news, views and info on self-help law and pro se litigation
The Supreme Court of Mississippi has issued an Order Establishing The Mississippi Access to Justice Commission (via HALT eJournal, Aug. 28, 2006). According to the Court’s press release (June 29, 2006), the Commission is “comprised of business and community leaders, clergy and representatives from all three branches of government,” and it will seek to ”develop a unified strategy to improve access to justice for the poor.”
An article last week in the Washington Post is headlined “Web Searches Go Low-Tech: You Ask, a Person Answers” (by Yuki Noguchi, Aug. 16, 2006; pointer from TVCAlert). After describing efforts by Yahoo and other companies to connect people with questions with human beings who will assist in finding answers, the reporter worries:
“[S]uch projects raise their own big questions: Will users trust the advice of volunteers, and is this new form of sharing information online useful and accurate?”
The WaPo article correctly notes that “the whole system rests on the integrity and reliability of people who donate their time and knowledge.” This is a great opportunity for SHLEP to remind readers that (1) public law libraries in numerous states already offer similar online search assistance from human beings for those looking for answers to legal questions [offering help with researching and finding relevant information and not, of course, giving legal advice]; and (2) you can trust that they will provide “useful and accurate” virtual reference services, because the reference librarians are professionals trained in the business of answering research queries and of knowledge management in the legal field.
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[This is a pre-launch posting. We will soon finish construction and “go public.”]
SHLEP says: As programs such as those described in our prior posts here and here are established, fine-tuned, evaluated and updated across the nation, it becomes harder and harder for the judiciary, bar, governmental administrators and leaders, or any other stake-holders to say that Self-Help is an unworkable or unethical pipedream. Put another way: it becomes easier and easier to find workable models that can make Self-Help Law a viable option for everyday Americans in virtually every courthouse.
[This is a pre-launch posting. We will soon finish construction and “go public.”]
The State Justice Institute’s 2005 Pro Se Summit Report contains the following comprehensive list of the types of court-based services, systems, and strategies that are being used in various locales across the country, as they build their Self-Help and Pro Se assistance programs [see The Future of Self-Represented Litigation: A Report from the March 2005 Summit (State Justice Institute, 2005, Richard Zorza, Esq., pdf. 146 pages) :
[This is a pre-launch posting. We will soon finish construction and “go public.”]
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Is there really a Self-Help Law Movement? Despite the enthusiasm of its supporters, most members of the public (and many lawyers and judges) have no idea what has already been done to make it possible for individuals to use the justice system fairly and effectively without using a lawyer.
How’d you get here so soon? This weblog is still under construction, but we expect to be ready to launch some time next week.
You can get a pretty good idea of what we hope to accomplish at SHLEP by checking out our About page.
Thanks for your patience and please come back after we “go public”.
david giacalone, editor
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