unBail

The criminal legal system is a maze of laws, language, and unwritten rules that lawyers are trained to maneuver to represent defendants. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 73% of county public defender’s offices exceed national caseload recommendations for cases per attorney, leaving most public defenders overworked and their clients underrepresented. Defendants must complete an estimated 200 discrete tasks during their legal proceedings. Without clear guidance, defendants are often left feeling overwhelmed, lost, and severely disadvantaged while attempting to navigate the system. Nationally, Black people are incarcerated in jail at a rate 3.5 times that of white people. In Cuyahoga County, that rate is 6.4 times.

The criminal legal system is confusing and disorienting, lacking transparency and accountability. There is no “one-stop-shop” or trusted advisor that defendants can access free of charge, 24/7. That’s why we created unBail, an intuitive and comprehensive mobile application that delivers valuable and relevant legal and case information to users in plain language. unBail helps defendants navigate the criminal legal process, access vital resources, and use their stories to help other defendants and inform targeted legal reform efforts.

Our product eases the burdens of the criminal legal system for defendants and court systems alike by increasing defendants' case engagement and court appearance rates. unBail is currently the only mobile app that provides a comprehensive guide dedicated to defendants navigating the criminal legal system.

unBail partnered with Cleveland State University’s Marshall College of Law to create a practicum dedicated to creating a matrix of possible outcomes for defendants in Cleveland. We co-taught this practicum with a veteran attorney from the Cuyahoga County Office of the Public Defender. We then created a clickable prototype based on the matrix produced by the practicum and partnered with the City Tech Collaborative to conduct holistic user testing sessions. Many testers expressed frustration in their past experiences navigating the system and over half of the testers did not or could not access pre-trial information at the time of the test. Our team used feedback from these testing sessions to improve the prototype and we are currently working with a development firm to test, iterate, and eventually produce a beta version of our product to pilot in local court systems.