shlep: the Self-Help Law ExPress

Article about assistance for pro se bankruptcy filers in Maryland:

DIY bankruptcy — with a little help from the state

By Eileen Ambrose

July 26, 2009

Many financial matters you can easily do on your own without professional help.

Filing for bankruptcy isn’t one of them.

But if you choose to do so, you’re no longer totally left on your own in Maryland to navigate the intricacies of bankruptcy. Thanks to a new Debtors Assistance Project, do-it-yourselfers can get a half-hour of free legal advice from a lawyer, who can answer questions or check paperwork.

“It’s not going to solve everybody’s problem on that day. That’s not what it’s designed to do,” says Jeff Sirody, a Pikesville lawyer who volunteers with the project. “It’s designed to give people an opportunity to speak with an attorney. Is there any easy solution? If not, what’s the next step? Where should they go to get help?”

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Article from the Vallejo Times-Herald describes the popular “Lawyer in the Library” program to help patrons handle their own legal problems:

The legal system is a baffling process for most, even before they walk through the front courthouse doors.For those with limited finances, resources can be thin locally — which is why attorneys here and nationally have tried to fill the gap between government-funded, legal-aid programs and those in need.

“Legal aid in this country has been emaciated,” Solano County Superior Court Judge Paul Beeman said. “If they don’t have legal aid and they don’t have money, they’re going to lose. It’s a terrible thing when you think about all the wealth and resources in this nation.”

In Vallejo, the Lawyer in the Library program, started by former Vallejo librarian Michael Senturia with help from Beeman, has provided free one-time legal advice and referrals for the past 13 years.

“Everybody thought it was a good idea from the beginning, but once it got started, it knocked your socks off because peoplemassively appreciated the help,” Beeman said. “For most lawyers, it was real simple advice that gave direction … and they were genuinely appreciative.”

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My plan was to compile a collection of self-help bankruptcy sites from each state.  I realized that I would never have time to do all of the states at one time, which would mean I’d never get the thing done.  So, I’m going to do five states at a time and post them here.  When I’m finished, I’ll polish it up and create a page for it.

Keep in mind that bankruptcy is a federal matter so you don’t have to limit yourself to sites specific to your own state to get information.  You might find very helpful explanatory information on a site intended for another state.  However, if there is a site that provides forms for your state, you should probably use those unless you’re prepared to adjust them for your state.

If I miss any good sites, please let me know.  Meanwhile, here are the first five.

Alabama

Bankruptcy Court, Northern District of Alabama

Alaska

Alaskalawhelp.org

Bankruptcy Court, District of Alaska

Arizona

Bankruptcy Court, District of Arizona

Arkansas

Legalconsumer.com

California

Bankruptcy Court, Northern District of California

Thanks to the recent bursting of the housing bubble, we find that many of the pro se patrons who come to our library do so seeking help fighting foreclosure.

For Californians, one helpful document, A Self-Help Guide to Preventing Foreclosure, can be found here.  This document is provided by the California Senior Legal Hotline and Legal Services of Northern California.  LINK FIXED

The American Bar Association has published a page of useful links to Foreclosure Resources and Information.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development also provides a useful page of recourses entitled “Guide to Avoiding Foreclosure.”

I just discovered a wonderful self-help web-site, sponsored by the Council of California Law Librarians, called Your Public Law Library.  The site covers California in depth, but it also has information for other states.  The site includes information on self-help centers, guidance for legal research, including a mini-research class, and on-line reference services.

Best of all, the site is available in eight languages: English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, French, Japanese, and Korean.

The Montana Public Interest Law Blog had an interesting article recently on one of the trickiest rules of evidence: relevance.  The author was inspired to write the post because, as a new prosecutor in a small town, he often sees people losing minor court cases because they don’t understand the rules of evidence.  

The article is a great overview of the relevance rule, putting it in simple, easy-to-understand language while also deciphering some of its complexities.  The author writes only on the Federal Rules of Evidence, however.  As he points out, anyone going into the courtroom should make sure to check their state rules as well, because sometimes there are major differences. 

While trolling the news for useful information to post on shlep, I came across this blog post at Consumerist.com.  It advises people who are being pursued by debt collectors to make sure that the company who is trying to collect really owns the debt that it’s claiming the person owes.  They also point to this great article offering tips for people being sued by debt collecters over at Alabama Consumer Law Blog. 

I have heard about Consumerist before, but today was the first time I visited their web-site, and I highly recommend it.  They analyze new products, discuss the customer service of various companies, and as the above article indicates, offer useful tips for consumers who are dealing with various sorts of problems related to buying and selling.  It’s a great web-site for all things related to consumer rights.

