Legal aid enters new era as Georgia learns from other states
For decades, low-income and rural Georgians have fought civil court battles on their own, too poor or remote to hire a lawyer. Now, the state’s legal community has a new solution.
Judges, lawyers and court staff across Georgia have been studying how other states tackle what is known as the civil justice gap. It is a nationwide problem defined as the disparity between the civil legal needs of low-income Americans and the resources available to meet those needs.
Unlike in the criminal justice system, people with civil cases don’t have a constitutional right to legal representation. Almost 30,000 Georgians live in counties without an attorney, according to data from the State Bar of Georgia.
Each year in Georgia, judges see hundreds of thousands of civil cases involving self-represented people dealing with landlord and tenant disputes, consumer debts, divorces, child custody and support, wills and public benefits, among other things.
It’s no secret that litigants without lawyers tend to lose in court.
“A lot of people just don’t know where to start,” Troup County’s court services director, Lindsay Mobley, said during a recent legal clinic she organized for residents to get free consultations with volunteer attorneys.
Such clinics and other existing resources across the state, including those provided by nonprofits such as the Georgia Legal Services Program, help many people but can’t reach everyone in need.
Now, a committee of stakeholders led by Georgia Supreme Court Justice Carla Wong McMillian is proposing rule changes to further bridge the gap. They include allowing specially trained nonlawyers to perform limited legal services for self-represented litigants, as multiple other states do.
“We didn’t want to necessarily be the first state to do that, but we didn’t want to be the last state either,” McMillian told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It seemed like a good time to start learning from what these other states have been doing to address these problems.”
A little help can go a long way
There were nine people lined up outside the Goodwill Career Center in LaGrange when Mobley arrived to open her clinic there at 9 a.m. on a Friday in October. More than a dozen people had free legal consultations within the first hour, some able to get the advice they needed within 15 minutes or so.
“We’re pointing them in the right direction,” said LaGrange attorney Luther Jones, one of 13 lawyers volunteering at the clinic alongside two third-year law students, a paralegal and a Spanish interpreter.
Sometimes, it’s as simple as showing someone which legal forms they need to fill out and what documents or evidence they should take to court, said Mobley, president of the Georgia Council of Court Administrators.
Mobley said the annual clinic, in its third year, has grown largely through word of mouth and advertising on social media. She recruits volunteers from the Troup County Bar Association, Georgia Legal Services Program and University of Georgia School of Law.
LaGrange resident Carlentric Hightower was among those who sought help on Oct. 24. He told the AJC he’s been trying for several years to deal with a matter of mistaken identity after he was wrongly accused of being involved in a car wreck.
“It was very intimidating,” Hightower said about having to defend himself in court, adding he’s been unable to find a lawyer despite multiple attempts that included calling the State Bar.
Hightower, who works in a hotel, said the free consultation prepared him for a December court hearing. He left the clinic with a smile on his face.
Clinic participants were assured the volunteer attorneys were not there to solicit clients or officially represent them.
“They need something explained to them where there’s not some expectation they have to pay or have some connection to that person,” said Ethan Smith, one of two attorneys from the UGA Law Veterans Legal Clinic who helped out.
Introducing a new kind of legal professional
The state committee that McMillian chairs envisions making room for the legal equivalent of a nurse practitioner or physician assistant. These “Limited Licensed Legal Practitioners” won’t have law degrees but will be qualified to perform some tasks of a lawyer in certain circumstances.
If the committee’s recommendations are adopted by the state Supreme Court, this change will happen slowly and conservatively during a phased trial first focused on cases involving consumer debt and landlord-tenant disputes.
The committee said the help provided by such practitioners, including preparing legal documents, has the potential to make a significant impact on the high volume of common civil cases involving self-represented litigants.
McMillian said similar programs in other states, including Minnesota, Arizona and Washington, are still fairly new and little is known about the potential impact. She said the committee’s incremental approach allows time to study a pilot project in three different Georgia communities and expand it if successful.
Incentivized and expanded attorney volunteering
Georgia’s 34,500 active attorneys should receive credit toward mandatory legal education when they do volunteer work, the committee suggested, aiming to increase pro bono efforts. It said 24 other states offer that.
Committee members also recommended allowing the roughly 2,600 Georgia lawyers with inactive licenses, as well as attorneys in Georgia with out-of-state licenses, to provide legal services for free. They said more than two thirds of states have a process for this.
Alex Scherr, a professor at UGA Law and director of its Veterans Legal Clinic, said state bars everywhere are looking for ways to carve out certain parts of legal services to be done by people who did not have to go through law school.
“It’s already happening and it’s already helpful,” he said.
Committee members are currently analyzing public feedback on their recommendations, which were outlined in a report published on the state Supreme Court’s website. McMillian said the court ultimately wants to expand help for those who need it without compromising service quality.
“We are concerned about making sure that people have access to justice, that they have lawyers or legal practitioners who can represent them, but those practitioners also need to be competent,” she said.
About the Author
Journalist Rosie Manins is a legal affairs reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
