shlep: the Self-Help Law ExPress

    A new report from the State Bar of Wisconsin‘s Access to Justice Committee showcases the findings of the State’s “first comprehensive legal needs study of low-income residents,” and makes recommendations for closing the justice gap between the State’s rich and poor. “Bridging the Justice Gap: Wisconsin’s Unmet Legal Needs: Final Report,” Access to Justice Study Committee, State Bar of Wisconsin (March 9, 2007, 26 pp, pdf.; webpage)  The Report’s recommendations cover a broad array of goals and assign tasks for various segments of the legal profession and the government.  (via SelfHelpSupport.org)

Here are the broad recommendations: 

1. Funding from the State of Wisconsin is necessary to help close the Justice Gap and must be adequate to meet the needs of at least those who are currently turned away due to lack of funding.
2. A permanent Wisconsin Access to Justice Commission should be established.
3. Self-help centers for unrepresented litigants should be established in every courthouse in Wisconsin.
4. Expanded use of nonlawyer advocates before Wisconsin courts and agencies must be explored. [“The Wisconsin Supreme Court should modify ethics rules and procedural rules to permit paralegals to advocate in court and before agencies on a limited basis.]”
5. Client contributions to the cost of services may be an appropriate means of expanding access to justice for residents who can afford to do so.
6. Increasing Wisconsin’s already high court filing fees is not an appropriate means of expanding access to justice.
7. The current $50 assessment on attorneys to help pay for civil legal services to the poor should be retained and the exemption for judges should be removed.
8. Expanded efforts to increase the already substantial pro bono contributions of Wisconsin lawyers should be explored.

  In addition, the Report sets forth many tasks for the State Bar, the legislature and the courts.  Lawyers, their firms, and law schools have assignments, too, in the campaign to close the justice gap.  Suggestions for increasing the provision of unbundled legal services and volunteer advice programs are outlined. Below the fold, we provide excerpts that flesh out some of the most important recommendations, including the major role suggested for the State’s two law schools.

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Important recommendations and suggestions from the Report are expanded upon in the following excerpts:
  3. The Legislature should fund self-help centers connected to every courthouse in Wisconsin. Self-help centers, open during all business hours and staffed by a knowledgeable assistant, enable many unrepresented litigants to accomplish uncomplicated legal objectives by themselves and to get basic guidance in legal procedure, particularly in family court and in small claims court. While these services are not a solution for people who are illiterate or those incapable of representing themselves, there are many who have made successful use of such programs. Ideally, every courthouse in Wisconsin would contain a self-help center. However, videoconference and computer technology may permit access from more remote courthouses to self-help centers in regional locations.

 4. The Wisconsin Supreme Court should modify ethics rules and procedural rules to permit paralegals to advocate in court and before agencies on a limited basis. In an ideal justice system, every client would receive the assistance of an experienced, well-trained lawyer. The reality in Wisconsin, however, is that there are not enough lawyers in Wisconsin to meet the needs of all potential clients. Thus, for decades, lawyers and clients have relied on paralegals.

As discussed previously, the state’s benefit specialist programs demonstrate the potential for trained and supervised nonlawyers to help fill the Justice Gap. Programs such as these will make an even more effective solution if specialists are permitted to advocate for their clients in proceedings in court and before administrative agencies. Lay advocates are used extensively and successfully in tribal courts located within Wisconsin. The available research shows that trained paralegals under the supervision of a lawyer can be effective, efficient advocates in simple proceedings involving, for example, harassment injunctions, public benefit eligibility, benefit coverage and termination, and small claims.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court should adopt new ethics rules that support expanded voluntary pro bono contributions by lawyers. Although the Supreme Court may turn to other matters before revisiting the Code of Professional Conduct again soon, the code deserves amendment in order to encourage and expand pro bono practice. Lawyers who reside in Wisconsin but are licensed and in good standing elsewhere should be permitted to represent pro bono clients in Wisconsin even before being admitted to practice here, and inactive bar members should be permitted to engage in a limited amount of pro bono work without incurring dues. Practice rules like these have been adopted in New York, Colorado, Washington, and elsewhere.

 Lawyers should take advantage of new rules permitting lawyers to provide short-term limited legal services without creating imputed conflicts.