A quick perusal of the archives showed pages dealing with debt collection, early termination fees, fraud, and identity theft, and much more.  You can also send them tips when a company treats you unfairly.  Check it out. 

In 2005, the American Association of Law Libraries held a Joint Roundtable on Service to Pro Se Patrons and Prisoners at their annual meeting.  As a part of that roundtable, they conducted an email survey, in which law libraries with pro se programs described their programs and any associated costs.

I have attached the results of that survey, which includes information from respondents in the following states: California, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.  Note that I updated the original results, deleting any links that no longer worked.

Pro Se Programs in Law Libraries

Legal research guides, sometimes called “pathfinders,” are exactly what they sound like – guides to legal research. A number of different organizations publish these guides, but a consistent source for particularly thorough and helpful guides is academic law libraries. As a new academic law librarian myself, I consistently use the guides published on the web-sites of other law schools when researching an unfamiliar topic. Almost every academic law library publishes them to some extent or another, and they can be a great resource for pro se patrons in learning how to find things like cases, laws, regulations – or even just in developing a research strategy when you don’t know where to begin.

If you need help with a particular type of problem, try googling for a research guide. For example, say you are going through a divorce – try googling “family law” and “research guide” or “family law” and “pathfinder.” I just tried the first search, and a number of helpful options came up.

If you need to find something more directly about your state (and most of the time, that is the case), you could try adding the name of the state to your search. Another, and probably more helpful, option, is to go to the home page for an academic law library in your state. Most such law libraries will have state specific, as well as more general, research guides, but they may not appear in Google. Because each law library works differently, you will probably have to poke around the web-site to see where the research guides are located, but usually, they are listed in the “Reference” or “Search” section of a given law library’s homepage.

As an example, check out the research guides on the UCLA Law Library web-page, which cover a variety of California and federal topics.

HALT.org has a great new guide out on planning a Living Trust.  As the abstract explains:

Like a will, a living trust is an estate-planning tool that lets you transfer property after you die. But unlike a will, property placed in a trust passes directly to your beneficiaries without first having to go through probate.

This is a great new Estate Planning tool!

Tragically, a staff person was killed on the campus where I work this week. A man she used to be involved with went to her office, shot her to death, and then committed suicide. The victim had taken many steps to protect herself: she had obtained protective orders against the man, she had alerted university police, and she had shown her coworkers his picture and told them to call 911 if they saw him. Still, he found her. (See Seattle Times story.)

Today I read that, ironically or aptly, this is Sexual Assault and Relationship Violence Awareness Week on campus. I started looking for more information and found that different organizations have designated April Sexual Assault Awareness Month. (H. Res. 289, a resolution introduced in the House of Representatives last week, would call it National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month.)

During my search for information about the event, I found a great self-help resource, by the Washington Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs: A Survivor’s Guide to Filing a Civil Lawsuit (2004). It’s a 54-page book (in pdf) that explains the whole process — including long ists of pros and cons (p. 4) to help potential plaintiffs make the decision whether to sue. WCSAP has other resources (for the public and for attorneys) on its legal page.

The National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (part of CDC) takes a public health approach to the problem. See its Sexual Violence fact sheet, with resources for Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

The National Sexual Violence Resource Center has links to legal organizations working on the topic here.

      Despite its cautionary title, yesterday’s NPR piece from Marketplace Money, ”Self-filing for bankruptcy can cost you“ (March 23, 2007; listen here) has some good news for those who want or need to file for bankruptcy without a lawyer: the United States Bankruptcy Court, EDNY (Brooklyn) has created a Pro Se Attorney’s Office and the pilot program “may be replicated in cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco.”

   Mary Fox currently holds the Pro Se clerk job in the Brooklyn bankruptcy court.  The services are provided in person at the court on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  Ms Fox only provides legal information, not legal advice.  She offers two impressions about pro se litigants in the NPR piece:

• “People will pay thousands of dollars for root canal, but they seriously question whether they should hire an attorney for important, life-altering decisions.”
• “And a few filers, she says, have really done their homework and are pretty qualified to represent themselves.”

In our prior post bankruptcy law self-help, you can find many free, online resources to help prepare for filing bankruptcy on your own.  For example, the webpage Filing Bankruptcy Without an Attorney (Pro Se), from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Columbia offers help for the pro se litigant, including a 77-page pdf. document on Bankruptcy Basics, explaining the “basics” and process since the new bankruptcy law became effective in October 2005.