shlep: the Self-Help Law ExPress

 Holiday spirits are put to the test in mid-December at family courts across the nation, as divorced or separated parents battle over how and where their children spend various portions of the holiday season.  While serving as law guardian for many children caught in the middle of such disputes, I saw how often the parents placed their own emotional/ego needs ahead of the needs of the children — and, how often lawyers made things worse by stoking the yuletide fires.  The South Carolina Family Law Blog has a number of recent postings that might help to avoid court or to bring out the estranged parents’ better spirits.  (via Kansas Family Law Blog)

  Their Dec. 15 posting Tips to Help Divorced Parents Avoid Holiday Visitation Issues has some good advice, and is based on this article by Dr. Ruth Peters, which covers keeping it civil, accommodating schedules, coordinating gifts, respecting each others’ religious traditions, and more.  The posting Ten Tips to Minimize Divorce Trauma During the Holidays is also worth reading by parents and, if they have them, their lawyers. [via California Divorce and Family Law weblog]  You can find a link to an article on Holiday Blended Families issues, here.   I suggest you wait until after the holidays to deal with Tax Deductions and Non-Custodial Parents.

Family Advocate magazine, from the ABA’s Family Law Section, often has excellent materials on parenting after divorce and finding alternatives to ugly divorces. Many editions are turned into Client Manuals.  For example, check out:

• Client Manual: What Your Children Need . . . Now! 
• Client Manual: My Parents Are Getting Divorced

 Here are my own Tips on Parenting-Apart, which I used with a course for separated parents.  If you’ve been warring with your “ex” over parenting issues, consider changing your ways in the New Year — for the sake of your children.

The Self Represented Litigation Network has released a report that can help anyone working to improve, or wanting to learn more about, the array of services, programs and policies that exist to assist litigants appearing at court without lawyers.  Titled Best Practices in Court-Based Programs for the Self Represented: Concepts, Attributes, and Issues for Exploration (Dec. 4, 2006, 44 pp pdf.), the document states that better services for pro se litigants can greatly enhance both access to justice and effective operation of the judicial system.  It then describes 41 Best Practices that “have been identified by the Self-Represented Litigation Network as likely to be effective and generally worthy of broad replication.”

  The spotlighted practices are grouped into eight broad categories: 1) self-help centers and services; 2) forms, document assembly, and e-filing; 3) practices in the courtroom; 4) discretee services, pro bono and volunteer programs; 5) judicial ethics and education; 6) post-order practices; 7) court management and evaluation practices; and 8) jurisdiction-wide strategic practices. (via SelfHelpSupport.org)  

The report names each practice, fully describes the Concept, lists Suggested Attributes for a successful model, and outlines Issues for Exploration and Evaluation.  Although advising that “Each jurisdiction should consider its own experiences and needs in developing a strategy or program”, the Best Practices report notes that “the choice as to which innovations should receive the highest priority may best be driven by an analysis of the most urgent areas of need, and of which stakeholders are most ready to move forward.”  It then suggests that 

“As a strategic matter, the creation of self-help centers, of standardized forms, and the establishment of rules clarification and training for judges, court staff and attorneys are viewed as having early broad enabling impact.”

The SRLN Best Practices report offers clear and concise information, if you’re wondering what functions a Courthouse Concierge Station might perform (and how to this useful service even more effective); what elements are needed for a successful Self-Help Center or Website; the Attributes of “Simple, easy to use and self-help friendly forms and documents”; the types of training needed for judges and court staffs; or the changes that are required in ethics rules for the system to effectively and fairly serve the self-represented.  Many additional topics are covered, including Rules in Support of Form and Process Standardization, Volunteer Attorney Involvement in Self-help Centers, Law Library as Resource Center, Rules or Clarifications in Support of Discrete Services, and court Rule and Procedure Simplification.

Our advice: bookmark this excellent report.

And, see our post What Have They Done for Me Lately?

My local paper, the Seattle Times has been investigating courts’ practices in sealing records in a series called “Your Courts, Their Secrets.” The latest focus of investigation is the guardianship system. Articles this week have discussed some horribly frustrating interactions when family members (often unrepresented) have tried to monitor the care professional guardians are providing their disabled loved ones. (See my post on Trial Ad Notes.)

