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Thursday, January 04, 2007
Courts - "States Letting Lawyers Provide 'A La Carte' Menu of Legal Services"
Unbundled legal services are coming to some states, according to this lengthy AP story by Katharine Webster. Some quotes:
[S]tarting in 1999 with Colorado, states began adopting rules allowing lawyers to provide a menu of limited legal services to people who can't afford an attorney from soup to nuts. Maine, New Hampshire, California and Florida are among them, and most other states are considering such rules.The change is driven partly by judges and bar associations trying to help the overwhelming number of people representing themselves in court, or appearing pro se.
"It's a response to the pro se dilemma throughout the country: Let's try to get you some help when you need it, when you want it and in a manner that you can afford," said John Norton, a Keene, N.H., attorney who worked on his state's new rules and corresponding ethics rules for lawyers.
About 70 percent of family law cases in Maine and New Hampshire involve at least one person without a lawyer, court officials and lawyers say. The National Center for State Courts says there are no national statistics, but some states and other jurisdictions report comparable numbers, especially in family law and probate cases.
Consumers also are able to get more legal information online, while lawyers are facing the fact that most potential clients can't afford a full-service divorce, said Jeanne Charn, a senior lecturer at Harvard Law School who advises the American Bar Association's Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services.
Starting in the mid-1990s, courts began responding. They put forms and rules in plain English and online; set up self-help centers at courthouses; and hired mediators, neutral evaluators or case managers to guide people. Lawyers adapted.
"One of the things lawyers began to offer was, 'We'll help you with your issues, we'll help you decide, we'll prepare you, we'll go to court with you if you want.' But they broke it down into discreet fees for each service," Charn said. "In some sense, it's a consumer-oriented movement." * * *
New Hampshire's rules took effect July 1 and apply to all civil cases. Even at the state Supreme Court, 25 percent to 30 percent of appeals are filed by nonlawyers, Associate Justice James Duggan said. Most are in landlord-tenant actions, small-claims cases, petitions filed by prisoners and post-divorce disputes.
"A lot of them are handwritten. I mean, people do the best they can, but our concern is people may have a good issue and they don't raise it," Duggan said. "What we hope is those people who are representing themselves will go to a lawyer to help them with a significant piece of the litigation, and that will help the courts."
The new rules also protect lawyers, said Amherst, N.H., attorney Honey Hastings. If a lawyer starts a full-service divorce and the client runs out of money, the lawyer has to get a judge's permission to withdraw if the client objects.
Now lawyers and clients can sign a contract specifying exactly what they will and won't do and how much it will cost. If the client stops paying, the lawyer can stop working.
"Before, if the client stopped paying you -- and they might be into you for thousands of dollars -- you might not be able to get out of the case," Hastings said. "It made lawyers say, 'I'm not going to take a case,' or, 'I'm going to have to charge more money,' and I think that priced some people out."
Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 4, 2007 02:49 PM
Posted to Courts in general