your role on the team and how you got involved in the hackathon?

Debbie Patrick: I am team lead for Team Lemon. I address all the administrative issues and act as the contact person for any communications from/for Team Lemon and the outside world. I am also involved in the team’s marketing strategy and social media, and help create polls and user surveys for our app. Currently, I am a lawyer at Goldsmiths Solicitors, engaged in the corporate and commercial field. I got involved in the hackathon when I received an email from a friend asking me to register for the competition, and taadaa, I got here!

Oluchi Enebeli: My role is to develop the LemonAid app API system. I am an applied mathematician and a web developer with over a year in the field and currently work with Crenet Tech Labs.

Jide Awulonu: My role in the team includes graphic design, presentation layout design, video editing and motion graphics as well as the marketing strategy. I am a creative director at Toast Creative Studios. The sponsoring law firm invited me, and so I registered myself for the event.

Justus Imafidon: I serve as a criminal justice and general legal consultant for the team, offering advice on the workings of the criminal justice system, the challenges, the problem of prison congestion and possible solutions. I am a legal practitioner with expertise in social justice. I uphold a holistic view of social justice, so my research focuses on socio-economic rights, criminal justice, civil justice, business and human rights, business development and entrepreneurship law and development to which I have authored a couple of papers.

Bolaji Ogalu: I mainly handle publicity on our social media platforms and also research for the team. I am a final-year student at the University of Lagos, Nigeria. Currently, I serve as the editor-in-chief of both the Law Students Association of Nigeria [LAWSAN] Law & Policy Review and the UNILAG Law Review.

Chizaram Uzodinma: I am a lawyer practicing in the firm of AELEX. My role on the team is to contribute legal knowledge and expertise and take on any other tasks that may be required to further develop our project.

Ayoodeji Ayoola: I’m the UI/UX designer on Team Lemon. I took a keen interest in design in 2016, and I’m now a creative generalist with a diverse skill set. My mentor and friend Jide Awulonu invited me to the hackathon and asked that I be on his team — that’s how I got here.

Chukwuemeka Monyei: I am a legal practitioner, practicing law with a law firm, and also working as an adjunct lecturer at Nigerian Law School at the Lagos campus. I only knew one teammate before the hackathon. We met as law students in our undergrad and have the same interest in social justice.

It’s clear that there is a major need for more pro bono work, but it also seems daunting. What specifically compelled you to tackle this issue?

Chukwuemeka Monyei: A vast majority of Nigerians live below the poverty line. Thus, when they get involved in criminal or civil cases and their rights are trampled upon or actually infringed, they are unable to get legal representation- which is quite expensive.

Oluchi Enebeli: We discovered that there is a high demand for pro bono services and saw the readiness for lawyers to supply them. But there was something lacking in between, which was the accessibility of third party services needed by lawyers to go through with a case and so we decided to bridge that gap between the inmates, lawyers and third party services, by creating a one stop platform that tackles the issue.

Ayoodeji Ayoola: Personally, I felt that the people who need legal representation the most, are the people who can least afford it.

Jide Awulonu: Every other problem seemed insignificant in comparison.

In bridging this gap between lawyers and inmates, your app automatically presents potential cases to lawyers for them to choose from. What type of criteria does the platform use to suggest potential pro bono cases?

Ayoodeji Ayoola: The platform relies on a unique case matching algorithm, matching cases based on case tags, specification and experience which the lawyers fill in when signing up.

Oluchi Enebeli: To assign an inmate to a lawyer, the system first ranks the inmate cases in order of difficulty based on the offence type of the case, the case stage, the bail application status, the court presence of the case and some other factors and then the system ascertains the lawyer’s ability by noting the their years of experience. It takes into account the lawyer‘s area of practice, engagement and ranking on our system, availability, and location.

In addition to connecting individuals who need representation with lawyers who will work pro bono, the app is also available to third parties that might aid in the justice process. What kind of third party support will LemonAid provide?

