Consumer Reports Misses the Boat on Online Legal Tools

Posted on August 6, 2012 by richardzorza

I have always had the greatest respect for Consumer Report Magazine, and its commitment to standing up for the little guy in their dealings with the providers of products and services.

I was disappointed to see that the current September issue, which reports on “Legal DIY Sites No Match for a Pro,” at page 13, failed completely to tell consumers of the wide availability of free non-profit information and forms on the Internet, accessible directly through LawHelp and others, and the courts themselves.

The main focus of the short article is to assess the quality of the tools from LegalZoom, Nolo and Rocket Lawyer.  The conclusion:

The sites offer basic legal advice that might help save you money spent on a lawyer.  .  .  .  But many consumers are better off consulting with a lawyer.  The websites let you search for one.   .   .  .

The articles use of the word “advice” for what the sites provide may lead to additional ongoing consumer confusion, and the lack of reference to the access to justice network of sites is unfortunate.

The omission might provide an opportunity for state courts, legal aid, and access commissions to do media outreach pointing out the availability of free nonprofit comprehensive online access services.

Posted in Consumer Rights, Self-Help Services, Technology | 2 Comments

Major News from CCJ/COSCA on Model Code of Judicial Conduct and the Self-Represented

Posted on August 2, 2012 by richardzorza

In a move that has the potential for major impact on self-represented litigants in the courtroom nationally, the Conference of Chief Justices and the Conference of State Court Administrators have passed a Resolution recommending that states consider passing versions of the Model Code of Judicial Conduct explicitly referencing the appropriateness of taking steps to help ensure that the self-represented are heard.  Here is the meat of the Resolution (which is also attached in full as a document here).

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Conference of Chief Justices and the Conference of State Court Administrators recommend that states consider adopting Rule 2.2 with the inclusion of the following emphasized wording:

(A) A judge shall uphold and apply the law, and shall perform all duties of judicial office fairly and impartially.

(B) A judge may make reasonable efforts, consistent with the law and court rules, to facilitate the ability of all litigants, including self-represented litigants, to be fairly heard; and

 BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Conference of Chief Justices and the Conference of State Court Administrators suggest states modify the comments to Rule 2.2 to reflect local rules and practices regarding specific actions judges can take to exercise their discretion in cases involving self-represented litigants.

It is great news that the Conferences are encouraging black letter support for judicial actions for access — a path all the more urgent after Turner.

The explicit encouragement of the development of state-specific Comments also provides major opportunities, not only to get those in place, but for states to engage in robust discussions about what judicial techniques are appropriate, and indeed, why.  Groups may choose to develop options for the states to discuss and consider.  Hopefully, this process will also encourage the development and use of additional judicial training — an additional opportunity for partnering between Commissions and courts.  See the link to the Self-Represented Litigation Network Judicial Curriculum.

(Disclosure: I am coordinator of the Self-Represented Litigation Network, which provided information to the CCJ/COSCA during this process.)

Posted in Judicial Ethics | Tagged | 6 Comments

Video of Turner v. Rogers Anniversary Symposium Now Online

Posted on August 2, 2012 by richardzorza

The video of the June 20 OSCE/DOJ Turner Symposium is now online.  Here is part of the description from the invite:

 [S]peakers include George Sheldon, Acting Assistant Secretary Administration for Children and Families; Vicki Turetsky, OCSE Commissioner; Daniel Olmos, Department of Justice Access to Justice Initiative Senior Counsel [now actually at the White House]; Alan Houseman, Center for Law and Social Policy Executive Director; Richard Zorza, Self-Represented Litigation Network; Diane Potts, Illinois Deputy Attorney General; and, Pamela Lowry, Administrator of the Division of Child Support Enforcement for Illinois.

Personally, I found the Illinois description of their transformation into a system that involves the non-custodial parent, rather than coerces, fascinating.  Turns out to be a cost effective change.  Note also the OCSE Best Practice Materials.

