Startup by Notre Dame law students will aim to help undocumented children

SOUTH BEND — Inside Notre Dame’s IDEA Center, Kaitlyn Ringrose and her team at legal-startup Impowerus were hard at work preparing for a big day. Scribbled on a pair of whiteboards were bubbles filled with tasks and plans – preparation for not just an upcoming competition, but also the eventual rollout of their finished product.

On Monday, they will present their business plan to a panel of judges at South by Southwest (SXSW) as a part of the National Competition of the Student Startup Madness event.

The startup is in the process of a developing a web platform that could change the way attorneys provide pro bono services to children needing immigration counsel. The team members consist of Ringrose, a second year Notre Dame Law School student, fellow law students Veronica Canton, Erika Gustin, Carol Li, Manon Burns, Alex Ingoglia, Chicago attorney Carlos Cisneros Vilchis, and a number of undergraduate student volunteers.

Two years ago, Ringrose was working in Tacoma, Wash., public schools, providing care for immigrant children and acting as a liaison between the kids, their teachers, social workers and other experts. There, she saw the need for a way to connect undocumented children, many who were unaccompanied minors, with lawyers who can provide pro bono representation.

All the students she worked with found a way to access computers, whether it was at school or the library or elsewhere. But often, they had trouble getting to see immigration lawyers.

“I just thought it was strange they couldn’t see their attorneys,” Ringrose said. “I thought it was strange they didn’t have a way to do that via the web.”

After coming to Notre Dame Law School, she decided to create a startup that would do just that, allowing undocumented kids to connect and video chat online with attorneys.

But it’s not just Ringrose’s experiences that makes the Impowerus team tick.

Veronica Canton came to the U.S. from El Salvador at age 9, was naturalized as a young adult and worked in law firms managing pro bono cases and interpreting Spanish. There, she noticed that lawyers’ pro bono hours, a requirement by state bar associations, were being eaten up by long drives and reams of paperwork, preventing them from maximizing their efficiency in serving as many clients as they could.

“Immigration is the fastest growing pro bono sector right now,” Canton said. For her, improving the quality of pro bono representation is a step toward making sure children are able to avoid deportation and have the same opportunities she’s had in the U.S.

Erika Gustin is busy as a Notre Dame law student. As the co-founder of the reactivated Notre Dame Exoneration Project, which reviews cases to help people who were wrongfully convicted of crimes, she wears a second hat by also playing a big role for Impowerus. With a degree in business analytics and experience in the legal field, she sees the project as not only a service for undocumented children, but also a cost-saving measure for law firms.

“With Impowerus, lawyers don’t have to travel anymore,” Gustin said. “Attorneys get to serve their clients better, and it’s a cost saving proposition for them.”

Carol Li worked in legal technology before coming to law school. In a discussion with Canton during a work session, Li was working to map out a slate of ten webpage stills to send to a developer. The pair were thinking about the finer details of each page, all the way down to the need for a “forgot password?” button.

“I wanted to find something that combined legal tech with access to justice,” Li said. “People who need legal services the most just can’t get it. What’s the point of a legal system if people can’t access it?”

In addition to connecting attorneys with clients, the team plans to add other features to their platform’s repertoire, such as quick forms to speed up document writing and legal training, which would allow attorneys to fulfill continuing education requirements and improve their knowledge of the immigration process.

The startup has already earned a number of accolades, winning the McCloskey Business Plan Competition and placing second in the Schurz Innovation Challenge (Note: Schurz Communications is the parent company of the South Bend Tribune). They also received $7,500 in funding from the IDEA Center and nonprofit Elevate Ventures respectively.

After South by Southwest, the team will continue to compete in business plan competitions nationwide. And next fall, they plan to go live with their website.