Legal Center Will Help People Help Themselves

Who needs lawyers?

Lots of people who don’t want or can’t afford them end up flooding the courts, representing themselves in matters from divorce to landlord-tenant disputes and adding to the inefficiency of an already-overburdened court system.

This week, Los Angeles County will open a self-help center at the Van Nuys Courthouse, where would-be litigants without lawyers can get information, guidance and lots of hand holding--almost everything but outright legal advice--for free.

Pushed by the Los Angeles County Superior Court, the legal aid community and private lawyers, the walk-in center will be the first of its kind in Los Angeles to offer a wide range of help in areas such as family law, housing law, small claims and even name changes. It’s part of a trend across the state to help give “pro per” litigants, or those representing themselves, better access to the courts.

“We’ll be able to help people help themselves . . . for all kinds of things you have to go to court for on the civil side,” said Neil Dudovitz, executive director of San Fernando Neighborhood Legal Services, the nonprofit group that will administer the new center opening Wednesday.

If the Van Nuys center is successful, more full-service self-help centers may be established elsewhere in Los Angeles, said Janice Kamenir-Reznik, who chairs the county’s pro per task force. “We hope it will be a model for the county.”

A few years ago, the California Legislature established a family law facilitator program that has been providing lawyers, for all counties, to help pro per litigants with child support, spousal support and insurance problems. With funding from the Judicial Council, the policymaking arm of the California Supreme Court, family law information centers have opened in Sutter and Fresno counties, downtown Los Angeles and Norwalk. Full-service self-help facilities also have opened in Ventura County, which served as the model for the Van Nuys center.

Currently, there is a self-help legal access center at Monroe High School in North Hills, but the facility is open only a few hours a day, three days a week. That center, also administered by Neighborhood Legal Services, does not provide any help with family law--which includes legal separation, divorce and child custody--an area that experts say has more pro per litigants than any other area of law.

Using the Right Forms Can Be a Challenge

According to a 1996 Judicial Council report, more than half of all family law cases have at least one litigant who is without a lawyer, and the number of such cases is believed to be on the rise. Another big area for pro per litigation is unlawful detainers.

“There’s a desperate need to help citizens who need legal assistance but don’t have the financial means for lawyers,” said B. Terence Harwick, a facilitator for the Van Nuys Justice Community task force. Though the Van Nuys center will be open to everyone, organizers expect low-income people to be the primary users.

For litigants without lawyers, the legal system can seem byzantine, made more perplexing by all the paperwork and legalese. Sometimes, simply using the right forms can be a challenge.

The center would be helpful to litigants such as a 38-year-old Van Nuys flight attendant, who declined to give his name because he is seeking a restraining order against a woman he knows.

One day last week, the man spent an entire afternoon in the Van Nuys civil courthouse, returning to the filing window of the clerk’s office four times--each time after waiting in line--because, among other things, he didn’t have the right forms or didn’t fill them out properly.

A self-help center would have saved him time and energy, the man said, and a lawyer would have given him much-needed guidance. “I didn’t know I had to appear before a judge--I wish I was better prepared,” the man said.

Glenda Molina, supervisor of the Van Nuys court’s office clerks, estimates that 80% of the pro per litigants she sees mess up their paperwork.

“Let’s say it’s a paternity [issue]. They’ll use divorce forms,” Molina said. Even when correct forms are used, she said, “they’re incomplete. They’re illegible.”

She has seen cases in which people who file for divorce fail to understand that they need to follow up with more paperwork to make it final. Some people have been unpleasantly surprised, years later, by their marital status.

“They think they have a divorce, but they don’t,” Molina said.

People without lawyers also bog down courts, peppering staff with endless questions and returning repeatedly, as the flight attendant did, because they don’t do things right the first time.

“The clerks get very frustrated,” said Michael J. Farrell, supervising judge for Van Nuys Superior Court. “Things take so much more time when we’re dealing with pro pers who don’t know what they’re doing.”

But after they receive information and support, pro per litigants “feel better prepared and they’re better able to process their cases,” which increases court efficiency, said Aviva Bobb, family law supervising judge for Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Center Won’t Be Giving Legal Advice

The Van Nuys center, at Sylvan Street and Sylmar Avenue, across the government mall from the civil courthouse, is funded by a $300,000 county grant, said Caron Caines, the self-help project coordinator and an attorney at Neighborhood Legal Services. The center’s two full-time, on-site attorneys and administrative assistant will be bolstered with volunteers from the legal community as well as student interns. Those working to bring about the project credit county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky for securing the funding.

Organizers emphasize that the center’s attorneys won’t be dispensing legal advice, but they will answer questions and offer guidance--even reviewing completed forms to make sure they’re filled out correctly. For those with complicated legal problems, the staff will refer litigants to Legal Aid or a private attorney.

“Our goal is that as a result of all this, when the judge makes a decision, it’s a decision based on real facts and the law--not because of a form someone has filled out incorrectly,” Dudovitz said. “As a result of that, the community will have greater confidence in the justice system.”