Articles Posted in Legal Self-help Community

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We work with a lot of public library reference librarians and library assistants and are always on the lookout for materials that could help them help their public library patrons who ask legal reference and legal research questions.

One day we’ll write that quick and dirty legal reference guide for public libraries, but in the meantime, the Drake Law Library in Iowa has linked to, and annotated, a list of many of my favorite guides at their website that explain the unauthorized practice of law, differences between legal information and advice, and legal research techniques:

Self-represented litigant resources

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I came across a couple of good articles with tips for people who use fill-in-the-blank estate planning form.

One is from a Consumer Reports story, “Write Your Own Will?”

The other was from the Oregonian’s Brent Hunsberger March 12, 2012, article: “Fill-in-the-blank wills can be a little skimpy.”   He used some web-based legal services and then solicited comments and feedback from Oregon attorneys.

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“If you want to keep law resources, contact your legislator,” Feb 8, 2012, letter by a Columbia County attorney, published in the South County Spotlight.

This is an important reminder that, no, not all legal research resources are online, and even if they were, people still need to learn how to research the law, how to compile legislative histories, and where to find legal assistance services in their communities.

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You can find a list of reports submitted to the Oregon State Legislature at an Oregon State Library website: Reports to the Oregon State Legislature

The list includes these OJD reports, which you can find from the January 5, 2012, blog post: Oregon Judicial Department Outcomes-Based Strategies:

Excerpt:

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If you’re following the Honda Civic Hybrid Lawsuit, that Small Claims Court vs. Class Action Settlement case, you can find updates at the plaintiff’s website and twitter feed.

If you want to read about a Small Claims Court advocate, visit the HALT website.

If you want Oregon Small Claims Court information specifically, no, there isn’t a book or a guide, yet (one is coming later in 2012), but there are other research resources, including Oregon attorneys who can serve as Small Claims coaches:

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Excerpt: “Heather Peters is miffed that her Civic doesn’t get its claimed fuel economy, and she isn’t satisfied with a proposed settlement. So she’s trying a new approach to litigation.
Heather Peters is an angry consumer who knows she has little chance of winning a war with Honda Motor Co. and its army of high-priced lawyers.
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When and how should a judge intervene when parties represent themselves in court?
Richard Zorza has published an article on the subject in the ABA Judges Journal, which you can link to from Zorza’s Access to Justice blog post:
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While most government documents are in the public domain, not all of them are.  Here’s a story about some copyrighted state legal forms and the state (Montana) that sued a company that violated that copyright.  The defendants were charging someone lots of money for the forms – when state residents could have used the forms for no charge at all in their own court cases.
 
This happens in Oregon, too.  Before buying legal forms online, find out if there are any free, official Oregon legal forms available.  You can ask at the Oregon State Bar, at an Oregon county law library, or you can post the question to L-net.
 
“State Law Library of Montana Wins Legal Forms Case,” by Judy Meadows, State Law Library of Montana
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We’re beginning to compile a list of free, online, legal formatting templates.NOTE: this is NOT a list  of “fill in the blank” legal action-specific forms.  These are very simple forms templates, with field and line number formatting, that a litigant and lawyer could use to draft their own legal documents when specialized, sometimes expensive legal forms software is unavailable.

You still need to research the law!

We’ll add to this list as we learn about more options, but it’s a start:

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