shlep: the Self-Help Law ExPress

EARTHtimes.org is reporting that today Bank of America expanded a pro bono effort it has been working on since 2005 by

partnering with Sanctuary for Families, Neighborhood Entrepreneur Law Project, Volunteers of Legal Service, New York Family Court, Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, and several major law firms to help ensure the legal needs of the city’s underserved and vulnerable are met.

The project will be centered in New York City.  In developing the program, Bank of America consulted with its New York Legal Department for information about issues and causes of interest as well as time constraints on the lawyers. 

Of special interest to shlep readers: One project that Bank of America lawyers will be participating in is the Self-Represented Legal Services Project at Brooklyn Family Court, covered by shlep previously here and here. 

In 2005, the American Association of Law Libraries held a Joint Roundtable on Service to Pro Se Patrons and Prisoners at their annual meeting.  As a part of that roundtable, they conducted an email survey, in which law libraries with pro se programs described their programs and any associated costs.

I have attached the results of that survey, which includes information from respondents in the following states: California, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.  Note that I updated the original results, deleting any links that no longer worked.

Pro Se Programs in Law Libraries

The Edwardsville Intelligencer, the main newspaper for Madison County, IL, is reporting that the Madison County Law Library, located in the county courthouse basement, has opened a new self-help center to assist pro se patrons with navigating the court system.

The center will be staffed by court officials as well as Chief Judge Ann Callis for 15 hours a week.  It’s major focus seems to be on helping users to understand the basics of going to court such as how to behave and the roles of various court officials, as opposed to substantive legal matters. 

Although a more substantive program would likely prove more helpful, the new self-help center is certainly a start in a county with a poverty rate of 11.2%.

Legal research guides, sometimes called “pathfinders,” are exactly what they sound like – guides to legal research. A number of different organizations publish these guides, but a consistent source for particularly thorough and helpful guides is academic law libraries. As a new academic law librarian myself, I consistently use the guides published on the web-sites of other law schools when researching an unfamiliar topic. Almost every academic law library publishes them to some extent or another, and they can be a great resource for pro se patrons in learning how to find things like cases, laws, regulations – or even just in developing a research strategy when you don’t know where to begin.

If you need help with a particular type of problem, try googling for a research guide. For example, say you are going through a divorce – try googling “family law” and “research guide” or “family law” and “pathfinder.” I just tried the first search, and a number of helpful options came up.

If you need to find something more directly about your state (and most of the time, that is the case), you could try adding the name of the state to your search. Another, and probably more helpful, option, is to go to the home page for an academic law library in your state. Most such law libraries will have state specific, as well as more general, research guides, but they may not appear in Google. Because each law library works differently, you will probably have to poke around the web-site to see where the research guides are located, but usually, they are listed in the “Reference” or “Search” section of a given law library’s homepage.

As an example, check out the research guides on the UCLA Law Library web-page, which cover a variety of California and federal topics.

An article in the June 4th edition of Missouri Lawyer’s Weekly discusses the recent debate in the state legal community over the Missouri Supreme Court’s proposed rules for assisting pro se litigants through the court system.

The proposed rules would allow court clerks to provide information and forms to pro se litigants.  Proponents argue that the help is badly needed, but opponents say the proposed rules are tantamount to allowing the unauthorized practice of law.  Some also argue that the court system is simply too overstrained already to take on this new task:

“The crux of the issue is therefore whether the court system should put itself in a situation of straining its already inadequate resources and modifying its traditional role in the legal system (not by merely judging, but by assisting litigants) so that individuals may accomplish, without a lawyer, a task which is admittedly best performed with a lawyer,” the Clay County association said in the letter.

“‘To hell with poor people’; that’s what that paragraph says to me,” said St. Louis County Circuit Judge Dennis Smith. “‘Courts exist for the rich. ‘ I don’t believe that. If you are poor and can’t afford an attorney, what are you supposed to do? I’m open to suggestion if any other attorney in the state has an idea of how to help these people.

 The comment period for the proposed rules ends July 1.

HALT.org has a great new guide out on planning a Living Trust.  As the abstract explains:

Like a will, a living trust is an estate-planning tool that lets you transfer property after you die. But unlike a will, property placed in a trust passes directly to your beneficiaries without first having to go through probate.

This is a great new Estate Planning tool!

On Monday, May 22, the Supreme Court decided Winkelman v. Parma City School District, which Shlep has been covering as it made its way through the courts.  To recap briefly, the case involved two parents, the Winkelmans, of a disabled child who were unsatisfied with the education their son was receiving under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).  After going through the proper administrative channels, the Winkelman’s appealed to federal court, acting as their own, or alternatively as their son’s, counsel.  The case was dismissed in the Sixth Circuit because the parents were held to not have a right to bring the case to court under IDEA and alternatively, not to have the right to act pro se on their child’s behalf. 

