The US Courts News Blog has undated statistics on prisoner and non-prisoner self-represented cases.

Key text:

But the number of non-prisoner pro se cases has been climbing as well. In FY 2010, that total was 24,319. It was 22,821 in FY 2009; 20,192 in FY 2008; and 20,545 in FY 2007.

Full chart, including District Court Court-by-court breakdown, and Circuit totals, and including prisoner petitions is here.

The good news is that networking is increasing among the small number of Federal Court programs aimed at assisting those without lawyers.  My personal perspective is that the relative lack of forms (depending on the District Court) and the procedural complexity (standing doctrine, anyone) make assistance to the self-represented much more complicated.  Various kinds of unbundling assistance will, until simplification and forms move forward, be even more critical than in state courts.

I participated in a program at the Equal Justice Conference on this subject.  This included folks from the Central District of California Clinic, the Northern District of California, and the Northern District of Illinois.  In addition we had a good session at the California Self-Represented Litigation Conference, at which we began the process of planning ongoing networking.