Current Solutions Petitioners, most of whom are not lawyers, have to: (1) identify “interested parties,” many of whom are not obvious candidates; (2) determine the proper method of service; (3) effectuate service; and (4) return proof of service to the Probate and Family Court. Completing the process exactly as described is equally important. Service isn’t […]
Current Solutions Courts, legal services providers, and state and local Bars have responded to the flood of people without lawyers in numerous ways, including: amending ethical rules to legitimate already-existing forms of lawyer representation self-help centers uniform court forms self-help materials technology and non-lawyer representation. In 2015, the Conferences of Chief Judges and State Court Administrators
Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Almost every court system in the nation has an ADR program, and for most courts, at least some classes of litigants are compelled to use it before or during formal litigation. The most common forms of ADR are: Mediation: sessions in which the parties and/or their lawyers meet with a neutral (the
These instruments, despite their promise, give rise to some concerns worthy of study. Many rely on subjective factors, which require the exercise of judgment to score; their predictive power has not been assessed using data from the jurisdictions in which they are used; most instruments depend on information that, realistically, can only be obtained from an arrestee interview;
The Study: Part I The Debt Collection Default Study measures what kinds of mailings from legal services providers to defendants are effective in reducing default rates in debt collection cases. To our knowledge, our study is the first of its kind to evaluate an intervention intended to reduce default rates in civil cases using a randomized control
Problems with Current Solutions Some have suggested legal representation. But there will never be sufficient legal aid resources to provide a traditional, attorney-client relationship to all low- and middle-income individuals facing debt-related legal problems. The key, then, is to produce rigorous evidence regarding when and where to deploy scarce lawyer time most effectively, while designing
