Input sought on self-help divorce forms
Input sought on self-help divorce forms
A new self-help process to assist pro se litigants with simple dissolution cases is now available for review by Florida lawyers and others.
If ultimately approved by the Supreme Court, the self-help process would be available to couples without children or significant real estate assets via the Florida’s online portal for filing cases. The Access to Justice process, or A2J for short, employs a “TurboTax” approach that asks users a series of questions and based on the answers prepares a Supreme Court-approved form ready for filing through the portal.
The Florida Courts E-Filing Authority, at its January 19 meeting, heard that the family law questions had gone online at the portal’s test site that day for a 60-day review. It also heard that there may have been problems with the review for the A2J system for evictions and small claims. The 60-day review for those questions and forms ended January 19.
Authority member Sharon Bock, clerk of court for Palm Beach County, updated authority members on the A2J progress. She said the Florida Courts Technology Commission had approved a process where the questions and forms, once they had been vetted by the Supreme Court’s Judicial Management Council (JMC) and others, including some Bar rules committees, would be put online for 60 days and then those comments would be compiled and forwarded back to the FCTC.
The FCTC, if it was satisfied, would then forward the questions and forms to the Supreme Court, and once the court approved them, they would go live on the portal for use by pro se parties, she said.
However, FCTC Chair Judge Lisa Munyon and Office of the State Courts Administrator Deputy Administrator Blan Teagle said they didn’t think the posted eviction and small claims forms had included changes recommended by the JMC. Teagle said he checked the test site early in January and didn’t see the changes. (Although the formal 60-day comment period ended January 19, the eviction and small claims questions in some form had been on the portal’s test site for about 17 months.)
Bock and Melvin Cox, who administers the portal for the authority, said they thought the changes had been posted. They said they would confer with Munyon and Teagle after the meeting to determine what had happened. The outcome could affect when the eviction and small claims questions, which are intended to fill out already approved Supreme Court-forms, will be cleared to go to the court.
But while that plays out, the dissolution forms, which were drawn up through the JMC, have been posted and lawyers and others are welcome to comment. The comment period ends around March 21.
Here’s how to see the forms to leave your feedback:
First, go to the portal’s test site, test.myflcourtaccess.com (there is no “www” in this online address). The test site — which is identical to the real site — will come up. (The test site is available to both lawyer and nonlawyer users of the portal.)
If you have not done so already, you will have to register for a test account — directions are on the webpage — just as for your regular account on the real portal website. The process takes a minute or two.
Once you get your credentials, log in. On the resulting opening page of the portal, put your cursor on the “Filing Options” tab at the top of the page. On the resulting drop-down menus, select “DIY Documents.” You can then follow the step-by-step instructions for the dissolution of marriage process.
Comments on the process should be sent to [email protected].
Portal officials caution that there has been a problem with some lawyers who have used the test site for practice or to review various items. They have either failed to return to the real portal site or accidentally gone to the test site when they sought to file real documents to the court system. Documents filed from the test site go nowhere. Make sure you’re on the real portal site, “www.myflcourtaccess.com” when it comes time to do your real court filing work.
Authority Chair Tim Smith, Putnam County clerk of court, noted the authority’s interest in the A2J questions and forms is purely technical in that it will only be posting information, questions, and forms that have cleared FCTC and Supreme Court review.
The A2J process is seen as perhaps playing a major role in efforts to improve access to the courts for people who otherwise cannot afford a lawyer. When the Bar loaned the Bar Foundation $6 million over two years in 2014, it required that part of that money go for technology that would improve access. The Supreme Court’s ongoing Access to Justice Commission is also looking at technology solutions.
