Legal Answers Minus Lawyers

In a drab, prefabricated building in Van Nuys, under the shadows of one of Los Angeles County’s largest courthouses, dozens of desperate people huddle every day. They seek guidance, answers or just a little sympathy and support--so they can help themselves solve their own legal problems.

Here at a computer, staring bug-eyed at a screen displaying an online legal form, is a Van Nuys cafeteria worker who can’t afford a divorce lawyer but needs a way out of her unhappy marriage.

There at a table, poring over a mound of papers, is a Sherman Oaks mother of three, trying to stave off eviction.

“Who can afford a lawyer for stuff like this?” said Melissa Corona Ramos after filling out her umpteenth form, as her three young daughters scampered around her.

The women are among the thousand or so people who flock each month to the Van Nuys Self-Help Legal Access Center. Opened in November with a $300,000 grant from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, the project, if successful, will be a model for such centers at courthouses across the county.

Assisting civil litigants without lawyers--those known in legal parlance as pro pers--has become one of the top priorities for the leaders of California’s legal community.

“It’s the right thing to do because there are more and more people who can’t afford the services of counsel,” said Ronald M. George, chief justice of California.

In recent years, people without lawyers have been flooding into the state’s courts, according to the state Judicial Council, a policymaking arm of the California Supreme Court. In family law, for example, more than four out of five cases involve at least one party who does not have a lawyer.

Lawyerless litigants often don’t know their rights and have trouble understanding legal terms and conveying information to a judge. They face a daunting system in which their cases, no matter how meritorious, can fail because they used the wrong form or missed a court date.

“To ensure access to the courts, it’s not enough that people can come into the courtroom,” said Laurie Zelon, a former chairwoman of the state’s Access to Justice Commission who recently became a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge. “If people are going to be in court, they should have their voices heard in an effective way, and that’s what [the Van Nuys center] is all about.”

The center is designed not only to help unrepresented litigants but also to increase court efficiency. “The better off we can make the pro pers, the better off the courts will be,” George said. “They will not clog up the system so much.”

Self-help law centers have opened recently in several counties. Two small centers in Los Angeles focus on family law.

At the Van Nuys center one recent afternoon, volunteer Andrew Forman explained each form to Corona Ramos.

“Who am I, the plaintiff?” Corona Ramos asked.

Yes, replied Forman, and the 26-year-old homemaker carefully wrote down her name and that of her husband, Pedro Corona, a gardener, who sat nearby playing with a daughter.

Forman, who works as a property manager, said he is usually “on the other side, evicting people.” But many tenants who come to the center have valid claims, he said, and this may be such a case.

The couple showed Forman canceled checks indicating they have been paying their rent, but the landlord is still trying to kick them out, Corona Ramos said. She said the landlord is upset because she and her husband reported safety violations and were recently visited by a county inspector.

“It’s retaliation, so you want to check box E,” Forman said.

(In a phone interview, landlord Betty Ju denied that her action is retaliatory. Ju said her records show that the Coronas missed a rent payment last year, and that she repeatedly asked them to pay or show proof of payment but they refused).

A few feet away from the Coronas, Mel Atayde tapped away at a computer keyboard while a woman answered his questions with her eyes locked on the screen--and the just-typed phrase “irreconcilable differences.” Atayde, a staff member at Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County, the Pacoima-based legal aid group that oversees the center, said she occasionally stops by to help out.

The Van Nuys center has three full-time paid staffers, including two attorneys, but its services really depend on 30 trained volunteers. The volunteers include lawyers and nonlawyers alike, among them a TV producer and former litigants who have been helped by the center.

Volunteers “are the key to the success of the self-help center,” said Robby Stovitz, the center’s directing attorney.

Most people need help with evictions, small claims or family law matters, including divorces and paternity actions. Others are seeking name changes or temporary restraining orders for civil harassment, Stovitz said.

Those with complicated problems--like the woman with serious burns from a heater explosion who was contemplating a do-it-yourself personal injury lawsuit--are referred to the San Fernando Valley Bar Assn. for a lawyer.

Lawyers have been supportive of the center and many volunteer there, said bar President Christine Lyden. The center’s users “aren’t the type of people who can [afford to] hire an attorney,” she said.

Although the center is open to all, the vast majority of its users are low-income. About 55% fall under the federal poverty line, which means an income of less than $21,000 for a family of four.

Until recently, the Corona family of five lived on less than $20,000 a year. “There’s a lot of people like us. Sometimes we don’t have much money for lawyers,” said Pedro Corona.

The center is great for another reason, he added. “It’s a satisfaction that we can do [the legal work] ourselves, but with just a little help.”