Debbie Patrick-Akhaba: LemonAid will provide bail bondsmen, sureties and third party financiers. We may connect lawyers with NGOs that work with reprimanded people and rehabilitation centers for inmates who need reform after being in prison for too long, which may have inflicted psychological damage.

Bolaji Ogalu: People could also have access to research assistance from volunteering law students as we would be working with the law faculties and legal aid clinics in various states in Nigeria.

The app is subscription-based, right? Who would be paying the subscriptions and why?

Ayodeji Ayoola: The subscriptions are targeted at lawyers. We will provide them with paid work from people who come to our platform seeking paid legal representation. Since the platform will rank lawyers based on their performance on active cases, it will be a good way to know which lawyers work best on specific case types.

Debbie Patrick-Akhaba: The Pro Bono Lawyers will subsequently get points from their rated works which will in turn be converted to subscription amounts and thus take off some percentage in what they will be paying as subscriptions to access the data we have for subsequent commercial legal services. Inmates are not required to subscribe to our platform but third parties who require access to the platform will also need to subscribe to get the data.

How did you determine that LemonAid could reduce turnaround time in criminal matters by 60%?

Debbie Patrick-Akhaba: We have two teammates who have worked Pro Bono and who are currently involved in the criminal Justice litigation system. They had the idea of how long it takes to handle a matter pro bono from the scratch without any automated aid or third party assistance, which can span from 2 to 3 weeks before getting to Court. With the platform we will provide, we intend to bridge the gap of running through prisons to find inmates who are in need of legal services, get the prison wardens permission to conduct the interviews to verify what stage they are in in their trial process and then back to the Police stations or Court to initiate the matter or continue the process and then get 3rd party support where needed. This will go a long way to reduce the turnaround time and provide all these information in a day, as long as you are a registered user of our platform and gain the user access to 3rd party support where the inmates require one.

Your app is eponymously called “LemonAid” after Team Lemon. What’s the significance behind the name of your team?

Debbie Patrick-Akhaba: The significance behind my team’s name was the desire to make something sweet and good from a sour situation. Ironically, our table was constantly stashed with Lemonplus — a particular brand of sweets in Nigeria. We looked at it and poof, we said ‘you know what, we can make lemonade out of the prison situation in Nigeria’, hence the name ‘LemonAid’.

Justus Imafidon: The name LemonAid is an attempt to make something good out of the intractable problem of prison congestion in Nigeria. As the saying goes “when live gives you lemon, you make a lemonade out of it”.

One aspect of your app involves incentives from the Nigerian Bar Association in order to encourage lawyers to offer services pro bono. What incentives does — or could — the Nigerian Bar Association offer?

Justus Imafidon: The incentives could include waiving filing fees for private cases of pro bono lawyers. The NBA currently requires that applicants for the title of Senior Advocate of Nigeria must show a certain amount of pro bono work.

Bolaji Ogalu: They also recognize lawyers who have undertaken pro bono cases at their annual dinner and at the national conference, which may be an incentive for some to provide services pro bono.

Debbie Patrick-Akhaba: After speaking to the president of the Section of Business Law [SBL] in the Nigerian Bar Association, we think that the SBL is willing to provide incentives for pro bono work such as scholarships for lawyers to attend conferences they organize in different segments of the law as part of continuing legal education [CLE].

Oluchi Enebeli: Currently, the NBA is actively working on increasing the number of pro bono services rendered by lawyers in a variety of ways. See here: http://www.lawyard.ng/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-nbas-mou-with-jri-on-pro-bono-legal-services/

What was the biggest challenge you and your team faced when creating — and launching — LemonAid and how did you overcome it?

Chizaram Uzodinma: I would say so far, it was coming up with the functionality and corporate status of LemonAid. We spent hours deliberating on how LemonAid features should work and how we can avoid infringements on laws and bureaucratic bottlenecks and whether LemonAid should be a business name or incorporated by guarantee or be a limited liability company. We put the issues to vote and decided on a specific path.

