Perceptions of Remote and Walk‐In Service Delivery in Family Law Cases

• Author: Jamie Walter,Bradley Powers,Lonni Summers
• Published date: 01 October 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12443
• Date: 01 October 2019

SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLE

PERCEPTIONS OF REMOTE AND WALK-IN SERVICE DELIVERY IN

FAMILY LAW CASES

Lonni Summers, Bradley Powers, and Jamie Walter

In recent years, the number of litigants representing themselves without legal counsel has increased across the United States.

Courts have responded by creating programs and services to help litigants represent themselves. Self-help centers nationwide

use different models to deliver legal advice and information to unrepresented litigants. Some offer court-based, walk-in self-

help centers. Others provide services remotely via phone, web, email, video conferencing, and live chat. In Maryland, self-

help center services are offered at walk-in centers and remotely by phone and live chat. This article examines litigants’

perceptions of in-person and remote delivery of legal advice and information on family law matters. Results revealed that all

three service delivery methods have high satisfaction rates, but chat users were less likely to feel as though they knew what

to do next. They were also less optimistic about their case than were phone or in-person users.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:

In-person and remote self-help centers help courts address the justice gap by providing unrepresented litigants with

legal advice and information.

Litigants note high levels of satisfaction with all self-help center service delivery methods; however, users of walk-in

and telephone-based services experience slightly higher satisfaction rates than live chat users.

Keywords: In-Person Self-Help; Online Self-Help Centers; Remote Self-Help; Self-Help Centers; and Self-Help Center Sat-

isfaction Rates.

Across the country, state courts report increasing numbers of litigants appearing without legal

counsel (American Bar Association [ABA], 2014; State Bar of Michigan, 2017, p. 2). In 2017,

low-income Americans received insufficient or no legal help for more than 1.1 million legal prob-

lems (Legal Services Corporation [LSC], 2017, p. 44). The majority of litigants in civil cases go to

court without representation (Steinberg, 2011).

Despite the efforts of civil legal aid programs and other providers, the gap between the civil legal

needs of Americans and the resources available to meet those needs, often referred to as the “justice

gap,”persists (LSC, 2017, p. 6).

There are many reasons for the growing number of litigants who proceed without counsel. Some

litigants do not identify their problem as a legal matter, do not know how to access help, or generally

lack resources (LSC, 2017). Low-income and minority communities are more likely to report

experiencing civil legal problems and are less likely to seek legal aid (Sternberg Greene, 2016). In

addition to litigants’inability or reluctance to seek services, in some areas, the number of services

available has shrunk. Cuts to the federal LSC’s annual budget have impacted legal service providers

nationwide (LSC, 2017, p. 14).

Although civil legal services can act as a tool to reduce systemic poverty in urban environments

(Alfrieri, 2017), access to counsel in civil cases is viewed differently than in criminal cases. Litigants

involved in state court criminal matters are entitled to representation under the 1963 Supreme Court

case Gideon v. Wainwright. However, no such right is afforded to civil litigants (Gideon

Corresponding: lonni.summers@mdcourts.gov; bradley.powers@mdcourts.gov; jamie.walter@mdcourts.gov

FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Vol. 57 No. 4, October 2019 501–514

© 2019 Association of Family and Conciliation Courts