{"id":120,"date":"2006-09-16T15:12:27","date_gmt":"2006-09-16T19:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/shlep\/2006\/09\/16\/saturday-self-help-short-takes\/"},"modified":"2006-11-19T03:48:38","modified_gmt":"2006-11-19T07:48:38","slug":"saturday-self-help-short-takes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/2006\/09\/16\/saturday-self-help-short-takes\/","title":{"rendered":"self-help short-takes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0 [pre-launch<\/em> status, as we <\/font>search for a shlep<\/em> team<\/font><\/a>\u00a0— can you contribute?]\u00a0\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

This post has notes from around the country: comments about self-represented litigants by Ohio’s Chief Justice, news of an eviction self-help clinic at Harvard Law School, notes on small claims court in Illinois, and new rules on unbundled legal services in Ohio…<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"OhioMap\"\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Only a few days before convening the Ohio Judicial Conference’s annual\u00a0meeting, which this year has the theme\u00a0\u201cMeeting the Pro Se Challenge<\/em>,\u201d Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer\u00a0used\u00a0a major portion of his\u00a0Annual State of the Judiciary Address<\/a>\u00a0to bemoan the\u00a0“disturbing fact”\u00a0that “Too many of our citizens who should have legal representation go without it.”\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

Chief Justice Moyers\u00a0noted that \u201cThe Supreme Court is not immune. Earlier this year the Court heard an argument presented by a pro se<\/em> litigant. Across the state judges, court clerks, and administrative staff navigate the boundary between providing assistance and offering legal advice on a daily basis.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font>According to one local newspaper, the Chief Justice stated that Ohio’s courts will be working, over the next year,\u00a0to reduce the number of pro se<\/em> litigants that appear before the court.\u00a0(Business First of Columbus<\/em>, “Chief justice decries trend of litigants representing themselves<\/a>, “Sept. 11, 2006)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font>The Chief Justice\u00a0pointed out in his Address\u00a0that the theme\u00a0Meeting the Pro Se Challenge<\/em>\u00a0“is bold and to some, is risky.”\u00a0 After listing a number of problems\u00a0caused in various state courts by the self-represented, CJ Moyers said “On Monday, Sept. 18, the Supreme Court will hold a special conference at which it will consider the 54 recommendations<\/a> of the Task Force<\/a> on Pro Se and Indigent Litigants and the recommendations of the Council of Delegates of the Ohio State Bar Association regarding responsibility of lawyers to provide pro bono<\/em> services.”\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/div>\n
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\"HarvardLegalAid\"\u00a0\u00a0 The Harvard Law School Bulletin<\/em> reported yesterday<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0(Sept. 15, 2006)\u00a0that the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau<\/a>\u00a0recently hosted a pro se<\/em> eviction clinic, to help low income families fill out answer-and-discovery forms, gather landlord information, and generally build better counterclaims to help them with their suits.\u00a0\u00a0 David Grossman<\/a>, HLAB’s new managing attorney and faculty advisor, stated that clinics such as these “help close the access-to-justice gap,” while giving student staff members the ability to try out and acquire new skills.<\/font><\/div>\n
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\"expect\u00a0 \u00a0In a Legal Q&A column for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch<\/em>, attorney John Roska, of the Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation, explained why “Small claims appeal is uphill battle<\/a>” (Sept. 5, 2006).\u00a0 Roska notes, for example, that “Since a motion to reconsider essentially asks a judge to admit that you’re right and he’s wrong, it’s an uphill battle. There’s no statistics, but it’s safe to say such motions rarely succeed.”\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font><\/div>\n
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As for actual appeals, he states that in Illinois, “Only the most careful and capable pro se appellant (someone doing their own appeal) will avoid a dismissal. Of cases not dismissed, about 35 percent get some form of reversal of the lower court decision.”\u00a0 Roska concludes, “Given the long odds you face, you may want to consider just biting the bullet, and accepting the judge’s decision.”\u00a0 [See our prior post<\/a> on states\u00a0providing guidance to pro se<\/em> litigants in appellate matters.]<\/font><\/div>\n
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\"OhioMapN\". One more piece of news from Ohio, on Unbundling and Scope of Representation<\/em>:\u00a0 The Ohio Supreme Court recently promulgated an extensively\u00a0revamped set of Rules of Professional Conduct<\/a> for lawyers, which will be effective on February 1, 2007.\u00a0\u00a0The Court rejected the advice of its own Task Force<\/a>, which had proposed requiring<\/em> a written agreement on Scope of Representation, unless the matter is expected to cost less than $500\u00a0\u00a0 Instead, it followed the\u00a0request<\/a> of the Ohio State Bar Association, which made no substantive argument, but stated frankly that it:<\/font>\u00a0 <\/font><\/div>\n
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\u201crecommended changing Rule 1.2 <\/font>to eliminate the writing requirement concerning scope of representation <\/font>and fee-and-expense agreements to prevent violations of that requirement <\/font>forming the basis of a disciplinary complaint.\u201d <\/font><\/font><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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Therefore, in the final version of Rule 1.2<\/a>, the statement of the scope of representation is “preferably in writing.”\u00a0 (ethicalEsq<\/em> had more on this topic — and a ban<\/a> on advertising discount legal fees —\u00a0here<\/a>)<\/font><\/div>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0 [pre-launch status, as we search for a shlep team\u00a0— can you contribute?]\u00a0\u00a0 This post has notes from around the country: comments about self-represented litigants by Ohio’s Chief Justice, news of an eviction self-help clinic at Harvard Law School, notes on small claims court in Illinois, and new rules on unbundled legal services in Ohio…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":437,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[991],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-items"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/437"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}