Articles Tagged with Legal self-help

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The Jenkins Law Library, Philidelphia, Blog shared the recent launch of a series of short videos that explain partes of the court and legal system by the National Center for State Courts (NCSC).

Kristen Matteucci writes the goal is to help “Self-Represented Litigants better prepare for court hearings and more confidently engage with the courts, these illustrated videos address topics like legal advice vs. legal information, what it means to file a motion, and what to do after being served.”

The full blog post has a list of the current videos, and the videos can be found at the NCSC A2J Videos (Access to Justice). Please note these videos are not specific to any one state.

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OJD iForms is an easy way for self-represented litigants to produce court documents in a variety of case types including Family Law, Landlord/Tenant, and Small Claims. According to the OJD brochure, iForms “generates a correctly completed form that you can either eFile, deliver by hand, or mail to the court.”

The process is a simple one, called Guide and File. With Guide and File, the user logs in to the site, chooses the form they want to file and answers a series of interview questions, after which iForms generates a form.

There are some interviews within Guide and File that have Spanish translations. The OJD website cautions that court documents must be filed in English, or the court may reject your filing.

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If you’ve never had a document notarized before you might have questions on the process and what you need to know. Read on for answers to some of these questions.

How Do I Find a Notary Public?

The Oregon Secretary of State has a list of active notaries here, but there is no search function and it is basically a database of names and addresses. You could sort by city, but the interface is clunky and not user friendly. There are several websites that have notary directories and some of the notary associations have directories that you can search. Many banks and public libraries offer notary service for their customers.

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Imagine this: A patron comes into the law library at 4:40 and says “I’m being sued, and I need to file a response before 5:00 today. Do you have the form for that? Oh, and I need help filling it out.” We would really like to help this person, but realistically this may not be possible. Unfortunately, patrons usually do not know what services we provide. Read on for information on what law libraries can and can’t do and how to get the most from your visit.

Don’t leave your research until the last minute. Leave enough time to handle any problems that might arise. In our example, the patron assumes that there is a fill-in-the-blank form that they can use, and that law library personnel can help them fill it out. Oregon does not have many fill-in-the-blank forms and law library employees cannot help patrons fill out forms. We would direct the patron to possible sources of templates that they can use to create their own document, and to resources that might help them to fill out the form. They probably wouldn’t have time to do all that in less than 20 minutes and get it to the court before they close.

Along those same lines, make sure you can devote time to research your questions. Law library personnel can’t do research for you. We can point you to resources that might be useful and show you how to do the research yourself.

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The Washington County Circuit Court has posted informational videos about court procedures for evictions. These are short videos available in English and Spanish that contain general information about evictions and things both landlords and tenants need to know about how evictions are handled in court. The information in the videos is not specific to the Washington County Circuit court, so if your matter is in another county, they are still good resources for information.

For evictions, also see last week’s blog “So you’ve been served with eviction papers. Now What?!” with a video from our Now What?! legal information series.

Oregon Law Help, maintained by the Oregon Law Center, recently posted a Renter’s Handbook on Rent Increases. This short document, available in English and Spanish gives information about the different types of tenancies and how a landlord may deliver a notice of a rent increase. It also provides resources you can look at if you are a low-income renter.

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A patron came in wondering if bankruptcy was right for them. Obviously we can’t answer that question, but we offered to show them resources that explain bankruptcy, and how to find bankruptcy attorneys.

The first thing we made sure they understood is that bankruptcy is governed by federal law and is handled by federal bankruptcy courts. In Oregon that would be the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Oregon. They have some helpful information on their website, including rules, forms, and general information.

We showed them books in the Washington County Law Library that discuss bankruptcy, including a practice guide by the Oregon State Bar and a Rutter Group practice guide. We also pointed out our Nolo self-help books that discuss bankruptcy – these can also be found through your local public library or the State Law Library’s online access to Nolo.

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How Did We Answer That?

We had a patron whose mother died in Kentucky. This was during the pandemic so travel from Oregon to Kentucky was not very practical. His sister still lived in the area, so he contacted us asking for ideas on how to help his sister with the estate. He wanted to do some research on finding a lawyer, being an executor of the will, and if there was anything he could do to help remotely.

Even though he was interested in Kentucky procedures, there were still some things we could point him to here in our library that he could read and let his sister know about. There are many NOLO books (which both law libraries and public libraries usually carry) dealing with wills and estate planning. Since NOLO books are not state specific these were a good primer for the patron and his sister. In Oregon we have access to NOLO books online thanks to the State of Oregon Law Library. A public library may have information about a similar problem in another state.

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A patron came in who had lost her father. She knew she needed to do something about his estate but had no idea where to start. A friend had told her she might not need to file anything with the court. She wanted to know what to do and if the court needed to be involved.

First, we pointed her to resources, such as law dictionaries, to explain a couple basic terms.

  • Probate is the court process of appointing, and overseeing, someone to administer an estate, identify heirs, inventory assets, pay debts, and distribute the remaining property. This process is handled by the Probate Department of the court.
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Ken Svengalis has published a 2nd edition (2022) of his “A Layperson’s Guide to Legal Research and Self-Help Law Books” — and it’s half the price of the first edition.

“A Layperson’s Guide to Legal Research and Self-Help Law Books” can now be purchased at the Author Reputation Press bookstore. (Paperbound edition ($49.95) and an eBook edition ($24.99).)

Note 1: Please do NOT purchase this 2nd edition from Ken’s former website, NE Law Press, where only the previous edition of the Layperson’s Guide is for sale. (Ken’s 2021, 25th edition, of his “Legal Information Buyer’s Guide” is still for sale from the NE Law Press website.)

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The Oregon State Bar (OSB) is requesting feedback on their proposal on licensing paralegals:

“… to provide some legal services that currently only lawyers may provide….”

Read the OSB summary of the proposal, view the video, and link to the questionnaire:

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