For Texas Access Advocates, No Good Deed Goes Appreciated

Posted on January 23, 2012 by richardzorza

Law.com is carrying a remarkable story out of Texas.  Under the heading Draft Forms for Pro Se Divorce Litigants Create Controversy, the site is reporting on the frankly remarkably intense reaction of the Texas Family Bar to plans for the state Court System to possibly approve forms for use in divorces — indeed the current proposed forms are for use in  uncontested divorces.  As the Law.com site reports:

Continue reading →

Posted in Access to Justice Boards, Forms | Tagged | 13 Comments

New York Times Reports on High School-Based Legal Triage

Posted on January 20, 2012 by richardzorza

The Times has a nice story on how a high school teacher with a law degree runs a clinic at eight high schools, with what looks like brief service and triage.

The foundation is based at Mr. Kass’s own school, Infinity Math, Science and Technology High School, one of four high schools that are part of the Little Village Lawndale High School campus. The location makes sense, Mr. Kass said, because public schools were an ideal place to provide legal services to low-income families.

Mr. Kass described the foundation’s legal work as “triage,” and used his fingers to tick off the issues that have come to his attention: “My uncle got arrested, the landlord says we have to move, my mom’s boyfriend beat her up, domestic abuse, orders of protection, immigration, homelessness,” he said. “Sometimes I have to say there’s nothing I can do. Sadly, anything I do is better than what they had.”

An example:

Cadmiel Avendaño, a 2010 Little Village Lawndale graduate, agreed. Mr. Avendaño, who is now a chemical engineering student at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said his parents had saved enough to buy a house in 2006 but did not realize their mortgage had a variable interest rate. When they fell behind on their payments and the bank threatened foreclosure in 2010, Mr. Kass referred them to an agency that helped with the paperwork for a loan modification.

One way of thinking about this is that perhaps some of the excess legal graduates (defined in terms of what the market will absorb, not what the need is) could get jobs in other kinds of institutions, and set up such assistance and referral systems in those institutions.  Such folks should get somewhat higher pay because of their credentials and services.  And, insurance companies should find ways to provide low malpractice rates for such people.

Note too that technology such as informational webpages and document assembly — not to mention online triage — could make such assistance and referral locations much more efficient and much more accurate.

It would be nice to see access to justice commissions promoting such partnerships.  Maybe someone should submit a TIG to create a front end for such school services, or maybe a court could go to SJI for school outreach for self-help centers.

Posted in Self-Help Services, Systematic Change | Tagged | Comments Off on New York Times Reports on High School-Based Legal Triage

New York Access Group Keeps on Moving

Posted on January 19, 2012 by richardzorza

This should inspire us all.  As you know, the NY courts have had a brutal budget year.  Yet they have just issued their 2011 Access Report, showing some great new innovations:

  • The creation of a trilingual DIY (document assembly) form module using the pop-up feature of A2J.  This is surely very creative and new to the A2J development community.
  • The use of Twitter to disseminate information to self-represented litigants.  Not something many court systems are doing yet.
  • Creation of a FaceBook page for all court-based volunteer attorney programs.
  • Extensive DIY outreach and training is very important.  There is a direct relationship to the success of their A2J programs and the training of court personnel.  Here is the chart showing increase of usage in the NYC Civil Court.

Continue reading →

Posted in Court Management, Document Assembly, Self-Help Services | Tagged , , | Comments Off on New York Access Group Keeps on Moving

UK Impact of Litigants in Person (SRLs to the US)

Posted on January 19, 2012 by richardzorza

The UK Law Gazette has a good (if anxious) roundup article on the impact of the self-represented on the courts in the UK, with a focus on the likely impact of the looming legal aid cuts.

Continue reading →

Posted in Judicial Ethics, Self-Help Services | Tagged | Comments Off on UK Impact of Litigants in Person (SRLs to the US)

California Daily Journal on Costs of Cutting Self-Help Programs

Posted on January 17, 2012 by richardzorza

The (California) Daily Journal, a legal publication, has a good story on the risk that cutting back on self-help services may end up costing more than it saves.  A good article to cite to.

