Debt Help Illinois, a legal information platform

Challenges

Debt is one of the most common and stressful issues faced by users of Illinois Legal Aid Online. Many users arrived with limited financial knowledge, high anxiety, and no clear sense of where to begin.

The core challenge was not a lack of information. Illinois Legal Aid Online already had trusted legal aid content related to debt, money, collections, and consumer law. The challenge was that this information did not exist as a single, guided experience for someone trying to resolve a debt problem in the moment.

The new platform needed to:

• Help users identify their situation clearly
• Connect them to relevant legal and financial options
• Remain simple and accessible under stress
• Stay grounded in verified, plain-language legal aid content
• Be maintainable by the Illinois Legal Aid Online team over time

Approach

The project began with design workshops and stakeholder discussions to understand user needs, organisational requirements, and the barriers people face when trying to get help with debt.

From there, the experience was shaped around a guided path rather than a traditional information-heavy website. Instead of asking users to search through large volumes of content on their own, the platform leads them through a sequence of clear questions and next steps.

Once the assessment flow and decision logic were defined, the product was designed and developed as a natural extension of the broader Illinois Legal Aid Online ecosystem.

Solutions

A guided debt journey built on trusted legal aid content

Debt Help Illinois was delivered as a responsive, accessible website centred around a guided assessment experience.

Users answer a short series of questions about their debt situation. Based on their responses, the platform identifies relevant debt types and connects them to the most applicable resolution options, drawing from Illinois Legal Aid Online’s existing resources and financial option information provided by Working Credit.

Rather than replacing Illinois Legal Aid Online’s debt guidance, the site makes that guidance easier to reach and understand through a more structured journey.

Reusing approved guidance in a clearer structure

Existing content related to debt, money, collections, and consumer law was indexed and reused. A custom AI-supported workflow helped adapt this material into a format that fits the guided flow while remaining aligned with Illinois Legal Aid Online’s approved legal content.

This allowed the organisation to build a focused new experience without starting from scratch or introducing unverified information.

Personalised progress tracking for users

Debt resolution often involves multiple actions over time. Logged-in users can access a personalised dashboard showing their entered debts, relevant options, and progress across the steps they are pursuing.

Guidance is available without login, but authentication allows users to save their progress and return later without re-entering information.

Structured assessment and backend workflow

The guided assessment is powered by Landbot and configured with Debt Help Illinois’ structured resources and predefined logic. Based on user responses, the platform creates structured debt entries and related entities in the backend.

These become the foundation of the user’s action plan, where sequenced steps can be tracked and marked complete. Progress is securely stored and reflected when users return to the platform.

AI-supported drafting within defined legal boundaries

As the experience evolved, Illinois Legal Aid Online also needed a way to draft contextual, situation-specific explanations without moving beyond approved legal guidance.

To support this, an AI-assisted editorial workflow was introduced. Editors submit structured prompts within the system, and responses are generated using only Illinois Legal Aid Online’s approved source materials. The model does not rely on external web content or introduce speculative advice.

This made it possible to create contextual guidance while keeping outputs traceable, compliant, and subject to editorial oversight.

Outcome

Since launch, Debt Help Illinois has grown steadily in users served, with roughly 22% month-on-month growth and approximately 3,300 visitors in February alone.

Of the 1,902 users who started the debt assessment, 1,275 completed the initial filtering and prioritisation flow. That means a majority of users moved through a guided legal process they would otherwise have had to navigate on their own.

Illinois Legal Aid Online now has a focused, self-contained experience for people dealing with consumer debt, built from its existing verified content and extended through a more usable digital journey. Users arrive with a specific problem and leave with a clearer understanding of their situation and the next steps available to them.