• The Report notes that the new SCR 20:6.5 will be effective July 1, 2007.  “SCR 20:6.5 permits lawyers, under the auspices of a program sponsored by, for example,a legal service provider, the bar, a law school, or a court, to provide short-termlegal services without continuing representation, and permits such services incircumstances that might otherwise give rise to a conflict of interest. This rule wasdesigned to make the personal and professional rewards of pro bono work availableto a much wider pool of lawyers. Legal service providers, the law schools, other nonprofit organizations, and circuit courts should review their practices to create more of these opportunities.

8. State and federal agencies should permit qualified nonlawyers to appear and advocate on behalf of low-income clients. Many, but not all, government agencies already permit nonlawyers to appear on behalf of applicants and advocate for them. To attain maximum benefit from the legal services that might be provided by paralegals, administrative agencies should revise their rules and processes to permit these nontraditional methods of practice.

9 Lawyers, with the support of their law firms and in-house legal departments, should expand their pro bono contributions of time and money.

a. Lawyers should take advantage of new rules permitting lawyers to provide short-term limited legal services without creating imputed conflicts.. Lawyers, with the support of their law firms and in-house legal departments, should expand their pro bono contributions of time and money.

b. Law firms and in-house legal departments should study and adopt the sophisticated pro bono practices found in other communities around the nation.

10. The State Bar of Wisconsin:

a. The State Bar of Wisconsin should endorse this report and approve its dissemination to the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the Wisconsin Legislature.
b. The State Bar of Wisconsin should support a permanent moderate mandatory assessment upon lawyers and judges to fund civil legal services.
c. The State Bar of Wisconsin should help the Supreme Court establish a permanent Access to Justice Commission under the auspices of the Supreme Court to supervise the long-term, coordinated effort needed to accomplish these recommendations.
d. The State Bar of Wisconsin should expand the Lawyer Referral & Information Service to include a panel of attorneys willing to offer limited scope representation and/or reduced fees to clients who qualify based on income.
e. The State Bar of Wisconsin should foster a market for affordable limited legal services by organizing CLE programs on unbundling and by promoting unbundling as a viable means of practice and meeting currently unmet legal needs. Amendments to the Rules of Professional Conduct that explicitly permit lawyers to provide “limited representation” legal services go into effect on July 1, 2007. Lawyers currently provide such services, but the changes to the ethics rules, including SCR 20:1.2, might make limited representation more commonplace. Limited representation is a key aspect of an efficient program of improving access to justice for the poor by enabling clients with some ability to pay to purchase only those services they need or can afford.
f. The State Bar of Wisconsin should fund projects that demonstrate the gains to be achieved by these recommendations.

 12. The University of Wisconsin Law School and Marquette Law School should support efforts to close the Justice Gap.   . . . As the two institutions responsible for preparation of lawyers, Wisconsin’s two law schools have an extremely important role in expanding access to justice.
a. Wisconsin’s two law schools should set an example of commitment to equal justice. There are any number of ways that law school administrators and law school faculty members can demonstrate to students – to future lawyers upon whom the profession confers the responsibility to ensure access to justice for all – that access to justice is vital. For example, they can:

• Join students in performing pro bono services and providing legal information;
• Testify before legislative committees in support of access-to-justice initiatives;
• Appear as friends of the court in proceedings affecting legal services to the poor;
• Teach legal service providers and pro bono practitioners the fine points of the law governing transactions that routinely involve the poor, such as consumer law or administrative law;
• Give special recognition to students who perform pro bono service hours;
• Revise tenure criteria to recognize pro bono service; and
• Integrate into course work presentations by practicing attorneys about how lawyers meet their ethical obligation to provide pro bono services.

b. Wisconsin’s two law schools should expand clinical programs to provide more civil legal services.. . .

c. Wisconsin’s two law schools should encourage students to perform pro bono services upon graduation.

 d. Wisconsin’s two law schools should study and teach how the law ensures equal access to justice. The best contribution law schools can make is by doing what law schools do best: studying, reporting, and teaching. The law schools should convene public interest entities and support their work, as Marquette University’s Coalition for Access to Legal Resources initiative has demonstrated. Likewise, the professional responsibilities curriculum should be bolstered to emphasize a lawyer’s ethical duty to perform pro bono services and suggest the many practical ways these duties can be discharged.