Legal Kiosk FAQs

The applications available on a Legal Kiosk depend on the project. Our most common Legal Kiosk applications include the Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint), Adobe Acrobat Reader, and video meeting applications such as Zoom.

We are committed to providing fair and equal access for anyone that wants to use a legal kiosk. All Legal Kiosks are mounted to either a desk or a cart that is height adjustable. Learn how to adjust the height of a cart. Learn how to adjust the height of a desk. Some Legal Kiosks have a printer and scanner. These printers and scanners can be configured to magnify text, read the content aloud, and select options using gestures. Learn how to set up and use the printer and scanner accessibility software. If you are deaf or hard of hearing you can turn on closed captions and a live transcription. Learn more from Zoom. We are in the process of rolling out Jaws Screen Reader and ZoomText to enlarge sections of the screen for those that are visually impaired. These softwares works in conjunction with a speech synthesizer by speaking what is on the computer screen aloud.

Some Legal Kiosks can be reserved in advance. This can be helpful if you have a meeting or court hearing and want to make sure you have a place to attend it. Please refer to our support article to learn more about reserving a Legal Kiosk.

All Legal Kiosks with a printer provide printing and scanning for free.

Yes, Legal Kiosks can be controlled with a mouse and keyboard or used as a touchscreen.

The applications available on a Legal Kiosk depend on the project. Our most common Legal Kiosk applications include the Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint), Adobe Acrobat Reader, and Zoom. Other video conferencing applications are more challenging to maintain from a security standpoint. These other platforms, such as Teams and Webex are still usable through their web interface and there is virtually no difference from the perspective of the user.

The Legal Kiosk interface is intentionally designed to function with the specified hardware and software. There are many security, usability, and functionality settings configured that would not function properly with other computers. For example, one important feature of the Legal Kiosk is that it will wipe itself clean of any saved files and search history between users. This keeps important personal and legal information secure and private. Using existing printers creates similar challenges as Legal Kiosks are locked down and secure to prevent foreign software and viruses from corrupting the machine. For this reason, printers that are not provided by the program will not function and cannot be supported. 

Host sites are community organizations that agree to create a space for the Legal Kiosk and its users. Host sites provide space for the furniture and 24/7 connectivity to power and internet. This is extremely important because the Legal Kiosks have an overnight maintenance window where they receive security and software updates. Internet must not have a captive portal.  A captive portal is a pop up that comes up right after you connect to a wifi network that either asks you to login or agree to the end-user agreement for the WiFi. Captive portals will prevent regular connection and updates in the same way. Host sites generally also provide paper for printers. If you decide you'd like to allow members of the public to reserve your Legal Kiosk, you will need to have a staff member manage the reservations, making sure we know when your location is closed for holidays, etc. Learn more about managing reservations on a Legal Kiosk.

We are pleased to provide a software solution for managing Legal Kiosk reservations online. This allows members of the public as well as service providers to book a Legal Kiosk in advance. This can be helpful if a user has a meeting or court hearing and they want to make sure they have a place to attend. Our solution is optional and allows host sites to manage their regular hours, holiday closures, and public reservations easily with an account. Host sites that choose not to manage reservations online can accept reservations by phone or choose to accept walk-ins only. Please refer to our support article to learn more about managing Legal Kiosk reservations online.

We are committed to providing fair and equal access for anyone that wants to use a legal kiosk. All Legal Kiosks are mounted to either a desk or a cart that is height adjustable. Learn how to adjust the height of a cart. Learn how to adjust the height of a desk. Some Legal Kiosks have a printer and scanner. These printers and scanners can be configured to magnify text, read the content aloud, and select options using gestures. Learn how to set up and use the printer and scanner accessibility software. If you are deaf or hard of hearing you can turn on closed captions and a live transcription. Learn more from Zoom. We are in the process of rolling out Jaws Screen Reader and ZoomText to enlarge sections of the screen for those that are visually impaired. These softwares works in conjunction with a speech synthesizer by speaking what is on the computer screen aloud.

Legal Kiosks are free to host sites and are paid for by the project. The cost of a Legal Kiosk includes everything from the computer itself, to the furniture it is mounted on, a printer/scanner, and the software and applications that it runs. The project also pays for toner replacement but not paper.

