LA County Public Defender uses Microsoft solutions to keep serving more than 100,000 clients per year, even in a pandemic

The Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office (LA County Public Defender) provides critical legal defense to more than 100,000 county residents annually who could otherwise not afford lawyers. When the Covid-19 pandemic suddenly shut down much of the nation in March 2020, criminal courts across the county stayed open. Clients still had to show up for court dates, and they needed legal advice to navigate the criminal law system. At the same time, 1,200 employees at LA County Public Defender needed to be kept safe while providing these essential services. 
 

Using its existing Microsoft 365 licenses, LA County Public Defender pivoted to online and remote work in a single weekend, without losing the power to collaborate or spending extra money. “It was a true turnkey solution,” says Mohammed Al Rawi, Chief Information Officer (CIO) of LA County Public Defender. 
 

Providing clients essential legal defense in LA County

LA County Public Defender is the nation’s oldest and largest provider of indigent legal defense for adult and juvenile residents facing felony and misdemeanor accusations. LA County Public Defender strives for excellence in client-centered criminal defense and seeks to measurably reduce incarceration and the potentially long-lasting negative consequences of contact with the criminal law system. 
 

Such a mission cannot be put on hold. Without legal defense, clients can suffer serious penalties simply because they cannot afford private attorneys. “Our lawyers are the last chance for those residents to avoid incarceration or minimize the detrimental consequences of conviction,” says Al Rawi. The office’s essential workers wanted to provide the best representation and support for the accused, no matter what. 
 

During the pandemic, meeting in person with multiple members of the public every day seemed risky. LA County Public Defender needed an immediate solution to help protect people. “On that weekend, I needed to know how we were going to function on Monday, with 700 attorneys working from home without access to their case files,” says Al Rawi. 
 

Shifting 83% of staff to fully remote work in one weekend

Historically, LA County Public Defender relied on paper files. But it now had an opportunity to get creative with technology so staff could work remotely, manage a call center and help desk, and collaborate virtually. As part of LA County IT infrastructure, LA County Public Defender is housed on Azure and already had Microsoft 365 in place. With these cloud-based resources at the ready, teams were able to keep working together on individual laptops while the IT organization built prototypes for new solutions. 
 

The first step to establishing digital collaboration spaces was to deploy Microsoft Teams to create an off-premises workplace so that staff could stay connected while working from home. “I wanted to quickly implement tools that let teams collaborate, share files, set up meetings, and have conversations as if they were in the same physical space,” says Al Rawi. 
 

Next, using Power Apps, Al Rawi’s team quickly created several intraoffice apps so that teams could easily share information and managers could facilitate employees’ work. Throughout the remainder of the weekend, the team created training videos and instructions to help employees adjust to the radically transformed digital landscape. 

“On Monday, the first day of LA County’s Safer at Home Order for Control of Covid-19, 83 percent of our staff was completely online and operational,” says Al Rawi. “The average of local agencies was less than 30 percent connected and operational during that time.” LA County Public Defender formed dozens of SharePoint sites and Teams groups across the organization at every level, for the executive team, operations management, attorneys, and support staff. The IT team also created dashboards using Power BI to track enhanced productivity and even reductions in the office’s carbon footprint. 
 

For misdemeanor court cases, attorneys and staff needed a way to screen clients for Covid-19 before their hearings. Through Microsoft Power Apps and its seamless connection with Twilio, Al Rawi’s team quickly developed a new app that clients used to check in at Superior Court buildings to get screened for Covid-19 symptoms. If clients were positive, symptomatic, or had been exposed, their attorneys were safely notified and could ask the court for continuances. Technology became an effective shield from spreading disease, helping prevent dozens of otherwise inevitable exposures. 
 

Al Rawi is the first CIO of LA County’s 109-year-old Public Defender Office. He had established the IT team only a few months before the pandemic. The small team slept very little as they worked urgently to provide essential support for the staff who provided legal services, but the sense of accomplishment made it worthwhile. “One of the things that I will cherish for the rest of my career is what this transformation did for my team,” says Al Rawi. “It elevated trust in the IT organization in a matter of days. Attorneys praised the IT team daily and wanted to nominate it for prestigious legal awards. Some called us heroes and lifesavers for letting them collaborate with each other while reducing exposure to Covid-19.” 
 

Building on momentum for a resilient future using Microsoft technology 

Al Rawi notes that the debate about the need for digital transformation in state and local government is over. Virtual collaboration is here to stay, and workers increasingly seek opportunities to automate, optimize, and scale solutions. “What was once a hard sell is now a must-have, and we need to expand on this, enhance it, and make it more resilient. We don’t want to go back to the archaic business as usual,” says Al Rawi.