Just a few years ago, California courts were on the
cutting edge of providing services to help litigants without lawyers navigate
the civil court system. In 2008, California became one of the first states to offer self-help centers in every county.
Now the budget crisis threatens to derail that progress. The state Judicial
Council has frozen funding for self-help centers, and some counties have been
forced to cut the amount of money they’re putting into such programs.
Ironically, the cuts could end up costing the judicial branch more money in the
long run. Studies have shown that judges have to spend more time in court to resolve
cases when litigants show up unprepared.
“The data is sort of consistent with common sense,” said Richard Zorza, a national
expert on self-represented litigants. “If people know what they’re doing, they’ll spend
less time interacting with the institution they’re trying to negotiate.”
A 2009 study of five San Joaquin Valley counties, including Fresno, San Joaquin
and Stanislaus, measured the savings for the judicial branch, as well as for the
litigants themselves. The court saved $1 for every 23 cents spent on workshops. Oneon-one support was slightly more costly but still saved money.

The article goes on to describe cuts and their impact, as well as the reactions of judges, and quotes me for the suggestion that Turner v. Rogers, has constitutionalized the analysis.

Here is the link to the newspaper (subscription)

Here is a link to the full study from the San Joaquin Valley.  It was written by John Greacen.  I hope we will be able to follow up more in this research direction.  Here is the relevant part of the Executive Summary:

The findings suggest that:
•    Courts that provide services through a workshop reduce the number of court hearings and the time of staff at the public counter and that the costs of the workshops amount to $.23 for every $1.00 saved. Taking into account the savings accruing to litigants in not having to attend the eliminated court hearings, the costs drop to $.13 for every dollar of savings.
•    Courts that provide one-on-one support and information services to litigants are saving: at least one hearing per case, 5 to 15 minutes of hearing time for every hearing held in the case, and 1 to 1.5 hours of court staff time related to providing assistance to self-represented litigants at the front counter and to reviewing and rejecting proposed judgments. The services required to produce these court savings range from a high of $.55 to a low of $.36 for every $1.00 saved. Adding the savings accruing to the litigants reduces the costs to a range of $.33 to $.26 for every $1.00 of savings.
•    Courts that provide assistance to self-represented litigants to resolve cases at the first court appearance save future court hearings. The cost of the self help services are roughly $.45 for every $1.00 saved. When the costs to the litigants of attending the eliminated hearings are included, the cost of the services falls to $.14 for every $1.00 saved.

Posted in Budget Issues, Court Management, Research and Evalation, Self-Help Services | Tagged | Comments Off on California Daily Journal on Costs of Cutting Self-Help Programs

California Courts Issue RFP for Evaluation of Shriver Project

Posted on January 16, 2012 by richardzorza

This is an important step for the evaluation of the access to counsel pilot passed by the California Legislature, and for which the first round of underlying program awards have already been made.  The RFP is here, and proposals are due February 24.

Here is some of the key language:

The Contractor will design and conduct both descriptive data collection and analysis, and experimental design evaluation. For the descriptive data collection and analysis, the evaluator will work from the descriptions of pilot outcomes that have been developed by the programs and make such data operational for quantitative data collection. The evaluator will work with the legal services pilots and the associated local courts to integrate the necessary data elements into existing data collection systems assist in collecting the data and provide statistical reports on pilot services and outcomes to the JBE/AOC.  For the experimental design evaluation, the evaluator is expected to design one evaluation plan for housing projects and one plan for child custody projects, and implement them in 2 housing pilots and 2 child custody pilots.

Posted in Access to Counsel, Research and Evalation | Tagged , | Comments Off on California Courts Issue RFP for Evaluation of Shriver Project

Exciting Triage Progress at TIG Conference

Posted on January 15, 2012 by richardzorza

I am pleased to report that our sessions at the TIG Conference on Intake, Triage, and Technology were very successful.

One session reviewed where we are now, with a focus on how court self-help centers decide who gets what help, and how legal aid programs and hotlines are moving to online intake.

