Legal help available to those who lack lawyers

• A pilot project Self-Help Center in the state's 2nd and 8th court districts that will last through June 30, 2008. Center employees can be reached at 888-683-0009 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Thursday. The center staff cannot offer any legal advice but can inform people about what paperwork to prepare for court, how to represent themselves and what must be done with a court order. The center staff also can make referrals to legal services and community resources. Help also can be obtained by e-mailing the staff at selfhelp@email.utcourts.gov. Right now, this help is available only in Daggett, Davis, Duchesne, Morgan, Uintah and Weber counties.

• Limited legal help, or "unbundling," in which attorneys who have agreed to take part will charge a smaller fee for helping with a portion of an individual's case. This concept has taken off in southern Utah with strong backing from 5th District Judge James Shumate and members of the Utah Bar in that area. People who cannot afford thousands of dollars for a case can sit down with a lawyer who can charge for certain areas of the case where it would be most helpful to have an attorney, with the individual doing the rest of the work.

Baxter said this is largely aimed at low-income individuals who may bypass hiring a lawyer because they don't have enough money.

"If I walk into an attorney's office and say, 'I need to hire a divorce lawyer,' and he says, 'That will be $5,000,' I may turn around and leave and say to myself, 'I'd rather get beaten up in court,"' Baxter said. "But if I say, 'I don't have a lot of money but need some help,' the attorney can say, 'I can draft certain documents for $500, I can file initial pleadings for $500.' It's an opportunity to engage a client for a smaller fee for a smaller amount of work, but at least make something out of a case."

For the individual, a simple run-through of how things work, getting advice about what papers to fill out and file, and having an attorney during just a few crucial stages in the proceedings might make a huge difference — and also makes the court process go smoother.

"There were numbers of people coming to court who simply didn't know what they were doing. It bogs the process down," Baxter said. "People would show up with improper documents, or documents that were incorrectly completed, or they do not know what questions to ask. It slows everything down."

One thing that confounds him is the fact that many of these issues emerged in the area of family law, which is one of the more complex and deeply emotional areas of the legal system, with consequences that can affect many lives for years. It is essential that all participants get a fair shake and a reasonably acceptable outcome, especially when children are involved. Yet people often act as their own attorney even though the stakes are so high.