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Panel begins making recommendations

Senior Editor Regular News

Panel begins making recommendations

Senior Editor

In just 10 months since its creation by Chief Justice Jorge Labarga, the Florida Commission on Access to Civil Justice has proven it’s not just about talk — but working on taking concrete action.

At its September 18 meeting, the group unanimously passed motions recommended by three subcommittees and completed its interim report on October 1 to submit to the Florida Supreme Court.

Here is a summary of the reports from all subcommittees:

& #x2022; Access to and Delivery of Legal Services Subcommittee:

“Our charge was simple, but fairly daunting,” said William Van Nortwick. “First, we had to examine the barriers that impede access to civil justice. Then we had to determine how to promote coordination of legal services delivery with optimum efficiency. Third, we had to identify and build partnerships to expand access to civil justice.”

He illustrated the justice gap by saying “only 14 percent of persons having civil legal problems attained legal help. And 80 percent of divorce cases in Florida had at least one pro se litigant. That’s an astounding number.”

An opportunity to help people not being served now, he said, is looking at broadening the scope of “unbundled legal services,” beyond the 2003 authorization by the Florida Supreme Court for family law and certain probate cases.

“The Access to Legal Services Committee of The Florida Bar Vision 2016 commission proposed changes to that rule, which would broaden the type of cases that can be undertaken in unbundled service,” Van Nortwick said. “It would also allow greater ability of the lawyer to ghostwrite pleadings for an individual, without actually having to appear in the case.

“The matter will be presented to the Board of Governors of The Florida Bar for a final vote fairly soon, and we’re optimistic we will be able to move forward on this.”

Van Nortwick also gave an overview of what he called the “Triage Gateway,” which he described as an online “connector to information, self-help, advice, and/or actual representation by legal aid, pro bono lawyers, or lawyers through a lawyer referral service.”

Working like TurboTax, the person with a legal problem would answer questions and be connected to a resource.

“That’s our goal: to deliver clients to someone who can assist them — not necessarily a lawyer. It could be the clerk’s office. The system could provide the forms that the clerks are now providing. In any event, we would have a person delivered to — and by delivered, I mean electronically — into another computer-driven system that will be, hopefully, seamless.

“The good thing about this is if someone is a victim of domestic violence, for example, and they come to a Gateway, they will be immediately referred to a lawyer or some other resource to provide assistance and to make sure that they are safe,” Van Nortwick said.

This question often comes up: How do we know that poor people will be able to use a computer-driven system?

“First of all, data tells us that 97 percent of adults use the Internet, with income of more than $75,000. Annual household income below $30,000, 74 percent of adults use the Internet. But nearly two-thirds of Americans, many of whom are poor, have smartphones that would enable them to access the Internet.”

He said New Mexico Legal Aid has developed and is testing a statewide system that only feeds clients to legal aid programs.

Once the “Triage Gateway” — or whatever it will finally be called — is up and running, Van Nortwick said, “Florida will be the first system in the country that will be statewide, an umbrella triage system that will refer clients to numerous organizations.”

Working on the Gateway is Kathleen McLeroy, chair of the new Florida Justice Technology Center, created by The Florida Bar Foundation with monies designated by The Florida Bar. The first meeting was held September 11.

“In a nutshell, we are an independent, nonprofit organization that is charged with coordinating the technology for access to justice around the state of Florida,” McLeroy said. “We started to look at all of the things that are going on. And one of the first things that we realized is there are a lot of things going on, perhaps not with enough coordination.”

McLeroy said she will gather all of the stakeholders together — Office of the State Courts Administrator, The Florida Bar, the Foundation, and other groups from the Access Commission. The goal, she said, “will be to create what we hope will be a triage portal that sorts out clients’ problems in a way that they are efficiently matched with a resource they need, whether it’s a self-help resource, legal services lawyer, or a paid lawyer.”

Three recommendations to the Florida Supreme Court passed unanimously:

• Approve the continued development of the Gateway and approve a pilot project, subject to obtaining adequate funding.

• Adopt the Conference of Chief Justices/Conference of State Court Administrators Resolution “reaffirming the commitment to meaningful access to justice for all” by “supporting the aspirational goal of 100 percent access to effective assistance for essential legal needs.”

• Recommend the Florida Supreme Court approve a proposed revision to Rule 12 of the Rules Regulating The Florida Bar to the commission for its consideration. The Emeritus Rule would be changed “so that more retired lawyers, not necessarily members of The Florida Bar, that live in Florida could volunteer for these services. I know that there are places in Florida, cities where there are a large number of retired lawyers, many of whom would be delighted to work for a few hours assisting people,” Van Nortwick said.