Ayodeji Ayoola: Our biggest challenge during the first weekend of the hackathon was technical expertise. We initially intended to build the entire platform before first round submissions but we had neither the expertise nor the time . Eventually, Jide suggested I build an active prototype which isn’t exactly the final product, but will have the same attributes as the final product.

Justus Imafidon: The major challenges we must tackle include access to inmates’ files and consent from inmates to put their details on the platform. We are going to overcome this challenge by forming partnerships with the Ministries of Justice and legal aid programs.

Have people — lawyers and/or individuals charged with a crime — started using the platform yet? What kind of feedback have you had so far?

Oluchi Enebeli: We have people accessing the website, although they are yet to deeply explore the full functionality provided by the app as not all functionalities are ready yet, except to provide a minimum usable app, and we have real inmate information added to our database already. People have been sending in exciting feedbacks and anticipating to explore the full functionalities the app provides.

Justus Imafidon: Prison inmates have already agreed to be part of our platform.

Chizaram Uzodinma: People have not started using the platform yet. We hope to gather and put in sufficient data and test run the app/website before the final round.

What do you anticipate will be the biggest hurtles going forward with the platform? Are there any plans in place to address them?

Debbie Patrick-Akhaba: One of the biggest hurtles the platform may face going forward may be corruption from the government’s civil officials and the need for their input, which we may not really get. Our plans of addressing this is to still make the civil officials feel in charge of the data inputting process and involve them in the services the app will provide, as well as giving them some stipends from funding we receive to estop their grievances.

Oluchi Enebeli: The issue I foresee would be in constantly updating the database with valid inmate information. We’re addressing this by involving law students and newly graduated lawyers who would volunteer or intern to get this information from the courts.

Justus Imafidon: The biggest hurtle will be securing the consent of the judiciary to create a completely automated criminal justice registry. We intend to address it by partnership with the judiciary.

Ayodeji Ayoola: I think early adoption will be our biggest hurdle. We are already collaborating with top law firms in Nigeria to help surmount this challenge.

Chukwuemeka Monyei: The biggest hurtle will be securing the consent of the police to use the platform. Though they not presently initial users, they after key players in the criminal justice value chain. We intend to get them on board by getting the official at the top of the police hierarchy on board, the Inspector General of Police, and then the others below him will fall in line.

Chizaram Uzodinma: I anticipate that our biggest hurdle would be getting the government on our side so that we can have legal access to all the pre-trial inmates in Nigeria. We believe that when we win the global round, this will give us a lot more exposure and credibility, and hopefully the government would be willing to listen to us.

Will you continue to work on the platform after the hackathon, and if so, how will you expand or improve upon it?

Debbie Patrick-Akhaba: This platform that Team Lemon has created will indeed be one of the many startups we intend to create and push on further even after the competition. We have already begun registering the company and have reached out to the Ministry of Justice, Legal Aid and the Office of the Public Defender to create awareness of our platform and how it can assist the Nigerian government.

Oluchi Enebeli: I would like to implement a real time chat functionality and a forum for lawyers.

Justus Imafidon: A forum for lawyers working pro bono would allow them to help each other with cases they are currently handling as well as add an online mediation feature between criminal defendants and victims who do not wish to see each other face to face.

Ayoodeji Ayoola: As we continue to get user feedback, we will learn what the next best improvements are.

Debbie: We intend to, in the next three years open the platform for general users to gain access by creating a forum where several legal topics can be discussed, where individuals can lay a complaint of someone who has just been arrested without knowledge of their whereabouts, or where someone in a domestic violence distress can lay a complaint and request the services of a lawyer.

For individuals without general access to the internet, as is the general case in Nigeria, we will create a USSD platform to enable them to gain access to requesting the services of a lawyer or searching for their loved ones whom have been previously arrested.

There is so much work we want to do on our platform. We have a five-year plan well underway of all we intend to have achieved, and God-willing we will overcome.

To learn more about LemonAid, follow the team on Twitter (@LemonAid_ng). To support the team in person at the finals, attend the GLH Gala in New York, New York! Tickets are available here.