The Poor Get a Hand With Civil Justice System

Yesenia Valencia sifts through packets of court forms, searching for the right one to give a woman representing herself in a custody dispute.

The college student has learned all about forms and how to complete them. She’s part of an expanding program in California courts to guide people who can’t afford lawyers through the complex civil justice system.

Valencia is one of 100 students inducted last month into the first California JusticeCorps class. The three-year pilot program matches student volunteers with 10 court-based self-help programs in Los Angeles County.

“We expect those 100 students will help 125,000 people” in the county during the current academic year, said William C. Vickrey, administrative director of the California courts.

Most of the help is so basic that it requires no specialized legal skills. For example, students ensure that people have the right forms and know how to complete them.

More than 300,000 people embroiled in divorce or custody disputes, small claims actions and evictions went to court in Los Angeles County last year without lawyers, Vickrey said.

One or both parties in 80% of family law cases, 90% of people in landlord-tenant disputes and 100% of those in small claims matters were not represented by lawyers, he said.

Those statistics have led court officials to do more to help people trying to navigate the civil justice system on their own. They have simplified forms and translated them into several languages, published how-to booklets and established self-help legal centers at more than 50 courthouses statewide.

Now, JusticeCorps is providing the courts with volunteers. College students commit to contributing 300 hours in an academic year in exchange for $1,000 toward their educational expenses and, in some cases, class credit.

“They are going to get experience they can’t get in the classroom,” said Martha Wright, a court services analyst for the state, who said the public also will benefit. “We hope that time is saved on the part of the litigants and the courts,” she said.

Valencia is studying political science at Cal State Northridge and is thinking about law school. The 25-year-old North Hollywood woman saw a flier about the program at school and filled out an application. She wants to help others. But she also knows that learning about the court system may come in handy some day.

“You don’t know when you yourself will be involved in courts,” she said.

Many of the people Valencia met during her first weeks at the center were intimidated by the courts. “They don’t want to make a mistake,” she said.

Often there are educational and language barriers as well. “I’ve encountered people who don’t know how to read, people who don’t know how to write and people who do not speak English,” said Heidy Bendana, 22, another volunteer.

“We let them know what options they have,” she said.

More than 34,000 people lined up at self-help legal centers and family law information centers in Los Angeles County in the first six months of 2004, according to local court statistics.

“Many of the people who will be served by the JusticeCorps members would not have been able to file cases otherwise or would have found it far more difficult to do so,” Robert A. Dukes, Los Angeles County Superior Court presiding judge, said at a swearing-in ceremony last month for the student volunteers.

Overworked court staffers not only lack the time to help people who are representing themselves; they also are prohibited by state law from offering legal advice.

Searching for new resources to aid self-represented litigants, court officials turned to the AmeriCorps national service program. Much of the state’s $13-million AmeriCorps grant goes to after-school tutoring and mentoring for children in low-income areas.

AmeriCorps officials liked the idea of putting students to work at court-based self-help centers. They gave the state’s superior courts $750,000 over three years to recruit, train and supervise undergraduates from UCLA, Cal State Dominguez Hills, Cal State Northridge and Cal Poly Pomona. There is a waiting list of applicants.

Kathy O’Byrne, director of UCLA’s Center for Community Learning, said she had two applicants for each of the 50 spots she would fill. AmeriCorps, she said, gave students a chance to explore career options in law as well as serve their community.

Valencia and Bendana work a couple of days a week at the Van Nuys Self-Help Center, which is staffed by two lawyers and a paralegal. Without volunteers, “we couldn’t possibly assist a fraction of the people who come in,” said Caron Caines, the center’s managing attorney.

Neal Dudovitz, executive director of Neighborhood Legal Services, which runs some of the self-help centers, said his staff tells litigants they are better off hiring a lawyer if they can afford one. If not, he said, the one-on-one help his staff and volunteers offer is the next best thing.

One of Valencia’s first clients did not understand the paperwork her husband’s lawyer sent. The attorney accused the woman of working too much and neglecting their child.

Valencia read the allegations to her in Spanish and asked the woman to respond. The student translated her answers into English and wrote on a standardized form that she could easily file.

“I felt really good I was able to help her write a response statement,” Valencia said. Otherwise, “she might have landed up losing the child.”