The second session, moderated by Karen Lash of DOJ’s Access Initiative, looked at what an integrated intake and triage system might look like in 10 years.  It included extensive discussion of the role of research in establishing decision protocols for such a process, as well as research perspectives from Prof Jim Greiner of Harvard, and Susan Ledray from the Minnesota Courts Self-Help system.

A small group then met to start to integrate the ideas raised in those two sessions.  Here, however are some thoughts that struck me most powerfully.

  • We need a system that is used by everybody to find and get to the help that they need to obtain access to justice.
  • The system should provide actual help to everybody.
  • The system should be user-friendly, user-oriented, and user controlled (it is to meet their needs, not those of the organizations participating.)
  • The system should include user support systems such as online chat.
  • The system should actually get people to the resource they need including passing data into intake or information systems and tools — its not just a referral system.
  • The system should include such access to all service mechanisms, including courts, legal aid, unbundling, informational websites, document assembly, online chat, pro bono and private lawyer referral systems.
  • The system should get people to the highest level of assistance that is available to them, consistent with cost effectiveness.
  • The system should use research to be able to ask sufficient questions to make sure that the range of a persons issues are identified and responded to.
  • The system should have built into it the case-acceptance criteria, so that there are few “dead” hand-offs.
  • The system should be “self-learning” so that it gets better as there is more experience, and the acceptance criteria should be informed by research.

I made brief comments at the session on the 2012 TIG round about what we had talked about.  Maybe there will be some TIG grant applications in this area!

Thanks to all for their great ideas in this important discussion.  I think this is one of the things that we just have to get right if we are to have a 100% access system.

Please do share more ideas for such a system in the comments.

Posted in Legal Aid, Research and Evalation, Self-Help Services, Systematic Change, Technology, Triage | 5 Comments

Online Form to Request Interpreters

Posted on January 12, 2012 by richardzorza

The Utah Courts have put up online the pdf form that can be used to request an interpreter (Spanish version).  Here is the instruction page.

As the instruction page says:

You must request a court interpreter at least 3 days before the hearing, or the hearing may have to be postponed. To request a court interpreter, call the court that is holding the hearing or file a Request a Court Interpreter form with that court.

A nice step forward.

Does any court yet let you file the request online?

Posted in Document Assembly, LEP | Comments Off on Online Form to Request Interpreters

NY Launches Mobile Office with Video for Remote Court Appearance

Posted on January 10, 2012 by richardzorza

This a great idea.  I am sure we will learn a lot from it.  I hope we get a good evaluation out of the project.  Here is the release:

State-of-the-Art Vehicle Includes Private Meeting and Conference Rooms with Video Links for Remote Court Appearances

New York, NY – Jan. 10, 2012: The New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG) has launched the Mobile Legal Help Center, New York’s first legal services office on wheels. The Center will serve low-income communities with limited access to legal assistance.

Created through a partnership between NYLAG and the New York State Office of Court Administration, the 40-foot vehicle provides advice, legal counseling, and direct representation. Two of the three conference rooms have video capability for remote emergency court proceedings in cases such as unlawful eviction and domestic violence.

In the new mobile center, clients can access most of the services provided in a typical NYLAG office. In addition to handling housing and family court issues, the agency operates a consumer protection program and assists clients with obtaining public benefits. NYLAG is also the largest immigration services provider in New York City.

“We saw a need, and we rushed to address it,” said Yisroel Schulman, President and Attorney-in-Charge of NYLAG. “People who can’t access our intake sites now have free legal services near their doorsteps.”

NYLAG anticipates that low-income seniors and working families will benefit most from the vehicle. Physical and financial limitations prevent these groups from leaving their immediate neighborhoods. The Mobile Legal Help Center will also help immigrants reluctant to leave their communities because of status questions and language barriers.

“The Mobile Legal Help Center is a pioneering effort to bring legal services and legal information to New Yorkers who encounter the greatest obstacles in obtaining assistance in their own communities,” said Judge Fern Fisher, Deputy Chief Administrative Judge for New York City Courts and Director of the New York State Courts Access to Justice Program.

