Posted 12:42 am Sunday, June 20, 2010
Do-It-Yourself Legal Work On The Rise
By DAYNA WORCHEL
Staff Writer
A 42-year-old Waco woman knew she had to get permanent custody of her 4-year-old grandson.
Staff Writer
A 42-year-old Waco woman knew she had to get permanent custody of her 4-year-old grandson.
Her daughter, the child's mother, was not taking care of him. Even worse, the daughter and boyfriend had been involved in a high-speed police chase with the child in the car.
She decided she was going to represent herself in family court hearings.
"I didn't have $10,000 to spend on a lawyer," she said.
After going to several appointments, for two to three hours at a time at the Lutheran Ministries and Social Services of Waco, the grandmother found herself alone in a courtroom with family judge. It was an experience she described as nerve-wracking, and not one she would want to repeat.
The story ended happily as the woman got custody of the grandchild on May 12. Her daughter has supervised visitation with the boy.
She said she doesn't know what she would have done without the help of the staff at Lutheran Ministries, which provides legal forms and guidance for people wanting to represent themselves.
"It's an awesome undertaking, and you have to have someone guide you through it," she said.
People who make their living in the legal profession in Tyler, and in other states, say a national trend has emerged in the past two years -- people who represent themselves in court instead of hiring a lawyer.
The reasons for this "pro se" representation vary, but are most likely tied to the recent rough economic times, Smith County Court at Law No. 2 Judge Randall Rogers said.
"Pro se" is a legal term that literally means "on one's own behalf."
Judge Rogers hears family cases in his courtroom about twice a week, sometimes every day if the need is present.
"Some lawyers are pricing themselves out of the market, and many people don't like lawyers," he said, citing other reasons for the increase in self-representation.
The judge said he constantly sees people in his courtroom who come in without an attorney to get divorced and who need help getting their paperwork filled in properly.
If there are no children or property involved, it is usually a simple process, he said.
"But if there are children, the paperwork is almost always wrong, which means another hearing must be scheduled, and I cannot give legal advice from the bench," he said.
Judge Rogers said because such cases are time consuming for a court, often an attorney sitting in his courtroom for another case will come to the aid of someone who is representing him or herself. Sometimes it is because the attorney wants to move things along so that his own case can be heard, but they are always willing to help, the judge said.
Smith County Law Librarian Cristy Keul sees people who come into the Smith County Law Library every day who are attempting to represent themselves in family law cases, such as divorce or child custody.
Many of them, she said, really need the help of an attorney, but cannot afford one.
Ms. Keul said some individuals come into the library with legal forms they have purchased from the Internet when the same forms are available for free from the Texas Law Help website. Or someone will arrive with the forms that she borrowed from her sister that the sister used in her own divorce, Ms. Keul said.
"I say to them that, 'This will get you a divorce from your sister's husband, but not from yours,'" she said.
Often, those who visit the law library who are seeking information about representing themselves are on public assistance, and it is a challenge just to pay the $255 filing fee for a divorce, Ms. Keul said.
Holly Monk has been the reference attorney for the Smith County Law Library since December, and said her role is to help people help themselves.
"I review documents and dispense legal information to people who are representing themselves in uncontested family law matters," she said.
Ms. Monk, whose position is funded by grants from the Texas Access to Justice Foundation, the Smith County Bar Association and the Smith County Law Library, said she assists between 60 and 80 self-represented litigants each month, and speaks briefly with about 150 people each month to either make appointments or answer brief questions.
The judges in the Smith County courts, Ms. Monk said, have been quite pleased with her help with the self-represented litigants, and usually require that she review their documents before they appear in court. The library is not able to provide help for someone involved in criminal charges, she said.
If people are seeking legal services outside of what Ms. Monk can offer, such as a contested family law matter, she refers them either to the Lone Star Legal Aid or the State Bar Lawyer Referral Services. Lone Star Legal Aid is the fourth largest provider of free legal aid in the United States and serves those whose income is at or below 125 percent of federal guidelines, according to the organization's website.
The most important piece of information Ms. Monk and Ms. Keul want to convey is that many of the most commonly used legal forms, such as those for divorce, advanced directives for physicians, and medical powers of attorney, are available at www.texaslawhelp.org free. Smith County courts accept forms from this website, and the site is written for people who are not attorneys, Ms. Keul said.
"People are purchasing things on the Internet; they have no idea who they are buying from -- and most of it can be obtained for free on the Texas Law Help site," said Ms. Monk, who also works as a volunteer attorney for Lone Star Legal Aid.
Family law changes constantly, and some people will still need the services of an attorney, Ms. Monk said.
John Bufe is an attorney who handles civil litigation for the Potter Minton law firm in Tyler. He agrees that self-representation in legal matters has indeed become more widespread nationally, especially in large cities, and said courthouses "are increasingly being besieged" by such cases. Individuals who represent themselves clog up the legal system and can make courtroom schedules more difficult for judges to manage, Bufe said.
"I would say it's a perilous enterprise, because the facts underlying the legal issues are complicated, and someone representing themselves can sometimes make matters worse," Bufe said.
Bufe also attributes the increase in self-representing litigants to the economy but said the availability of self-help websites such as LegalZoom.com also have contributed to the increase.
Chas Rampenthal, general counsel for the California-based LegalZoom, said more than half of the individuals in the country need the services of an attorney, but very few of these actually go to one. He said his company, which is an online site that helps customers create their own legal documents for a fee, "understands the value of good, legal advice."
The website offers documents for civil matters, including living wills, last wills, powers of attorney and uncontested divorces. They also offer documents to create business partnerships and corporations.
The pricing for the services can be found on the website, and one flat fee is charged for the document preparation, Rampenthal said. A customer who goes to the website clicks on the service they want, answers a questionnaire about their needs, and may purchase the package if they wish, but they are not obligated to do so.
"In the same way that TurboTax asks specific questions, LegalZoom does also," Rampenthal said. For instance, in an uncontested divorce, each state may have specific requirements, so it is necessary for certain questions to be asked, he said.
A legal document processor reviews the answers on the documents, formats them, and sends them to the consumer for his or her signature, depending on the type of document. Once the forms are witnessed, they can be sent back to LegalZoom for digital storage if the consumer purchases a vault package, Rampenthal said.
He acknowledges that the services of LegalZoom are not for everyone. For detailed and protracted litigation, such as bankruptcy or a contested divorce, the company refers consumers to an American Bar Association lawyer locator service.
"Not everything is brain surgery, and many of the consumers feel that they can take care of some legal matters on their own," Rampenthal said.
But Judge Carole Clark of the 321st Smith County District Court said trying to be your own lawyer is like trying taking to out your own appendix. She hears only family cases and said seven or eight of those each week are self-represented.
Judge Clark said the biggest problems she sees are those who own a home or who have children and are trying to get divorced without legal representation.
"They can end up losing a lot of money," she said. She added that if the couple leaves property out of the documents they file in the divorce, that the property is still considered to be co-owned.
James B. Sales is a former president of the Texas Access to Justice Commission, which was created by the Texas Supreme Court in 2001 to address the disparity in opportunities for low-income individuals to gain access to justice.
Sales, who is an attorney with Fulbright and Jaworski in Houston, said the best advice he can give to anyone who needs legal representation but can't afford it is to contact the local bar association to see if they have an attorney willing to offer services "pro bono," or free.
