This week, we hear from Alina Wattenberg, a 3L working on credit card debt self-help packets.

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The A2J Lab is committed to producing rigorous empirical evidence to support effective innovation in legal services. We also are part of a movement to transform the legal profession into one that values–and embraces–evidence-based approaches to narrowing the justice gap. In addition to our field operations, national presentations, and published papers, the A2J Lab recently hosted its first hackathon. On the snowy morning of February 13, we brought together a fantastic mix of expert, creative minds to develop self-help materials for our guardianship service of process study. 

In another first, we are pleased to introduce our YouTube channel!

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From filing a petition to showing up for your first hearing, here is how you get a Minor Guardianship case started in Massachusetts.

That’s right, this diagram is just about service of process, or the steps necessary to just get the case, which can last several months, started. This diagram isn’t necessarily 100% correct either. Depending on the jurisdiction or the judge, certain types of service may be accepted with less paperwork or proof than others. Sometimes if litigants file a regular petition for guardianship after filing for temporary or emergency guardianship they must go through the service of process steps a second time. 

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As the week gets started, here’s another taste of what students working on one of the A2J Lab’s signature study, the Financial Distress Research Project, are doing. The students who have been blogging thus far have talked about their experiences in Small Claims Court as well as tackling self-help materials for complicated bankruptcy forms. And those aren’t the only two focus areas of the project; students are also entering more uncharted territory, trying their hand at creating self-help materials for hospital debt.

Today, we’ll hear from 2L Rachel Finkel, who works on the Hospital Debt team of the Financial Distress Research Project.

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If you’ve been following our student series, you’ve learned a bit about the math involved in filling out bankruptcy forms, the complicated world of wildcard exemptions, and the reality of Small Claims Court for many defendants. Students are tackling all of these issues as part of student teams working on the Lab’s Financial Distress Research Project, creating self-help materials and legal briefs for small claims cases and bankruptcy filings.

This week, Lauren Mercer brings us back to Small Claims Court to talk about how defendants should ask for, and then evaluate, plaintiffs’ evidence.

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