On May 22, the Supreme Court held that parents have a cause of action under IDEA.  They therefore did not reach the question of whether parents may act pro se on their child’s behalf.  However, as Scalia pointed out in his dissent:

Both sides agree…that the common law generally prohibited lay parents from representing their children in court, a manifestation of the more general common-law rule that nonattorneys cannot litigate the interests of another.

It is difficult to guage from the opinion whether the Court would now be open to reconsidering that rule.  The Court does note the tradition that parents have a special interest in their children’s education, but this is a far cry from extending that right to representing the child in legal matters before the court, even those dealing with this fundamental right.

For more commentary, SCOTUSblog  covered this decision in depth, and also links to media coverage at NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and elsewhere.

   I am very pleased to announce that 1] shlep is scheduled to resume posting “news, views and info on self-help law and pro se litigation” on Tuesday, May 29, 2007, with activity increasing in the coming weeks; and 2] shlep will be in the good hands of two able and enthusiastic advocates of the self-help law movement.  The new co-editors of shlep are (in alphabetical order):

    Teresa L. Conaway, who is just leaving her position as Head of Reference & Instruction, Texas Tech University School of Law Library, to become the Head of Public Services at the University of La Verne (California).  Terry was a professor of paralegal studies for 12 years before becoming a law librarian.  [You can contact Terry at: terry [AT] keleka [DOT] net ]

     Tammy Pettinato, who received a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2005, and just finished her Masters in Information Science at the University of Michigan.  On May 16th, Tammy began working as a Reference Librarian at the UCLA Hugh & Hazel Darling Law Library. [You can contact Tammy at: trp [AT] yahoo [DOM] com ] 

    I will let Tammy and Terry tell you more about themselves and their vision of what shlep will become. (They will also decide whether to keep the fresh green look I have chosen today to signal the weblog’s new regime and spirit.  Which color theme do you prefer?)  Please stop by regularly to keep abreast of the self-help law movement as seen through their eyes, and help create a shlep community, by leaving your thoughtful Comments.  Also, as you did for me, if you know of weblog postings, articles, reports, news or other resources that might be of interest to T&T and the readers of shlep, tell them about it. 

Team Shlep?  If you are interested in joining Team Shlep (which would entail a commitment to write regularly for the site) get in touch with Terry or Tammy and see if your interests and skills fit with their needs.  Self-representation practitioners — people who work directly with pro se litigants or create the programs and materials they use — are particularly urged to consider joining the Team.

p.s.  Thanks again to all who supported shlep in the nine months since its conception — by visiting often or spreading the word about this weblog and its important mission.  Special thanks to the original members of Team Shlep.  A final hat tip to the still-anonymous Editor of Blawg Review for his continuous encouragement.  (Speaking of gratitude, see the special Memorial Day Blawg Review #110, at Norman Gregory Fernandez’s Biker Law Blog.)  You can count on my lurking here often, and find me at my original weblog f/k/a.

     It’s been four weeks since I announced my retiring as Editor of this weblog and my hope to pass the SHLEP torch to a group of committed persons willing and able to continue its important role in the pro-se/self-help community and movement.  To date, I am sorry to say that no candidates have stepped forward to adopt shlep.  Despite the posting hiatus, we’re still getting about 250 visits a day, most from search engine queries, taking advantage of our deep content.  Please browse the site, and see our prior post and About page, describing why shlep deserves to be an ongoing, frequently-updated weblog, Our high search engine profile also suggests that it would make a great resource as part of a website with complementary goals. 

• If you would like to discuss taking over responsibility for SHLEP, please send an email to: shlep AT localnet DOT com. [no spaces in the actual email address]  I will do all I can to make the transition as smooth as possible.

  If shlep were active over the past month, it surely would have informed you of such stories as:

1. Oregon House Bill 2316, which aims to increase the small claims jurisdictional limit from $5,000 to $7,500, and has now passed both the House of Representatives and the Senate. (via April 9, 2007 HALT ejournal)
2. The Edmonton Journal story “Law service shows lay people the ropes: Alberta Justice hopes information centres will reduce backlogs in court” (April 18, 2007), which details the opening on April 2nd of on-site Family Law Information Centres, offering assistance to self-represented litigants in Alberta. (via SelfHelpSupport.org)
3. The companion bills introduced in the New Mexico House and Senate, in the 2007 legislative session, which would rewrite the definition of the practice of law so broadly that they would require consumers to retain the services of a lawyer for virtually any legal need. (via March 26, 2007 HALT ejournal)  

Until shlep is once again updated regularly under new management, check out the SelfHelpSupport.org homepage and the HALT website and bi-weekly newsletter (which you can have delivered free by email) for a bit of news and commentary about pro se and self-help issues.  Meanwhile, if you can help find a good home for shlep, please let me know or urge the likely candidates to step up and grab this opportunity.