In most of our Legal Kiosk projects, the host site will supply the paper and the project budget will supply toner and toner refills. Printing is always free for users.

Legal Kiosk monitors are bolted into monitor arms that are attached to the furniture (either a desk or a cart). It’s very difficult to remove and has not yet been an issue.

The Legal Kiosk monitor is a Dell OptiPlex 5480 All-In-One that allows for users to engage with the Legal Kiosk using a keyboard and mouse or as a touchscreen.

We are using a combination of 3 products to manage the Legal Kiosks. Deep Freeze is used to keep the Legal Kiosks in “Kiosk Mode” which limits the function of the PC. We also use Deep Freeze to control an overnight maintenance window where updates are pushed to each Legal Kiosk. Monitoring and management is handled by our remote monitoring and management tool N-Central. We use Sophos Intercept X to manage endpoint security and any requested usage restrictions. We also have the following security measures:

• Program security ensured by disabling USB drives, disk drives, network-based storage, and unauthorized user actions
• A secure environment created by allowing limited IP addresses, URLs, and intended software functionality
• A centralized, cloud-based management console
• Splashtop: a remote connection software that facilitates remote work with legal services staff

The applications available on a Legal Kiosk depend on the project. Our most common Legal Kiosk applications include the Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint), Adobe Acrobat Reader, and Zoom. Other video conferencing applications are more challenging to maintain from a security standpoint. These other platforms, such as Teams and Webex are still usable through their web interface and there is virtually no difference from the perspective of the user.

We are committed to providing fair and equal access for anyone that wants to use a legal kiosk. All Legal Kiosks are mounted to either a desk or a cart that is height adjustable. Learn how to adjust the height of a cart. Learn how to adjust the height of a desk. Some Legal Kiosks have a printer and scanner. These printers and scanners can be configured to magnify text, read the content aloud, and select options using gestures. Learn how to set up and use the printer and scanner accessibility software. If you are deaf or hard of hearing you can turn on closed captions and a live transcription. Learn more from Zoom. We are in the process of rolling out Jaws Screen Reader and ZoomText to enlarge sections of the screen for those that are visually impaired. These softwares works in conjunction with a speech synthesizer by speaking what is on the computer screen aloud.

We are pleased to provide a software solution for managing Legal Kiosk reservations online. This allows members of the public as well as service providers to book a Legal Kiosk in advance. This can be helpful if a user has a meeting or court hearing and they want to make sure they have a place to attend. Our solution is optional and allows host sites to manage their regular hours, holiday closures, and public reservations easily with an account. Host sites that choose not to manage reservations online can accept reservations by phone or choose to accept walk-ins only. Please refer to our support article to learn more about managing Legal Kiosk reservations online.

The cost of a Legal Kiosk includes everything from the computer itself, to the furniture it is mounted on, a printer/scanner, and the software and applications that it runs (see above for more info on software and applications). It also includes the installation and configuration of the hardware as well as project management and design of the user interface. On average, you can budget $5,000 per Legal Kiosk. Projects with higher numbers of Legal Kiosks can anticipate a lower per-kiosk cost, as bulk purchasing and project management hours tend to be fixed.

In most of our Legal Kiosk projects, the host site will supply the paper and the project budget will supply toner and toner refills. Printing is always free for users.

We have experience rolling out over 250 Legal Kiosks across a state (Minnesota) in 2 months because of a funding deadline. That said, we would recommend taking more time to make sure that stakeholders are aligned and user testing results are incorporated into the design. 

The Legal Kiosk interface is intentionally designed to function with the specified hardware and software. There are many security, usability, and functionality settings configured that would not function properly with other computers. For example, one important feature of the Legal Kiosk is that it will wipe itself clean of any saved files and search history between users. This keeps important personal and legal information secure and private. Using existing printers creates similar challenges as Legal Kiosks are locked down and secure to prevent foreign software and viruses from corrupting the machine. For this reason, printers that are not provided by the program will not function and cannot be supported. 

The Legal Kiosk monitor is a Dell OptiPlex 5480 All-In-One that allows for users to engage with the Legal Kiosk using a keyboard and mouse or as a touchscreen.