For what it is worth, the feedback I got from my presentation was that many child support staff are not fully aware of the problems that the self-represented face in judicial proceedings.  This only further underlines the value of Turner.

Posted in Child Support, Meetings, Supreme Court | Comments Off on Video of Turner v. Rogers Anniversary Symposium Now Online

National Center for Access to Justice Seeks Information About Law Student Pro Bono

Posted on August 1, 2012 by richardzorza

One of the nice things about having a blog is being able to use it as  tool for connecting folks and sharing information.  Here is another example.  David Udell of the National Center for Access to Justice has an interesting and worthwhile project developing a guide for law school access to justice.  He has asked this blog for help in gathering info.  So, here is is announcement of his survey — please help by completing it.

National Center for Access to Justice Seeks Your Views
on Strengthening Law Student Pro Bono
to Increase Access to Justice
 
The National Center for Access to Justice is preparing a Guide to Strengthening Law Student Pro Bono to Increase Access to Justice and is seeking your help.  If you work in a court, legal services program, law school, law firm, Access to Justice Commission, bar association, or other justice system setting, we hope you will respond to this call.
 
The Guide is focusing on “volunteering,” as distinct from clinics, externships, fellowships, and other activities which law students pursue for credit or pay.  The Center is gathering examples of best practices in which law students, as volunteers, are making a difference.  Law students may represent clients, assist lawyers, carry out policy advocacy, conduct legal research, provide legal information, help litigants complete court forms, conduct court-watching projects, and more.
 
The models in which law students volunteer come in many forms.  Some draw on efficiencies of scale, attract new resources, or have systemic impacts.  Some are based in courts, involve multiple law schools, or rely on private attorneys.  Some are valuable to legal services programs or courts, or fill niches in particular communities, including in rural areas far from other law schools and courts.
 
The Center is especially interested in discovering models that provide help to people in underserved practice areas, such as family law, housing law, education law, foreclosure law, consumer law, public benefits law, and immigration law, but invites responses from all who have an interest in this subject.
 
Please share your ideas and examples.  The Center seeks your input via a survey monkey instrument located here, or via email, info@nc4aj.org. The survey is also posted on our web site at:  http://www.ncforaj.org/law-student-pro-bono.  Please also feel free to email the Center’s Executive Director with any questions, David Udell, udell(at)yu.edu.  Let us hear from you.

Posted in Law Schools, Pro Bono | Comments Off on National Center for Access to Justice Seeks Information About Law Student Pro Bono

Harvard’s Jim Greiner Promoted to Tenured Position at Law School

Posted on August 1, 2012 by richardzorza

This is great news for access to justice and research.

Congratulations to Jim on a well-earned promotion to tenured full professor, announced here.  As Dean Martha Minnow put it:

“As he pursues empirical study of vital questions about the benefit of access to legal representation and the operation of voting systems, Jim deploys state-of-the-art statistical analysis, time-intensive methods, and critical thinking. His superb commitment to ensuring that the best empirical evidence guides the design and operation of legal systems is matched only by his devotion to teaching. What a terrific colleague and scholar he is!”

It is obvious that having such a brilliant, energetic, and dedicated person working in this area is going to be a huge help in the future.  I know that it in no way undercuts Jim’s achievement to say that this is also a vote of confidence by Harvard Law in the importance of this area of work and inquiry.  It is part of a broader refocusing on access questions by the academic and research communities — one largely jump started by Jim’s own work.

 

 

Posted in Law Schools, Research and Evalation | Comments Off on Harvard’s Jim Greiner Promoted to Tenured Position at Law School

ABA ATJ Network Announces Grants for Enhancment of Works of Existing Commissions

Posted on July 30, 2012 by richardzorza

The ABA Access to Justice Commission Expansion Project, with funding from the Public Welfare Foundation, has now announced the availability of its Phase Two grants.  These are available to existing Access to Justice Commissions to enhancement of their work.

