Lab students add eight new forms to help tenants, migrants and others

Students in the Suffolk Law School Legal Innovation and Technology Clinic worked over the Fall 2025 semester on short guided interview projects helping residents of Massachuetts, Minnesota, and the United States. The eight new forms, covering help for tenants with disabilities, people representing immigrants in immigration court, people filing appeals, and adding more robust coverage to the Lab's collaboration with the Massachusetts Trial Court on eviction sealing, are all available for use on CourtFormsOnline.org now.

The newly published forms represent collaboration with three separate organizations:

• Massachusetts Law Reform Institute (and MassLegalHelp.org)
• Homeline Minnesota
• Massachusetts Trial Court

Two of the new forms: a letter for tenants who need a reasonable accommodation because of their disability, and a notice of appearance form for people representing someone in Immigration Court, can be used by anyone in the country.

Learning by doing

Students in the clinic learn law as well as legal innovation and computer software development skills by working on the short, guided interviews in their first semester in the clinic. The guided interviews require students to understand the law closely in order to create an automated tool that helps unrepresented litigants solve problems on their own. They translate legal language into simple instructions at about a sixth grade reading level, and then build software programs that help litigants accurately complete key legal pleadings.

Most students enter the clinic without any prior computer programming background, but they are closely supervised by LIT program staff, as well as getting to talk to subject matter experts within the clinical program or outside organizations as they build.

Students will go on to work on more complex projects that will be published later this spring or early Summer as part of interdisciplinary teams.

The new forms

The complete list of newly added forms is as follows:

• Emergency repair request letter for Minnesota
• Massachuetts Department of Children and Families Disability Accommodation Request
• Massachusetts Objection to Petition to Seal Eviction
• Minnesota Request a Copy of Your Lease
• Massachusetts Petition to Deem Judgment Satisfied
• Massachusetts Appeals Entry Form
• National Immigration Court Appearance Form
• National Housing Reasonable Accommodation Request Letter

Want help automating a form that's not on this list?

The Lab chooses 8-12 small projects each year, and another 5-6 larger projects. We might be able to automate a form that you need!

Good projects that are likely to be picked up are:

• For a state we already work with, or someone who is willing to keep working after our first draft.
• Have someone who we can talk to to help figure out legal nuances.
• Are 1-2 pages as paper forms, or have a funding strategy in place for a longer form.

Have something that fits? Send us an email at [email protected]!