When we talk about helping litigants to appear pro se<\/em>, and offering unbundled assistance to clients, we do not<\/em> mean the conduct described above.\u00a0 In case you’re wondering when shlep<\/em> would be happy to see Unauthorized Practice of Law charges filed against an individual, these facts — if proven — certainly would qualify.<\/p>\n \u00a0 2]\u00a0 We found a different kind of\u00a0slur against\u00a0pro se<\/em> and self-help this evening, when backtracking on a referral to shlep<\/em> from a Google search result — and, it was from a surprising source.\u00a0\u00a0 Someone entered the query represent self fool for lawyer<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and the 4th result went to the Using Self Help<\/strong><\/a> page of the Tenants\u00a0Legal Center of San Diego<\/strong><\/a>, a “community Law office” that boasts<\/a> of its record of community service, and its low fees.\u00a0\u00a0 I went to the webpage expecting a refutation of the “fool for a client” cliche, but instead found what amounts to scare tactics meant to\u00a0keep tenants from\u00a0using self-help at any time “when legal documents are served or when action is threatened or commenced.” The Center warns, for instance, that “almost all tenants who represent themselves lose the case or agree to a bad settlement.”\u00a0 It also ends a lengthy section captioned What Else Is Wrong with Self-Help Materials? with the unsubtle counsel that:<\/p>\n “Self help methods of responding to or defending eviction cases have spelled doom for almost all tenants who have tried that system.\u00a0 It is like drinking salt water when you are thirsty.\u00a0 It may help for the moment, but things will only get worse.”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n There is much more of the same on TLC’s Using Self Help page. And, yes, these are the “good guys” who work in a “community clinic,” and not the big, bad bar associations we decried in a prior posting<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0We hope the pro se<\/em> practitioners out there in California will tell us whether things are as bad as the Tenants Legal Center of San Diego would have us believe.\u00a0 Aren’t the Landlord\/Tenant materials<\/a> provided by the California Court Self-Help website adequate for the needs of most tenants facing eviction?\u00a0 Isn’t the 120-page Tenant Rights Guide<\/a>\u00a0from the Department of Consumer Affairs a worthwhile resource?\u00a0 Has TLC merely used hyperbole to sell its unbundled services?\u00a0 Or have they gone too far to scare up business from clients who went to their website hoping to find objective advice about the self-help option?<\/p>\n![\"CondoBlockN\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/shlep\/files\/2006\/11\/condoBlockN.jpg\")
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