For some 400 civil lawyers practicing in Florida, TBTLA is a trusted and vital resource. Connecting with fellow members through online forums and hosted events, they gain professional knowledge and hone the skills they need to successfully advocate for plaintiffs in personal injury and property damage suits. Most are solo practitioners and TBTLA members are frequently in competition with big-budget defense attorneys armed with legal libraries and databases. Lacking those same resources—and the ability to pop into a colleague’s office for advice—they rely heavily on the organization’s deep well of law-related documents including cases, statutes, rulings, and the like. These documents comprise the association’s number one membership benefit, according to 2020 Board President Alan Wagner. “Member-only access to TBTLA’s curated content is particularly important to young lawyers presented with a legal question or something going on in a case that they’ve never seen before,” Alan said. For almost two decades, the primary gateway to TBTLA’s important content was a listserv where members could solicit advice and share stories and expertise. “It was your basic old- school bulletin board that blasts emails to everyone,” Alan explained. A member would pose a question or ask for an opinion, then sit back and wait. Responses often referred to a specific document that might be helpful. Accessing it could be a problem, however. The TBTLA website included a link to a clunky database with limited functionality. Users had to know exactly what they were looking for, and how to download and share it. “We’ve had a document library forever, but it hasn’t been as user-friendly as I thought that it should be,” Alan said. “Members who were computer savvy could find some information without assistance if they knew how to get into the database and click the right buttons,” he said. “But those who were not would post a message to the entire list. More often than not, TBTLA’s executive director would see the query on the listserv, locate the referenced document, and then email it as a PDF to whomever needed it. The process was cumbersome, sometimes frustrating, and not the best use of time for an organization with limited resources. “We had issues updating and securing data, plus functions were limited,” explained Laura Wright, TBTLA’s executive director and the only person on staff. TBTLA’s other top-rated benefit, according to a membership survey, had its own limitations. Continuing legal education (CLE), which extends learning beyond law school studies, is a requirement for lawyers maintaining their license to practice. TBTLA has long offered in-person CLE events sponsored by a vendor, legal expert, or associated business. Speakers ranged from “court reporter to super snazzy people who do accident reconstruction and other sophisticated stuff,” Alan said. Part happy hour, part skills sharpening, these get-togethers were popular among members who attended but that number averaged only 10 percent. Once these live, geographically specific events ended, so did the learning opportunity and the sponsorship—the latter being TBTLA’s primary source of income along with membership fees. For an organization built on cumulative, shared knowledge, limited access to information and education were barriers to TBTLA’s growth. It was time or an overdue change. “I wanted our website and document library to come into the 21st century,” Alan said. “It’s something that has bugged me frequently over the last years. When I became president, I said, ‘I’m going to do it.’” The Challenge THE SOLUTION