A person's hand is shown holding a phone with a series of text messages. The messages provide information about a person's upcoming court date and define what a motion is.
CourtChat, anew text service by unBail Labs, can help people going through a felony case in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas get information about their court hearings. Credit: Jeff Haynes / Signal Cleveland

Adults with an active felony court case in Cuyahoga County can now get information via text thanks to a new chat program. 

Local nonprofit unBail Labs launched CourtChat last week. People can sign up to get text messages informing them of important upcoming court dates for their case. The service also provides information about what to expect during their court hearing.

Participants can get up to $80 for providing feedback about the new service. 

People qualify for the paid survey if they are over 18 years old, have an active felony court case in Cuyahoga County, and are being represented by a public defender or court-appointed attorney. They also have to be able to send and receive text messages. 

The chat service is meant to help defendants navigate and understand the legal process. Participants can ask questions directly to the chat service. 

The new program is the result of several community conversations where people who have been through the criminal legal system said they didn’t understand the process, Cait Kennedy, executive director of unBail Labs, told Signal Cleveland. 

“They didn’t understand what was happening to them,” Kennedy said. “They felt really uncertain about their future. They couldn’t get the information they needed to prepare for whatever the next step in the process was.” 

If the chat service doesn’t already have answers, defendants’ questions will be forwarded to the Criminal Law Clinic at Case Western Reserve University. Students will reply and add the responses to the CourtChat library. 

For now, the service is only available to defendants going through Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court. Kennedy said unBail has funds to pay about 300 people for feedback as the program is in its pilot phase. 

“Our hope is that even in this pilot phase we’re able to democratize information about the criminal legal process for the people who are most impacted by that process, which are felony defendants in this case,” Kennedy said. “And that we’re able to demystify a system that’s really opaque.” 

Defendants signing up for CourtChat will have to provide their name, a phone number with text service, and their court case number. 

A freelance reporter based in Arizona, Stephanie was the inaugural criminal justice reporter with Signal Cleveland until October 2024. She wrote about the criminal legal system, explaining the complexities and shedding light on injustices/inequities in the system and centering the experiences of justice-involved individuals, both victims and people who go through the criminal legal system and their families.