Funding Subcommittee:

One recommendation to the Florida Supreme Court passed unanimously (with officers of The Florida Bar Foundation recusing themselves from voting):

• Recommend that the Florida Supreme Court approve consideration of a cy pres rule in Florida. Currently, Gywnne Young explained, the cy pres rule allows for residual funds from a class-action settlement, which haven’t been distributed to the plaintiffs, to be given to charitable groups on an ad hoc basis. The proposed cy pres rule would require that the funds go to legal services. The funds would go to The Florida Bar Foundation or “other qualifying legal aid groups.” Young said in 2012, California had almost $9 million go to legal services from cy pres awards, and recently Washington State’s legal services received about $6 million from cy pres awards.

Continuum of Services Subcommittee:

“We really saw the need to have an ongoing resource list and that there be a standard place in our state for that list to be maintained,” said Robin Hassler Thompson. “We are suggesting that the Florida Justice Technology Center be that locus of where we would have a list of all the resources and there be a vetting process for how the resources can continually be developed.”

One recommendation to the Florida Supreme Court passed unanimously :

• Recommend to the Supreme Court to authorize the commission to create a Florida Civil Legal Resources Access Site, beginning with the work already done by the Continuum of Services Subcommittee; and task the Florida Justice Technology Center to maintain and update the resources website.

One commission action passed unanimously :

• Explore within the commission five key strategies for bringing together greater access to civil justice:

a) Increase the number of lawyers to assist the public by changing emeritus rules, and re-examination and expansion of the current rules regarding the unlicensed practice of law;

b) Help clerks of court have clarity, and, if necessary, broader authority to assist people who seek information about accessing relief in the civil courts;

c) Create a “navigator” system where trained experts could work with the public to help direct them to resources, either through the Gateway system or outside of it;

d) Create a designated class of “civil legal assistants,” such as those in California, Illinois, and New York; and

e) Fund legal services programs statewide to establish more positions to both provide needed legal services and to provide necessary oversight of civil legal assistants.

Outreach Subcommittee:

“The Outreach Subcommittee’s charge is to educate the various target audiences on access to justice and the need for a strong, civil legal assistance program,” said Attorney General Pam Bondi. “The commission has a logo, a website, social media including Facebook, Twitter, a YouTube channel where videos of the commission’s meetings are posted, and no Snapchat, thank goodness.

“Outreach has provided the following educational tools: Frequently asked questions, an elevator speech, key messages, and a PowerPoint presentation on the commission and civil legal assistance, a communications plan, and a Q&A on the Gateway portal.

“Actual stories of people confronting civil legal matters, including those with moderate, fixed, or low-income are being collected. When told through the media, these stories will help show the dramatic impact of the lack of civil legal assistance and point out the benefits of improving access to civil justice.”

Technology Subcommittee:

“We want to fill this commission’s toolbox with powerful, high-quality tools that we can use to accomplish our mission of access to civil justice for all Floridians,” said Santa Rosa County Judge C. Robert Hilliard. “We remain focused on bridging the gap between legal needs and legal solutions, so we look for opportunities to exploit the promise of technology and to integrate the proven and promising models that we have found in our explorations.

“The algorithms and the applications that we discover, develop, and implement will attenuate the access barriers of lack of money and physical distance from resources. There is a plethora of information available, and it has been a challenge to survey it with an eye toward what would be viable for our particular purposes. Our challenge is not so much to invent modalities, but to select and synergize what is already available.”

Besides web-based solutions, efforts are underway to connect Floridians with legal needs to human legal resources, too.

“We are working on lawyer referral systems and other systems that will enable and enhance communication, once a lawyer-client relationship is created,” said Hilliard, who made a motion that passed to work with The Florida Bar’s Board of Governors’ Technology Committee and the Young Lawyers Division on the redesign of the Bar’s Lawyer Referral Service. (See story on page 6.)

“Our challenge is funding for the server end of the solution. Fortunately, for us, the client-end infrastructure is virtually in place in the form of the ubiquitous personal technology devices and applications that are employed and available to our target user group; admittedly, not to everyone, but to a lot of people from all walks of life.

“We can use this existing technology framework to provide convenient, user-friendly online access to legal information and solutions through an accessible, unified online portal. Our potential users have figured out social media to an astounding degree of sophistication. And if we can make our solutions as accessible as Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, then we will have users.. . .

“I recall a movie some time ago called, ‘Field of Dreams.’ A catchphrase from the movie is, ‘If you build it, they will come.’

“I believe this. People have needs and they are hungry for help. They see the tree of justice before them, but the fruit is too high. It’s accessible only to the tall. The ladder of technology will help everyone reach the fruits of justice that belong to us all.”

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