Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Beyond Elite Law
- Foreword
- List of Contributors
- Overview
- Overview
- PART I CURRENT STATE OF ACCESS TO LEGAL SERVICES
- PART II SOURCES OF LEGAL SERVICES ASSISTANCE FOR WORKING AMERICANS
- PART III FASHIONING A REFORM AGENDA
- 23 New York State Task Force to Expand Access to Civil Legal Services
- 24 New York's 50-hour Pro Bono Requirement
- 25 Starting a “Low Bono” Law Practice
- 26 Toward a More Effective and Accessible Solo and Small Firm Practice Model
- 27 Facilitating Homemade Wills
- 28 Court Facilitation of Self-Representation
- 29 Limited Representation and Ethical Challenges
- 30 Technology Can Solve Much of America's Access to Justice Problem, If We Let It
- 31 Mediation of Employment Disputes at the EEOC
- 32 AAA Consumer Arbitration
- 33 Saturns for Rickshaws: Lessons for Consumer Arbitration and Access to Justice
- 34 Employment Arbitration in the Securities Industry
- 35 FINRA Arbitration and Employment Disputes
- 36 Arbitration as an Employee-Friendly Forum
- 37 Access to Justice in Employment Arbitration: a Critical Look
- 38 Collaborative Technology Improves Access to Justice
- 39 Union Representation in Employment Arbitration
- 40 Legal Representation for New York City's Chinese Immigrant Workers
- 41 Reassessing Unauthorized Practice of Law Rules
- 42 The Pyett Protocol: Collectively-Bargained Grievance Arbitration as a Forum for Individual Statutory Employment Claims
- PART IV CREATING A CULTURE OF SERVICE
- Index
28 - Court Facilitation of Self-Representation
from PART III - FASHIONING A REFORM AGENDA
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2016
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Beyond Elite Law
- Foreword
- List of Contributors
- Overview
- Overview
- PART I CURRENT STATE OF ACCESS TO LEGAL SERVICES
- PART II SOURCES OF LEGAL SERVICES ASSISTANCE FOR WORKING AMERICANS
- PART III FASHIONING A REFORM AGENDA
- 23 New York State Task Force to Expand Access to Civil Legal Services
- 24 New York's 50-hour Pro Bono Requirement
- 25 Starting a “Low Bono” Law Practice
- 26 Toward a More Effective and Accessible Solo and Small Firm Practice Model
- 27 Facilitating Homemade Wills
- 28 Court Facilitation of Self-Representation
- 29 Limited Representation and Ethical Challenges
- 30 Technology Can Solve Much of America's Access to Justice Problem, If We Let It
- 31 Mediation of Employment Disputes at the EEOC
- 32 AAA Consumer Arbitration
- 33 Saturns for Rickshaws: Lessons for Consumer Arbitration and Access to Justice
- 34 Employment Arbitration in the Securities Industry
- 35 FINRA Arbitration and Employment Disputes
- 36 Arbitration as an Employee-Friendly Forum
- 37 Access to Justice in Employment Arbitration: a Critical Look
- 38 Collaborative Technology Improves Access to Justice
- 39 Union Representation in Employment Arbitration
- 40 Legal Representation for New York City's Chinese Immigrant Workers
- 41 Reassessing Unauthorized Practice of Law Rules
- 42 The Pyett Protocol: Collectively-Bargained Grievance Arbitration as a Forum for Individual Statutory Employment Claims
- PART IV CREATING A CULTURE OF SERVICE
- Index
Summary
Courts throughout the country are devoting significant resources to develop self-help tools that make court filings and proceedings more accessible to the growing number of pro se litigants. In this chapter, Rachel Ekery presents a comprehensive survey of what courts are doing to leverage technology and attorney assistance through the creation of self-help centers, standardized filing forms, online document assembly, smart forms enabled with electronic filing, and how-to videos on court YouTube channels. These technological advances significantly lower barriers for pro se litigants and are models for other courts to replicate.
This chapter surveys the significant systemic changes that courts are making to increase access to civil justice for pro se litigants. In civil cases, the right to self-representation has been protected by statute in the federal courts since “the beginnings of our Nation,” and is guaranteed by state constitutions, statutes, or procedural rules in the courts of most states. Increasingly, litigants are exercising that right. Most parties, driven by economic necessity, have no other choice.
But technology has also made self-representation more feasible than before. Court forms, websites, and other resources put a wealth of material at a litigant's fingertips. Information previously available only to trained professionals, and then only for a fee, is now accessible, free of charge, to anyone with access to a computer. The emergence of these resources may lead litigants to believe that a fair outcome can always be achieved without employing a lawyer. It does suggest that attorneys may not be needed in certain cases where courts facilitate self-representation.
The work of courts to enhance the ability of litigants to represent themselves is in part a response to the U.S. Supreme Court's call in Turner v. Rogers to look to court-provided safeguards as a substitute for the lack of appointed counsel:
Those safeguards include (1) notice to the defendant that his “ability to pay” is a critical issue in the contempt proceeding; (2) the use of a form (or the equivalent) to elicit relevant financial information; (3) an opportunity at the hearing for the defendant to respond to statements and questions about his financial status, (e.g., those triggered by his responses on the form); and (4) an express finding by the court that the defendant has the ability to pay.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Beyond Elite LawAccess to Civil Justice in America, pp. 413 - 430Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2016