Judge Jonathan Lippman, Chief Judge of the State of New York, is also optimistic about the new program. “Equal access to justice is one of the great challenges facing our system today,” he said. “The Mobile Legal Help Center is a groundbreaking effort to address this issue.”

Mr. Schulman plans for the Mobile Legal Help Center to travel to at least seven different sites each week and serve more than 1,500 New Yorkers every year. “This is a natural way to continue on NYLAG’s path of community-based lawyering,” he said.

The vehicle team is working with social service providers throughout New York to identify areas most in need of mobile legal services and determine a rotational schedule. Outreach in advance of visits will ensure that community members know when and where to access the Mobile Legal Help Center.

For more information about the Mobile Legal Help Center please contact Ernest Grigg at egrigg@nylag.org or 212-613-5019.  Please visit http://www.nylag.org.

Posted in Legal Aid, Technology | Tagged | Comments Off on NY Launches Mobile Office with Video for Remote Court Appearance

More Great News from SJI — Request for Concept papers on Self-Represented — Due Date Feb 15

Posted on January 9, 2012 by richardzorza

This, from SJI, speaks for itself — and speaks well.

REQUEST FOR CONCEPT PAPERS

Self-Represented Litigation in the State Courts

SJI is accepting concept papers to address self-represented litigation in the state courts – one of SJI’s new Priority Investment Areas. SJI is seeking to fund project(s) that are innovative and national or statewide in scope, and will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the state courts in addressing this critical issue. Some examples include (but are not limited to) unique approaches to maximizing court self-help centers and court-based volunteer attorney programs, and application of technology solutions to improve access for self-represented litigants and the state courts.

Concept papers will be reviewed and the SJI Board will decide which potential project(s) merit further exploration and possible funding. Concept papers must adhere to the guidelines below and address issues of content specified in this request. In addition, SJI may have additional requirements should the project(s) be funded. SJI’s Grant Guideline will govern any award(s). The project(s) will be funded as a Strategic Initiatives Grant (SIG).

Concept papers are due to SJI via mail by February 15, 2012. Submit one original and two hard copies. The Board will make final decisions on award(s) by the end of April 2012.

If you have questions regarding this solicitation, please email contact@sji.gov or call 571-313-8843.

Here is what the website says about the Strategic Initiatives grants.

The Strategic Initiatives Grants (SIG) program provides SJI the flexibility to address national court issues as they occur, and develop solutions to those problems. SJI uses its expertise and the expertise and knowledge of its grantees to address key issues facing state courts across the United States.

The funding is used for grants or contractual services, and any remaining balance not used for Strategic Initiatives Grants will become available for SJI’s other grant programs. The program is handled at the discretion of the SJI Board of Directors and Staff outside the normal grant application process (i.e. SJI will initiate the project), and there is no cash match requirement. (emphasis added.)

SJI requested $1.5 million for this overall Strategic Initiative Grants program in their 2012 FY budget request (at page 14.)  This would have been an increase of $250,000 from the prior year.  The final SJI budget approved by Congress and the President for FY 2012 was the same as for the prior year.  It might be inferred that the Strategic Initiative budget will be $1.25 million for FY 2o12 — although, of course, self-represented issues is not the only such Initiative at SJI.

Obviously the request is a great idea, and a great sign.  That the concept papers are to be two pages long makes the process much simpler and more efficient.  I’ll be following up with more thoughts later, but I’d encourage folks to start brainstorming.  The more transformative ideas we get in, the better the case for expanding funding in this area, not just from SJI, but from other potential funders.  Let’s blow them away!

Posted in Funding, Self-Help Services | Tagged | 1 Comment

Arguument Feb 21 in Supreme Court Case on Scope of “Interpreter” Costs

Posted on January 6, 2012 by richardzorza

This could make a difference in the language access debate.

On February 21, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in the case of Taniguchi v. Kan Pacific Saipan, Ltd.

