Softengi, a leading digital transformation service provider, helped the Ministry of Legal and Constitutional Affairs (MLCA) in Jamaica to improve the country’s Legal Information Portal, making it more accessible for the citizens.
Under the supervision of the Planning Institute of Jamaica, the new Jamaica Legal Information Portal (JLIP) fulfills the increasing need of citizens, stakeholders, and international partners to access the country’s legal information, Acts of Parliament, and Jamaica Gazette publications.
The previous version of the Portal was outdated and lacked a functional search feature, making it difficult for citizens to use. The system had technical limitations that have hindered the implementation of essential functionality and faced constraints on document uploads, resulting in fewer available documents than anticipated.
The goal of the project was to improve public access to Jamaican laws, educate citizens on various legal matters, assist in finding required legal information with an advanced search tool and AI chat capability, and offer a platform for individuals to express their opinions and inquire about any legal question through live support.
This initiative aligned with Jamaica’s National Development Plan, Vision 2030, and aimed to foster a justice system that is open, accountable, inclusive, and effective. The project was supported by the World Bank’s Foundation for Competitiveness and Growth Project (FCGP), which seeks to strengthen the business environment in Jamaica and improve private sector competitiveness.
“Softengi is ranked in the top 100 global information technology outsourcing service providers by the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals.” – Marlene Malahoo Forte, The Minister of Legal and Constitutional Affairs
To develop the Jamaica Legal Information Portal – an ambitious solution that processes more than 10,000 legal documents, including centuries of legislation from 17th-century historical records to current Acts of Parliament, and allows the client to upload additional records – Softengi relied on the following technologies:
- Strapi Headless CMS and Node.js for back-end.
- Java Script for front-end.
- NodeBB for the forum part.
- OCR for digitization of thousands of existing physical documents.
- Milvus Vector Store for operating with documents.
- AI chatbot that generates answers based on information from the knowledge base.
The chatbot was integrated with the Jamaica legal information portal to work as an AI assistant for users having questions about Jamaican legislation:
- Understand user questions in natural language.
- Search relevant legal sources through the RAG pipeline.
- Generate structured answers based on retrieved legal context.
- Help users navigate legal information more easily.
- Provide a conversational interface for non-technical users.
Softengi used the Claude Sonnet 5 model within the RAG-based architecture because it provides a good balance between reasoning quality, response accuracy, latency, and operational cost. The AI model allows the chatbot to processes complex legal questions, summarizes retrieved content, and produces clear answers in a user-friendly format.
Besides a visual overhaul of the Portal that lives up to modern UX/UI trends and vectorizing documents already contained in the previous version of the Portal, Softengi implemented three crucial features contributing to the accessibility of the solution:
- Advanced Search: Citizens can access a list of documents relevant to their keyword or phrase.
- AI Chat: Powered by Claude Sonnet 5 from Anthropic, the chatbot generates answers to user requests based on vectorized data contained in the knowledge base, which comes from legal documents processed by OCR.
- Online Support and a Discussion Board: Users can ask questions regarding law documents, legislative acts, and other legal information, or start discussion topics to share knowledge or seek advice from other forum users.
Despite the project’s complexity and its extensive feature set, Softengi has significantly accelerated the development timeline from one year to four months, including User Acceptance Testing (UAT). Such an impressive speed was achieved thanks to a carefully chosen technology stack, a well-designed architecture, and a strategic use of pre-built services, enabling rapid progress.
For Jamaican government leaders, JLIP represents a major milestone in the digital transformation of justice. The portal serves as a centralized access point for vital legal information, aligning with Jamaica’s broader goals of enhancing the business environment and promoting private-sector-led growth outlined in the Foundations for Competitiveness and Growth Project (FCGP).
