Law Students,
Volunteer Lawyers and the Self Service
Center
Together Helping the Public
By Hon.
Frederic Dardis
Southern
Arizona Legal Aid’s Volunteer Lawyers Program (VLP), the
University
of
Arizona ’s James E. Rogers College of Law and the Pima
County Superior
Court
formed a partnership in 1999 to deliver legal services to
residents in need
of
assistance with domestic relations matters. Ten years
later, the partnership
is going
strong. The project partners are pleased to announce that
the
partnership has expanded to include a new Pilot Program this
spring. The Pilot
Program,
housed at the Court’s Self-Service Center and launched on
January
26,
2009, will offer the public the opportunity to speak
one-on-one with an
attorney
about their family law case. During the pilot phase the
project will
utilize
17 law students, VLP staff and many volunteer lawyers to
help the public
complete
court paperwork.
One of
the goals of the Pilot Project is to address the dramatic
increase in the
number
of self -represented litigants seen by the Court. For
years, forms have
been
made available to the public. However, filling out forms
and filing them is
not
enough. When paperwork is incomplete, inaccurate or not
what the litigant
intended, it wastes everyone’s time and money. Often times
there are issues
about
service of process. It is not uncommon for a pro per
litigant to only file
the
paperwork and then come to Court expecting that the other
party would be
notified.
Building
on the success of the Child Support Program which utilized
law
students
and volunteer attorneys to help members of the public obtain
the
correct
amount of child support, the new Pilot Program is being
implemented
to
assist all who come to the Self Service Center in the
Courthouse to complete
their
paperwork correctly. The students, under the supervision of
a lawyer will
offer
assistance in filling out paperwork, answer questions about
issues that are
to be
raised as well as explain the process from filing to service
to appearance
at
Court.
The
program is available currently on Monday and Tuesday
afternoons from
2:00
p.m. until 5:00 p.m. Members of the public interested in
scheduling an
appointment should call 740-8456 or visit the Self-Service
Center on the 2nd
floor of
the Pima County Superior Court. At the conclusion of the
spring
semester, the Pilot Project will be evaluated to determine
its success and
potential expansion.
This
Program is a result of the hard work of the Honorable Sally
Simmons,
Presiding Judge of the Family Law Bench and most importantly
Mary Ann
O’Neil
without whom space and internet connections would not be
possible.