This case, appealed from CNMI (Commonwealth of the Northern Mauritania Islands ) through the Ninth Circuit, deals with whether costs of interpretation of documents are payable by the losing party under 28 U.S.C. §1920(6).  Here is the SCOTUS blog sumary:

Issue: Whether costs incurred in translating written documents are compensation of interpreters and may therefore be awarded to the prevailing party in a federal lawsuit under 28 U.S.C. §1920(6).

Plain English Issue: A federal law provides that the losing party in a lawsuit may be required to reimburse the winning party for some of the costs of the lawsuit, including the costs for “compensation of interpreters.” The question presented is whether these costs include the money paid to translate written documents from a foreign language into English.

Key phrase from the Ninth Circuit opinion:

[T[he Sixth Circuit’s analysis is more compatible with Rule 54 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which includes a decided preference for the award of costs to the prevailing party. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 54(d) (providing that absent a federal statute, rule or court order to the contrary, costs “should be allowed to the prevailing party”); see also Quy, 667 F.2d at 1065-66 (concluding that translation of deposition testimony was necessary). We therefore agree with the Sixth and D.C. Circuits that within the meaning of § 1920(6), the prevailing party should be awarded costs for services required to interpret either live speech or written documents into a familiar language, so long as interpretation of the items is necessary to the litigation. (Emphasis added.)

Obviously if the decision hinges completely on the history of the statute, then it will not have much impact.  If however, it ends up in any kind of policy analysis about the meaning of “interpreter” as a word, then it could have impact on the state court debate.

The briefs are, and will be, here, as they come in.

I note that the the National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators, and a group of academics in the field, have both filed amicus briefs urging reversal.  They take a strong position that the words interpreter and translator have different meanings, and that therefore the cost shifting statute should not be applied to translators, who they see as dealing with documents, rather than live interpretation of spoken testimony.

I am somewhat concerned about the possible negative impact of this position on funding for access-related language services, although increasing cost shifting itself can cut both ways in access terms (I would think that threats of increased cost shifting can act as either incentives or disincentives to plaintiffs, although in aggregate, I would think the disincentive risks are greater, but only if the costs are high).  I will blog further it I am persuaded either way.

As I understand the professionals position, they are deeply concerned to maintain the distinction between the two skills.  I hope that they are not forgetting the access forest for the linguistic trees.

Journalistic summary from the Saipan Tribune.

Thanks to Claudia Johnson for catching this (although the perspective is entirely mine).

Posted in LEP, Supreme Court | Tagged | 2 Comments

Claudia Johnson Blogs on Location of Services Where the Poor Now Are — in the Suburbs

Posted on January 5, 2012 by richardzorza

One question I always ask myself is, why are most legal non profits, and their services in urban areas when the poverty populations have been moving from the city to the suburbs en mass in the past 10 years?  Why are most brick and mortar self help centers downtown?

When I was at Bay Legal, while supervising the hotline that served 7 counties, we handled a lot of cases where the cases may have started in SF Superior Court, where they have an excellent self help center that was fully staffed at the time, but the family had moved to another county, into a suburb where with Section 8, the family could rent in a stand alone home in  cul de sac, where it was safe to bring groceries home and leave a bike on the porch. Now the children where in Contra Costa County, and the callers needed help dealing with transferring the case over, to a county that had a total different set up in terms of self help services, as well as little or no legal resources other than our office. Continue reading →

Posted in Legal Aid, Poverty | Tagged | 4 Comments

Access Impact of “Settlement Mills” in Auto Insurance Cases

Posted on January 4, 2012 by richardzorza

Nora Freeman Engstrom, an Assistant Professor at Stanford Law School has a fascinating article out in the New York University Law Review.  It deals with the largely unnoticed phenomenon of what she calls “settlement mills” in auto accident claims.  The core idea is that law firms that handling large volumes of insurance claims on a mass basis, with effectively none going to trial, but recoveries in large percentages of cases.  The difference from traditional law firm contingency practice is that such firms take a far fewer percentage of cases, with many more of those going to trial.  The good point is that without the mills, most of their clients would get nothing. The bad one is that there is little transparency about these organizations’ operations. Here is the abstract:

Continue reading →

Posted in Middle Income, Research and Evalation, Transparency | Tagged | 1 Comment

An Access Strategy for 2012

Posted on January 3, 2012 by richardzorza

Maybe it’s time to sum up an integrated access strategy for 2012.

