What is a Legal Kiosk?
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Legal Kiosks are free computers embedded within community agencies, serving as legal help access points. Legal Kiosks are made up of an all-in-one computer mounted on a desk or cart that can have an attached printer/scanner. Learn more about Legal Kiosk Components on our support site. Legal Kiosks are configured with a software suite to ensure security and ease of use. Learn more about the software that operates Legal Kiosk below. Learn more about why Legal Kiosks are needed and what users can do on them.

What is the difference between a Legal Kiosk and our other computers?
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Legal Kiosks are computers focused specifically on providing legal assistance. They are intended to support legal needs while preventing the extra strain on regular program computers. Additionally, these Legal Kiosks are designed to be user friendly and accessible. They also have technical differences including software which will limit the available content, as well as ensure the security of the device and the information of the user.

What applications are available on a Legal Kiosk?
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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.

Will the Legal Kiosk interface work with my organization’s existing computer or printer?
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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 secured 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. 

What do host sites need to provide?
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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. Learn more below about Legal Kiosk internet requirements.

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. Ready to host a Legal Kiosk? Let us know!

What are the internet requirements?
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Legal Kiosks can be connected to stable Wifi or hard wired. 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. Legal Kiosks CANNOT be connected to a captive portal.

What are the dimensions of a Legal Kiosk?
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Legal Kiosks are computers mounted to a desk. The size of the desk will depend on what your project administrators make available and what availability your space has. Review the furniture options here. The Legal Kiosk monitor itself is 13.54" in height x 21.25" in width x 2.07" in depth.

Can my organization decide who we allow to use the kiosk?
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We ask that Legal Kiosks be made available to individuals looking for legal help. We want to prioritize people with legal needs but recognize that civil legal needs blend together and are often difficult to distinguish from other needs (such as paying bills, applying for a job, or even attending a criminal hearing). We would strongly encourage host sites to allow members of the public to use the Legal Kiosks for whatever use they see fit, unless they are preventing others from using the Legal Kiosk.

Can I host multiple Legal Kiosks at my organization?
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Yes, a few organizations have multiple Legal Kiosks if they have the space and capacity. Most organizations have just a single Legal Kiosk. Ready to host a Legal Kiosk? Let us know!

Can Legal Kiosks be reserved in advance?
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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.

Are Legal Kiosks accessible?
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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.

What kind of cybersecurity protections do Legal Kiosks have in place?
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All Legal Kiosks are monitored 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Our network operation center manages and pushes operating software and security patches with our remote monitoring and management tools. All Legal Kiosks go into maintenance mode each night between 10PM and 6AM at which time patches and updates are applied. Faronics Deep Freeze is used for delivering the Legal Kiosk experience and locking devices down for kiosk-specific use. Ending a Legal Kiosk session reboots the device and clears out any user data that may have been entered by the end user. Endpoint security is leveraging up to date next generation endpoint detection and response tools which are monitored 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. All alerts are reviewed and acted upon by our network operation center team. All of our systems for Legal Kiosk support, Deep Freeze, remote monitoring and management tools and our security platform are protected by multi-factor authentication with only the staff involved in the Legal Kiosk project having access. All access is logged.

How much do Legal Kiosks cost?
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Legal Kiosks are free to host sites and are paid for by the project. The 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. Host sites are responsible for providing paper for the Legal Kiosk if it has an included printer.

Who pays for printing?
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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.

Do I need to worry about theft?
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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.

Are Legal Kiosks touchscreen?
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The Legal Kiosk monitor allows for users to engage with the Legal Kiosk using a keyboard and mouse or as a touchscreen.

Contact Us

Reach out if you still have questions or want to learn more about bringing Legal Kiosks to your community!
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