After years working in the nonprofit sector, Leah Margulies moved to the private sector, needing the income to support her young child. After 10 years as a technology consultant, Margulies missed nonprofit work.

“I especially missed feeling that my energy was contributing to building a better society,” says Margulies. So when a friend asked her to lead LawHelp/NY, then a leaderless and underperforming legal aid website, Margulies jumped at the opportunity, though it meant significantly less income.

In 2009, more than 2 million New Yorkers went to court without attorneys, often facing skilled adversaries representing landlords, mortgage banks or credit card companies. For the poor and unrepresented, LawHelp/NY is the first line of defense.

The website lists eligibility and intake information for more than 650 free legal aid projects and makes available thousands of know-your-rights and self-help resources in 35 languages, providing explanations of complicated legal problems in 15 areas of law.

Under Margulies’ leadership, LawHelp/NY has added several new innovative components, including LiveHelp, a real-time chat feature that navigates visitors to extensive community-level outreach and the specific legal resources that answer their questions.

As a result, LawHelp/NY went from a little-known resource to one widely used by libraries, social service agencies and legal aid offices throughout the state. With a budget of less than $400,000, LawHelp/NY has seen usage triple to 377,343 visitors, mostly low-income, viewing more than 2 million pages of legal information in 2009.