That led me to look for some more information about guardianship (of adults, not children)…

  An editorial in Sunday’s Foster’s Daily (Dover, NH) gives a good review to the new “limited litigation” rules for New Hampshire lawyers, which took effect on July 1. (“À la carte lawyering an important step toward affordable justice,” Dec. 3, 2006)  Noting that the Supreme Court decided to allow “a la carte lawyering” in response to “a sharp rise in do-it-yourself lawyering” and “the enormous hourly rates charged by many lawyers,” the piece summarizes the advantages and potential pitfalls of unbundled litigation.   It also describes a report done for the judiciary that calls for making courts “more user-friendly,” and changing the attitudes of some judges and court staffs, who seem to “resent civilians.”   This excellent editorial concludes:

“At least now litigants have the option of working with their lawyer to save money and learn more about the judicial system while they are at it.  That should, in the long run, serve well the judicial system and the general public by demystifying the process and lowering costs.”

Note: Rule 1.2 (f) of the N.H. Rules of Professional Conduct sets forth the lawyer’s obligations when engaging in Limited Representation in Litigation, and (g) offers a Sample Form “Consent to Limited Represenation,” as a guide for client and lawyer.

 As discussed at f/k/a, the New Hampshire judiciary published a first-rate report on the needs of pro se litigants in January, 2004. Called Challenge to Justice (Jan. 2004), it is notable for both its positive tone and thorough approach to helping the pro se litigant.  A key concept is summarized in two sentences: “All of the suggestions within this report however, are grounded on the single principle that meaningful access to justice in today’s world means a clear recognition by those involved in the system that many of our constituents want to go it alone when they come to court. Our obligation is to give these citizens the help they want, need and deserve. ” (emphasis added)

Self-Represented litigants often find it difficult to sift through the copious and confusing amounts of information on legal websites. As such, Montana and Iowa have launched a new feature called ‘LiveHelp’, where users can chat with a live trained operator to address their concerns or questions regarding legal information. The chat button is located in the upper right hand corner of both websites, Montana’s here and Iowa’s here. ProBono.net recently published an article about the feature.

Everybody handling a lawsuit needs to work within the court rules — for instance, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Alas, court rules are sometimes written in a rather dense style. But there’s hope! For over a decade a group within the Civil Rules Advisory Committee has been working on a revision of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to make them clearer and easier to understand.

Hello, all, my name is Orijit and this is my first post on the site. I am currently working as an Americorps VISTA volunteer with Montana Legal Services Association (MLSA) on self-help law in Montana. As the only provider of civil legal services statewide, MLSA must turn down many clients that are income-eligible for services because of resources and other constraints. Therefore, MLSA has made an effort to promote self-help law practices such as pro se clinics, self-help workstations and a comprehensive website to provide assistance to those who cannot be directly represented.

On page 11 of this month’s ‘Montana Lawyer’, you will find an article I authored which summarizes the state of pro se activities in Montana, along with a rough outline of what we hope to provide in the future. Please check back for updates on new resources and legislative activity that I hope to provide as soon as they are available.

There are lots of legal information reources out there at a library near you…from  Nolo’s book on Music Law to the in-depth treatises on Copyright Law.  The trick is finding out which library has what.  Fortunately, Worldcat has a search engine for library catalogs.  You can enter in your zip and find out which libraries near you have the books you are looking for.  For instance, a search for Nolo’s Music Law: How to Run Your Band’s Business gives me a list of libraries in my neighborhood that have the book.  It even gives me libraries around the world that have it on their shelves (you will be glad to know the University of Hong Kong has a copy!).

More and more legal and government information is available online. But how well is it organized? Can you find it easily, or do you have to wade through menu after menu? Is it presented in a way that newcomers can figure out or does the organization only make sense to insiders? Two organizations offer criteria for best practices and give examples of courts and agencies that have really good websites.

Law librarians, while they can’t give advice, are great sources of information on legal information.  They can evaluate or find ways to evaluate resources to determine when they are helpful and when they are not.  So here is a librarian’s tip on how to evaluate legal sites on the Internet.  The American Bar Association has published “Best Practice Guidelines for Legal Information Site Providers.”  These are for providers but they also show what you should expect from a legal information site.  With these in hand, you will be able to better evaluate legal information web sites and separate the wheat from the chaff…