{"id":134,"date":"2006-09-21T20:24:40","date_gmt":"2006-09-22T00:24:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/shlep\/2006\/09\/21\/can-a-parent-be-the-self-in-pro-se\/"},"modified":"2006-11-19T03:15:59","modified_gmt":"2006-11-19T07:15:59","slug":"can-a-parent-be-the-self-in-pro-se","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/2006\/09\/21\/can-a-parent-be-the-self-in-pro-se\/","title":{"rendered":"can a parent be the “self” in “pro se”?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The SCOTUSBlog<\/a><\/em>, which\u00a0covers the U.S. Supreme Court very well, reported yesterday<\/a> (Sept. 20, 2006) that the Justice Department has urged the high Court “to clarify when a non-lawyer parent of a disabled child may file a lawsuit, without a lawyer, to enforce the child’s rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).”<\/p>\n

The Court had asked for the Solicitor General’s opinion regarding the case of Winkelman, et al.,<\/em> v. Parma City School District<\/em> (docket 05-983).\u00a0 SG Paul D. Clement wants the Supreme Court to take the case and overturn the Sixth Circuit appellate court, which held last year\u00a0that Ohioans Jeff and Sandee Winkelman had to hire a lawyer to bring\u00a0an IDEA lawsuit on behlaf of their child.\u00a0 Go to the SCOTUSBlog<\/em> posting<\/a> for more information on the case and links to many relevant pleadings. [Go to Nolo.com’s podcast “Understanding Special Education Laws<\/a>,” by author Lawrence Siegel to learn about IDEA.]<\/p>\n

Carolyn Elefant discusses the case today at Legal Blog Watch<\/em><\/a>, pointing out that the American Bar Association has been\u00a0silent so far on this issue.\u00a0 After noting that many parents simply cannot afford to hire a lawyer in\u00a0these\u00a0education-disability cases, Carolyn opines:<\/p>\n

“The ABA and bar associations should be supporting parents’ rights to represent their children, and if they won’t, then they ought to come up with a way that children can find pro bono or low-cost attorneys.”\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Ohio State Bar Association<\/a>\u00a0and Cleveland Bar Association<\/a> have decided to play mute so far on this issue.\u00a0 However, Carolyn<\/a>, Walter Olson<\/a>, Prof. Larry Ribstein<\/a>,\u00a0and even\u00a0ethicalEsq<\/a><\/em> came down very hard on the\u00a0Cleveland Bar in a very similar case earlier this year,\u00a0when the Cleveland Bar Association brought charges<\/a> of unauthorized practice of law<\/em> against Brian and Susan Woods, after they successfully brought a case “pro se”<\/em> on behalf of their child under IDEA.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"seesaw\"\u00a0 After harsh public outcry and some suasion from the\u00a0Ohio Supreme Court, the\u00a0Cleveland Bar withdrew the UPL claim against the Woods, but the Bar President, T. Kelly Tompkin,\u00a0nonetheless insisted that they had a perfectly “legitimate, technical\u00a0basis” to bring the UPL charges, because only the actual party can represent himself or herself pro se<\/em>, and Mr. Woods represented someone else in court — his\u00a0son\u00a0— without being a lawyer.\u00a0 [see a New York Times<\/em> article<\/a>, May 6, 2006; and a Cleveland Plain Dealer<\/em> article<\/a>, May 5, 2006]\u00a0\u00a0 Walter Olson put it well:<\/p>\n

\n
\u201cIf you set out to devise a case that would bring unauthorized <\/font>practice of law statutes into public disrepute, you could hardly <\/font>have done better than the Cleveland bar, which is seeking to <\/font>punish a nonlawyer for representing his own autistic son in IDEA <\/font>(special-education) proceedings–even though the father and son <\/font>prevailed<\/em> in the proceedings, undercutting any consumer-protection <\/font><\/font>line of argument.”<\/font>\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Even minors who are mentally competent can’t bring a lawsuit on their own and can’t enter into contracts such as a legal retainer.\u00a0\u00a0It\u00a0is the parent who would hire a lawyer in an IDEA case to represent\u00a0their child.\u00a0 To say — on the basis of unlawful practice of law statutes — that the parents cannot instead choose to be their child’s representative in court does indeed make UPL laws and\u00a0bar cartel\/associations look very bad.\u00a0 Lawyers who handle IDEA cases on behalf of children and parents often (and usually, rightly) paint themselves as being on the side of the angels.\u00a0 I sure hope they are not the ones seeking UPL sanctions against parents or keeping their bar groups from standing up for the Winkelmans and other parents, when they need or want to prosecute an IDEA case without counsel.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The SCOTUSBlog, which\u00a0covers the U.S. Supreme Court very well, reported yesterday (Sept. 20, 2006) that the Justice Department has urged the high Court “to clarify when a non-lawyer parent of a disabled child may file a lawsuit, without a lawyer, to enforce the child’s rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":437,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[991,900],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-items","category-viewpoint"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134","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=134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}