Bridg contributed to the Digital Platform for Attorneys

The Digital Platform for Attorneys connects to a protocol established in 2016 between the Belgian Minister of Justice and the legal professions to collaborate on the digitisation of Justice in Belgium. Under the name DPA, de Orde van Vlaamse Balies and the Ordre des barreaux francophones et germanophone (Avocats.be) collaborated on all common IT projects. The implementation of several key projects was entrusted to Bridg by the Orders, including co-developing the digital platform and ensuring its security. 

DPA is a digital platform for all Belgian lawyers. The online platform ensures secure and confidential communication with all stakeholders and is integrated with government and other systems. This allows the lawyer to request, send, process, and store data more quickly and efficiently. The goal is complete electronic proceedings. Notices made via the DPA platform have the same legal effects as actions taken at the registry. Lawyers can access services and databases directly from their own software application or through the DPA portal site.

To provide secure access to the DPA platform and the connected external databases, Bridg collaborated with Diplad and Avocats.be to develop an Identity Access Management solution based on a single-sign-on principle.
 
An attorney logs into the DPA using their lawyer's card. The administrative staff member of an attorney can also log in via delegation using the electronic identity card (eID) or itsme.be. This strong authentication method guarantees that the person signing in is who they claim to be. The underlying authentic source of the lawyers confirms whether that person is indeed a lawyer. Thanks to these guarantees, the lawyer or their authorized representative can directly access external databases containing sensitive information, such as the national register and the central seizure notices database. 
 
Once logged in, it is enough to access these various services through a single-sign-on system. The information is exchanged via a service bus connected to the Justice applications and third parties.

DPA provides access to:

• DPA-Deposit: for submitting conclusions, bundles of documents, and accompanying letters to a court, as well as sending to other recipients (colleagues and third parties) in a single action, including confirmation and traceability of the delivery upon receipt.
• DPA-Box: for an overview and storage of all incoming and outgoing messages and transactions. 

The Metix platform offers a secure and interoperable Data Exchange Platform that enables efficient, real-time data exchange and communication between key stakeholders in the justice system, the legal sector, and the broader government ecosystem.