GIS - Geocoding Addresses
Purpose: The GIS (Geographic Information System) module provides address validation and automatically populates political boundary fields like legislative districts based on valid, geocoded addresses.
Cost: $3,500 one time setup fee. Includes congressional district, state upper and lower districts (if the state legislature is not unicameral), and census tract.
Supported Modules: Case/Matter only.
In this Article:
- Features
- Batch Geocoding Existing Addresses
- Additional Boundaries
- Updating Existing Additional Boundaries
- 2023 Congressional and State District Updates
Features
Enabling the GIS module adds additional features to the Address block in LegalServer (this module does not work with the Address Extended block):
Address Validation. Addresses are validated using the USPS or comparable API.
Geocoding addresses. After an address is validated, it is run against a geocoding database to get a specific geocode (longitude and latitude location), which is stored with the address. If a specific geocode cannot be determined, it is run against an external geocoding database to see if it can return a valid geocode. If that fails, it returns a message that the address is not geocoded.
Boundary fields are set. If a geocode can be obtained for an address, congressional district and state upper and lower district political boundary fields are set. Additional boundary fields can be added at additional cost if valid shape files are available.
Sample screenshot of the Address block with GIS enabled:
Reports
See Reports - GIS, Policiation Boundaries, Address Validation.
Batch Geocoding Existing Addresses
Batch validation and geocoding of existing addresses is $750 per year (cases opened on after 1/1/2012 would be 4 years ($3,000) in 2016, for example).
Additional Boundaries
Adding additional political boundaries may be possible.
We need the following to determine if a boundary can be added:
1. An example address and link to an online mapping tool that determines the desired boundary for that address.
2. A link to the publicly accessible source of the data (the shapefile).
3. The SRID of the shapefile.
We typically charge $900 to determine if a boundary can be added, and to provide a firm quote of the cost to add it. Contact support@legalserver.org with the above information if you want an estimate, or if you have any questions.
The cost to setup a given political boundary can vary wildly depending on the quality of the shapefile data. Expect at least $1,500 per political boundary.
Updating Existing Additional Boundaries
If you have additional political boundaries on your site and the shapefile changes, let us know and we will get an estimate on feasibility and cost to update.
File a support request from your site (Help menu > Support Request) with a link to the new shapefile.
Feasibility is rarely an issue (but it has happened). The cost is typically $900 to have the new shapefile processed.
2023 Congressional and State District Updates
From Release Notes: "All live sites with the GIS module will have the new 2023 congressional and state upper/lower boundaries as of 2023-02-10. Addresses entered (or edited) on or after that date (via a block that supports GIS) will be set to the new boundaries (assuming the address can be geocoded)."