From the website:

Phase II: To promote innovation and to enable existing Access to Justice Commissions to expand the scope of their activities and undertake initiatives in new areas beyond existing work. Targeted to existing, active Access to Justice Commissions. Application date: October 1, 2012. Grants will be made on or around January 15, 2013

Also from the announcement:

Grants are likely to be in the $8,000 to $20,000 range. Grants exceeding $20,000 may be made if warranted under the circumstances. It is unlikely that any state/jurisdiction will be awarded more than one grant during the current cycle (Phase I-III).

The Phase Two Grant Application Process is described here.  The Application Template is downloadable from that description.  Applications are Due October 1, 2012, and further informtion is available from Bob Echols at Robert.Echols(at)comcast.net.

This is a great opportunity for Commissions and partners to stretch into new areas of activity.  It is a great opportunity for potential new partners to approach Commissions about such new areas, with the potential for funding as a spur to planning such a partnership.

Posted in Access to Justice Boards, Funding | Comments Off on ABA ATJ Network Announces Grants for Enhancment of Works of Existing Commissions

Plan to Present Resolution on Unbundled Legal Services to ABA House of Delegates

Posted on July 26, 2012 by richardzorza

The “Delivery Committee” of the ABA (Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services) has a plan to present to the House of Delegates next winter a Resolution in support of Unbundled Legal Services.

Proposed text is as follows:

RESOLVED, that the American Bar Association supports the use of limited scope representation  as a means of increasing access to legal services

 FURTHER RESOLVED, that the American Bar Association leads efforts to assure that practitioners who provide limited scope representation do so with full understanding and recognition of their professional obligations.

FURTHER RESOLVED, that the American Bar Association leads efforts to make the public better aware of the availability of limited scope representation as a way of meeting the legal needs of clients.

The accompanying document is an excellent summary of the idea, the history, the regulatory status, and the need.

I urge folks in the states to use it heavily as an advocacy and reference document, regardless of the path the Resolution itself takes.

With respect to the Resolution, obviously the Committee would appreciate hearing of support from other groups in the ABA.

If the resolution passes it will open up a number of paths for greater ABA involvement in the promotion of unbundling.  My own analysis is that there are three keys — making sure that state and local bars provide training in the concept, particularly from practical and marketing point of view, making sure that judges do not try to “hold” lawyers in cases, and persuading lawyer referral services to make the explicit effort to offer and promote unbundled services.

Congratulations to the Committee and its staff.

Posted in Access to Justice Generally | Comments Off on Plan to Present Resolution on Unbundled Legal Services to ABA House of Delegates

Judicature Article on Broad Strategic Impact of Turner v. Rogers

Posted on July 26, 2012 by richardzorza

I am proud that Judicature has just published my new article on Turner v. Rogers:  The Implications for Access to Justice Strategies.

The article is aimed at courts, the bar, legal aid programs, and access to justice Commissions, with the hope that they will take Turner as an opportunity to review a wide range of issues relating to access for the self-represented.

Special thanks to the American Judicature Society, publishers of Judicature, for permitting the article to be posted on my website.  Rights are retained, and the article can not be reprinted or redistributed without permission.  Here is how you can subscribe to Judicature, an important publication in our judical and legal systems.

Posted in Access to Justice Boards, Supreme Court, Systematic Change | 2 Comments

Giant Step for LSC — Chief Information Officer Position Posted

Posted on July 25, 2012 by richardzorza

This is a concrete example of the changes at LSC.  The Corporation has just posed a job opening for a Chief Information Officer.

There are at least three reasons this is important.  The first is that the new position reports directly to the President of LSC.   This shows a recognition of the importance of information to the entire direction and strength of the organization, and gives the person in the organization the clout to do what needs to be done, as well as the credibility to work well with other senior leaders.