I see four major directions right now:

  • Leverage Turner.  The case offers every state the impetus and opportunity to self-assess the accessibility and due process sufficiency of how they handle their self-represented cases — including deciding which cases can not fairly proceed as self-represented.  In particular, it provides a reason for newly-empowered access to justice commissions to take the lead in proposing changes that will be consistent with Turner’s mandate.  This is the umbrella under which the wide range of existing best practices can be promoted and expanded.  Examples are Justice Corps, judicial education, Unbundling, statewide hotlines, plain language form document assembly.
  • Explore Triage. Getting and acting on better data on who needs what level of service is agreed by many as the key to a viable 100% access strategy.  The emerging research into impact of offers of representation is one major element of this strategy, but it will need much more, including finding out how to make these choices case by case, and who should make them.
  • Promote Simplification.  With courts, legal aid and bar all facing financial crises, the only way out I can see is to make each case cheaper, and the only way I can see to do this is to make the underlying process simpler.  I’d like to see access commissions leading the debate about how to do this, but its going to be hard to do it in a way that transcends short term interest in the status quo.  Everyone can help by starting to talk this approach up.
  • Strengthen Institutional Leadership.  This is both a national and state issue.  Its encouraging to see DOJ, NCSC, the Chiefs, SJI and LSC playing larger roles.  Lets hope that they strengthen the links between them.  This is as much as staff as a board or leadership issue.  Similarly, we need more state commissions and for existing commissions to become more active on a variety of issues.  Lets hope the resources can be found.
Posted in Access to Justice Boards, Access to Justice Generally | Tagged | 1 Comment

Inherent Authority to Appoint Counsel — Montana Supreme Court Order — Wisconsin Hearing

Posted on January 2, 2012 by richardzorza

This is interesting.  On December 6, 2011, the Montana Supreme Court unanimously entered an  Order appointing counsel for a mother in a guardianship case.  The trial court had refused, citing lack of satutory authority.   The state Supreme Court held the the trial court had inherent authority to appoint pro bono counsel, and went on to order that it should be done.

Obviously, this is only a very first step, but it is one with much potential.  Note for example, the pending processes in the Wisconsin Supreme Court about a possible broad Court Rule dealing with appointment of counsel.  The Memorandum in Support (at pages 21-32) relies on inherent authority.  It should be noted that, as the Wisconsin Access to Justice Board Blog notes:

At the administrative conference [on October 4, held in public] there was not a majority of justices who supported moving forward on the proposal as set out in the petition. However, only two justices indicated that they would deny the petition outright.

In conference, the justices held a wide ranging discussion about: (1) whether the right(s) implicated by the request were constitutional, a matter of policy or both; (2) the significance and scope of the court’s Joni B decision on appointment of counsel in CHIPS cases; (3) the possible burden on the court system of handling requests for appointment of counsel; and (4) how to pay for a program of court appointed counsel that could cost Wisconsin counties at least $56 million. It was the latter issue, the likely cost to the counties, that loomed largest in the discussion. . . .

Discussion of the petition in the court’s conference ended with Chief Justice Abrahamson’s request that Commissioner Julie Rich prepare a draft rule incorporating some elements from Petition 10-08 that the Chief Justice could present for the court’s future consideration.

So, maybe the tea leaves suggest a very limited use of inherent authority.  Maybe Turner will set the parameters.

Wisconsin Update:  On Feb 24, the Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected the Petition, while making various encouraging noises about a pilot project.  They also made clear that the rejection did not undercut prior caselaw on inherent authority.

Posted in Access to Counsel | Tagged , | Comments Off on Inherent Authority to Appoint Counsel — Montana Supreme Court Order — Wisconsin Hearing