{"id":4695,"date":"2004-02-01T21:26:20","date_gmt":"2004-02-02T01:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/formerlyknownas\/2004\/02\/01\/and-one-step-back\/"},"modified":"2011-08-05T14:59:05","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T18:59:05","slug":"and-one-step-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2004\/02\/01\/and-one-step-back\/","title":{"rendered":". . . and One Step Back"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Back on January 10th, I worried that baby steps<\/A> would never lead to true Small Claims Court reform.  Today, I have to start worrying about backward steps<\/EM> in the battle to make access to civil justice more affordable and available.  <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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You see, on Jan. 1st,2004, the dollar limits in New York small claims courts were raised from $3000 to $5000 — with no help at all from the organized bar in NYS (which is tantamount to opposition).   Today, The Sunday Gazette<\/FONT><\/EM><\/STRONG><\/A> quotes Schenectady City Court Judge Guido Loyola, who handles small claims matters, as saying he sees no increase in claims yet, after four weeks.  Nonetheless, he does see one change already<\/STRONG>:<\/FONT><\/DIV>
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“[T]he introduction of attorneys into the<\/STRONG> court where litigants traditionally represent themselves.  <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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“‘This will be an incentive for more attorneys to use small claims,’ he said, ‘The cost benefit wasn’t there, but with a $5000 limit, it could be lucrative<\/STRONG>.”<\/FONT><\/DIV><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
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\"small  Unfortunately, you need a subscription to see the article on the Gazette (I won’t pay<\/EM>, but I have a hardcopy) (“Small claims limit up,” 02-01-04, B1, by Steven Cook). <\/FONT><\/DIV>
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Some readers think that skepticalEsq<\/EM> makes stuff like this up to make lawyers look bad.  Already, my optimist friend Carolyn Elefant<\/A> is thinking something like, “Well, the nice lawyers are saving their clients money by switching to the less formal court; or the client might insist on having the lawyer present”   That might be true in a few instances, but ethicalEsq <\/EM>has to ask “Why couldn’t the lawyer give the client a brochure (available at court) on how to file a small claims petition, maybe help organize necessary paperwork (if necessary), and let the client avoid a court-appearance fee that will be a significant part of even the maximum judgment of $5000?”  Rhetorical question.<\/FONT><\/DIV>
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I’ve only lived in Schenectady since 1988.  Guido Loyola has lived and practiced law in Schenectady his whole life.   His analysis is that the lawyers are suddenly appearing in Small Claims Court because “it could be lucrative.”  (Yes, many lawyers are poor enough in Schenectady that a Small Claims case fee could<\/EM> seem lucrative, but the citizens are even poorer).  I’ll take his word on it.  And, shake my head again, wondering how I’ll ever keep my resolution to be more positive this year.<\/FONT><\/DIV><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back on January 10th, I worried that baby steps would never lead to true Small Claims Court reform.  Today, I have to start worrying about backward steps in the battle to make access to civil justice more affordable and available.    You see, on Jan. 1st,2004, the dollar limits in New York small claims courts were raised […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2926],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pre-06-2006"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kP1R-1dJ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4695"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14007,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4695\/revisions\/14007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}