May 2023

In an effort to help unrepresented people navigate complex procedures, six PA judicial systems — like many others around the country — have introduced court-based “self-help centers.” In “Justice for All: The Current Success of Self-Help Centers in Pennsylvania Courts and Recommendations for Growth,” a Sheller Center team offers their findings from a semester-long study of how these centers work and the results they’ve achieved.

The report discusses the design and funding of self-help centers; provides reactions to the centers from judges, court staff and litigants; and offers contacts and suggestions for courts and advocates interested in creating or expanding help centers in their locations. The report was authored by Catherine Baldwin, Tess Frydman, and Cathy Ginder, 2L students in the Sheller Center’s Access to Justice Clinic.

Some thoughts from Catherine Baldwin:

Court self-help centers, on their face, seem like an easy win. We allow individuals to represent themselves pro se and those self-represented litigants make up a huge portion of the parties in civil cases. The legal process can be complex and confusing. Litigants often struggle with the procedural aspects of their cases: what it means to serve their opponent, which forms to use, and what to expect in the courtroom. A court self-help center can provide these resources and set self-represented litigants on the track to fully participate in their case. A prepared litigant improves judicial efficiency because cases are not gummed up by procedural problems.

Why then are there so few court self-help centers in Pennsylvania? One of the major obstacles is a concern about courts providing legal advice to litigants. Personnel who are not attorneys may not offer legal advice, because that would be the unauthorized practice of law. And personnel who are attorneys may not offer legal advice because doing so would make the court seem partial to the one receiving the advice. Courts are concerned that help centers might not be able to offer neutral legal information without crossing the line into legal advice.

However daunting this obstacle may seem to courts, it is surmountable. There can be a clear distinction between legal information and legal advice. Take Colorado as an example: it has a self-help center system that spans the entire state. At its inception, the Supreme Court met the concern about legal advice head on. In a directive released in 2013, the Chief Justice set forth a standard. Colorado self-help personnel may provide information about court procedures, offer educational materials, assist in the selection of forms, answer general questions about the court process, as well as many other services. Among other things, personnel may not represent litigants, give an opinion on the outcome of a case, provide legal analysis, or make a recommendation whether the case should be brought to court. Self-help personnel may not say anything they would not repeat in the presence of the opposing party in the case.

Our report on court help centers in Pennsylvania and other states outlines various structures for court help centers, addresses common issues, and provides contact information for a network of professionals who are willing to lend their expertise to courts interested in creating help centers.

For most litigants, courthouses are at best, overwhelming and intimidating. Self-represented litigants are so often left to fend for themselves, adrift in the legalese and formality that comes with every civil case. Court help centers, whatever their structure, prepare litigants to participate fully in their case and make the court less frightening.

– by Adam Karbeling and Jessie Hemmons

Adam Karbeling and Jessie Hemmons, 2L students in the Center’s Access to Justice Clinic, authored “Six Practical Ways Courts Can Reduce Default Judgments in Debt Collection Cases,” described in more detail in a separate post. Here, Adam and Jessie comment on their experience in developing the report.

Consumer debt defendants are subjected to default judgments when they miss their hearings. When this happens, debt plaintiffs win without needing to prove their cases on the merits, and defendants lose without being heard. We looked at the reasons why debt defendants commonly miss their hearings, and found that it is often due to non-negligent factors such as improper service, confusion from complicated forms and processes, and being misled by the other party.

It is clear that courts should seek to reduce the high rate of default judgments as a matter of justice. Our report aims to assist with such efforts by listing and describing six initiatives that would help courts address the issue. Our solutions would promote increased hearing attendance and procedural fairness. The aim of our report is to move the conversation toward the actual implementation of these ideas, so we chose feasible and effective initiatives that have been tested in other jurisdictions.

Jessie added some reflections connected to her work before coming to law school:

Coming from a background in behavioral economics, where my work was focused on convincing physicians to make changes to their longstanding clinical practices, I adapted this strategy to support my legal advocacy in the Access to Justice Clinic. In my prior profession, I had learned that promoting change through written materials is effective when: a) the information is communicated concisely; b) questions are answered preemptively; c) and instructions for implementation are provided. Brain science has shown that taking in new information while working in a very high paced environment, filled with packed schedules and information overload is – simply – difficult. Thus, creating effective advocacy materials for professionals in an overloaded informational space has become a bit of an art form, incorporating lessons learned from neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral science while also respecting the intellectual capacity of the reader.

Keeping this in mind, my partner and I incorporated these learnings to create an advocacy piece aimed at reducing default judgments in consumer court cases in Philadelphia. We drilled the report down to the bones to decide our main objective: getting the court to implement strategies to reduce default judgments in consumer debt cases. We then faced a choice: take a holistic approach and focus on systemic change or promote tangible strategies to mitigate issues quickly to help defendants in real time.

We chose the latter, as this course is relatively short in duration, and the problems are affecting people every single day. We wanted to focus on solutions that could be implemented with near immediacy. So, we focused on a few techniques employed in other jurisdictions that could be relatively easy to implement and support a reduction in default judgments (due to failure to appear) quickly. We made sure to include examples of how these strategies have been deployed by other jurisdictions to assuage any fears that “it just can’t be done.” While our report focuses on solutions that do not resolve the underlying causes of due process issues related to default judgments in consumer debt cases, we hope we have contributed to this space by providing easy-to-implement solutions to work as a bridge while the systemic issues get addressed.

Text message reminders, comprehensible notices, expanded hearing options, a “compliance checklist”: these are among the recommendations in the Center’s latest report on how to reduce the staggering number of default judgments in debt-collection cases.

About half of all cases brought by third-party debt collectors in Philadelphia Municipal Court result in default judgments, in which the Court awards the full amount requested by the creditor without hearing the alleged debtor’s side of the story. These judgments further impoverish Philadelphians who may already be at the lower end of the income ladder.

“Six Practical Ways Courts Can Reduce Default Judgments in Debt Collection Cases,” authored by students Adam Karbeling and Jessie Hemmons, discusses why defendants may not appear for their hearings, and finds that — contrary to conventional wisdom — those reasons often have nothing to do with carelessness or a lack of interest in being heard. Drawing on experience from jurisdictions around the country, Adam and Jessie discuss six relatively easy steps that courts can take to make the entry of default judgments less likely.

In a separate post, Adam and Jessie discuss their experience putting together the report.