The second is that the position announcement itself reflects an understanding of the breadth of this importance, with reference to technologies such as data mining, and the need to reach out to the LSC community to make sure that information needs are being met.

The final reason is that the filing of the new position gets LSC ready to implement these aspects of the strategic plan, including accountability, fiscal responsibility, and use of information to strengthen and tell LSC’s message.

In short, it provides LSC an opportunity to match for the Corporation’s internal technology and information systems the level of achievement already met by the TIG field innovation operation.  It is simply impossible to operate a 21st century operation without that capacity, and it is great to see it being put in place.

Having such capacity in place will also surely also help the TIG program, and also lays the groundwork for future enhancements and planning for the use of information and technology.

Its going to be a hard job, but a very very worthwhile one.

Posted in LSC, Technology | 1 Comment

Wayne Moore on Commentators Concerns about LSC’s Performance Management Strategy

Posted on July 24, 2012 by richardzorza

This blog welcomes Wayne Moore’s thoughtful comments on the Comments submitted for LSC’s Draft Strategic Plan.

Wayne’s comments show that the worries raised by commentators have not been borne out with respect to the similar prior Performance Criteria for Legal Aid.  The proposed Standards would merely build on the criteria.  Wayne also demonstrates the power of metrics and rewards to give meaning to those Standards.  His full comments follow:

Continue reading →

Posted in LSC, Metrics | Tagged | Comments Off on Wayne Moore on Commentators Concerns about LSC’s Performance Management Strategy

Guide to VISTA for Legal Aid Programs

Posted on July 21, 2012 by richardzorza

This is nice.  As posed on the DOJ Access Initiative website, DOJ in partnership with the Corporation for National and Community Service has issued a Guide to Vista for Legal Aid Programs.

From the Guide: Vistas Helping with Technology:

  • Minnesota Legal Services: VISTAs updated and enhanced a statewide legal help website, LawHelpMN.org, leading usage to triple; VISTAS added hundreds of additional resources to the site, including a “LiveHelp” chat navigational assistance tool, and created versions of the site in Somali and Spanish. VISTAs also created document assembly court form interviews for pro se litigants.
  • Montana Legal Services State Support: VISTAs helped develop: one of the first legal services informational websites, MontanaLawHelp.org; another website with free tax information; self‐help law kiosks in remote or rural areas with “LiveHelp” chat navigational assistance; the B‐SAFE program, an Individual Development
    Account program for domestic violence survivors to promote financial literacy and economic independence.
  • Prairie State Legal Services: VISTAs created a mortgage foreclosure helpdesk at an Illinois county courthouse

On Building Partnerships:

  • Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation: VISTAs launched and coordinate: a foreclosure mediation program, which now partners with St. Louis University Legal Clinic; a medical‐legal partnership with local hospitals; an education advocacy project that works closely with children, parents, and teachers in the East St. Louis school system to empower parents and improve children’s educational outcomes.
  • Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago: VISTAs helped start a medical‐legal partnership at the University of Chicago’s children’s hospitals and clinics. The program continues today without any VISTA funding,
    and two former VISTAs eventually worked on the project as staff attorneys.
  • Prairie State Legal Services: VISTA helps establish collaborative medical‐legal partnerships between PSLS and medical clinics serving low‐income individuals.
  • Watsonville Law Center (California): VISTAs developed, maintained, or strengthened: a tricounty foreclosure collaborative that holds regular workshops and develops expert resources on foreclosure; a service provider collaborative that meets monthly and addresses emerging community issues, like providing services to reentering ex‐offenders and the LGBT or indigenous communities; a statewide collaborative of state agencies and other stakeholders in the workers compensation system to address barriers that prevent low‐wage and immigrant

The Guide describes how the Vistas can be used, how to apply, and gives many more examples.

Its amazing how many of the innovative programs in legal aid happen from this kind of supplemental funding — in fact, it highlights the need for discretionary funding to incentivize this kind of innovation, as envisioned in the LSC Draft Strategic Plan.

Congratulations to all involved for putting out this Guide. It shows how important it is to have an Access Initiative at DOJ.

Posted in Dept. of Justice, Funding, Legal Aid | Comments Off on Guide to VISTA for Legal Aid Programs

Joan Zorza Wall of Honor Established by End Violence Against Women International

Posted on July 17, 2012 by richardzorza

My general rule is not to promote fundraising on this blog.  But this is not business, it is personal.

End Violence Against Women International has established a Wall of Honor, to honor the work of my wife Joan, because, as they say:

Joan Zorza has dedicated her life to ending violence against women and children.  To recognize her tireless efforts on behalf of the victimized and often powerless among us, we dedicate this wall of tribute.

This virtual wall symbolizes the wall of support Joan built with her life’s work — the wall of protection she created not only for her clients, but also for the countless victims whose lives were made better by Joan’s profound and far-reaching impact.

You buy “bricks” on the wall, which help finance scholarships to their conferences:

This wall will be built, brick by brick, with donations from those of us inspired by Joan’s life and work.  With each brick added to the wall, we honor her dedicated service.  More important, each brick represents another step toward continuing her life’s work.  When you buy a brick, the money is donated to a scholarship fund to provide training for professionals who are following in Joan’s footsteps.  Scholarships will be awarded to professionals who are similarly working to end violence against women and children, in order to attend the International Conference on Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, and Stalking hosted by End Violence Against Women International (EVAWI).

Bricks start at $10.  When you buy a “brick,” you can leave a message, and the messages on the wall can be read by all.

Here is one message, this one from Lynn Hecht Schafran

Joan: People often ask me how I can bear to work on such disturbing issues every day, and I say it is because I have extraordinary colleagues who inspire me to keep rolling the rock up the hill with them. You are Exhibit A. Thank you for your decades of unfailing commitment and belief that together we can make a difference.

So, thanks for your help in building the Wall.  You can see more about Joan’s work by clicking on the link above the Wall.  More complete is her resume, including her lists of papers and speaking engagements.

Posted in Domestic Violence | 1 Comment

Request for Examples of Courts Providing Information on Legal Aid and Access to Counsel Services

Posted on July 16, 2012 by richardzorza

Jim Greiner at Harvard (the prof who did the randomized studies in Massachusetts) is trying to find samples of courts who attach notices or flyers to summonses or other early-in-the-litigation-type papers that say something to the effect of, “If you think you might need legal help and cannot afford an attorney, call _______” or “contact __________” or “go to this website: _______.”

The idea is to try to persuade other courts around the country to include these notices or flyers or whatever to try to direct people to the right place.

Could anyone who knows of a court that does this sort of thing email Jim at jgreiner(at)law.harvard.edu?  If you happened to have a copy of the notice the court sends out and can attach it to the email, all the better!  Thanks!

Posted in Access to Counsel, Court Management | 2 Comments

The Prezi as a Self-Help Information Tool Generator

Posted on July 16, 2012 by richardzorza

Prezi is a tool to create zooming informational materials.

The Napa Valley Self-Help Center has created two:  one describing the center, and one on California Divorce, Legal Separation & Nullity.

The zooming gives you much more control over how the user gets the key information.  Take a look.

The basic tool is free. Paying more gets you additional storage space, ability to load non-public items, and ability to use your logo.

Here is the tool site.

Posted in Self-Help Services, Technology | Comments Off on The Prezi as a Self-Help Information Tool Generator

Some Thoughts on Posted Comments to the LSC Draft Strategic Plan

Posted on July 14, 2012 by richardzorza

LSC has posted the comments they have received on the Draft Strategic Plan.

Overall, the tone is positive.  Here to me are the highlights, focusing perhaps more on areas of disagreement, rather than the many repeated statements of support for the process and concepts at the most general level.

Continue reading →

Posted in Budget Issues, LSC, Research and Evalation | 2 Comments