More Iowans Handle Legalities Alone

By GRANT SCHULTE
REGISTER STAFF WRITER

Marvin and Lisa Taylor's divorce filtered through the Polk County court system as smoothly as an unhappy marriage could: a clear-cut settlement, a 15-minute hearing and two signatures scrawled in blue.

But unlike divorces with lawyers and steep legal fees, the Taylors divided their lives -- the house, their belongings, his retirement savings -- almost entirely by themselves. A procedure that would have cost thousands with an attorney shrank to $150 in filing and court fees. The paperwork, Lisa Taylor said, was "a little harder than filling out my taxes."

"It was all very well-explained, very inexpensive," she said. "It really eliminated the need for an attorney."

The Taylors, whose marriage ended last month, are part of a growing statewide and national movement. Iowans are increasingly handling domestic disputes, small claims and divorces with little or no help from attorneys, according to lawyers, judges and recent studies.

Many consider the growing do-it-yourself approach a response to high legal fees and an explosion of free online forms. Yet the increase also creates new, unwelcome challenges for Iowa's courts, where self-taught citizen lawyers and a complex legal system collide.


Self-help legal forms abound online

Self-help cases became a priority for state court officials in 2005, when a task force of lawyers and judges convened to create simple, legally binding forms that allow couples without underage children to divorce.

The forms drew a "positive and immediate response," Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Marsha Ternus told lawmakers in January. More than 1,000 were handed out in the first month, she said, in addition to downloaded copies.

Lisa Taylor, who now goes by Lisa Slaughter, initiated her divorce in October after months of trying to keep the marriage alive. More than a year of legal feet-dragging from an earlier divorce soured her on lawyers, she said, so she hunted online and within minutes found Iowa's 94-page divorce packet on the state judiciary Web site.

The rise in do-it-yourself cases springs partly from the number of forms online, said Robert Rigg, a law professor at Drake University.

On a recent afternoon, Rigg plugged the phrase "divorce forms" into an online search engine and found 475,000 results that offered "easy online divorces," "do it yourself divorces" and "divorce forms online."

"It's like going to Kmart," Rigg said. "You walk down one aisle and you see divorce law over here. You walk down another and see criminal law over there."

Iowa court officials do not track the number of lawyer-less -- formally known as pro se -- cases, but contend that the available evidence "strongly suggests" an increase and strain similar to other states.

Judges and lawyers, as a result, spend more time reviewing incomplete or unreadable paperwork and explaining how to file cases, according to a joint report by the Iowa Judges Association and Iowa State Bar Association. The self-help forms seek to improve citizen access to the courts while "minimizing disruption to an already overburdened court system," the report said.

Research in pockets of Iowa and the nation confirms what judges, lawyers and court clerks have noticed anecdotally.

• A 2004 study in Woodbury County found that 58 percent of the 125 court cases in one week involved at least one party who was not represented by a lawyer.

• A 2006 study in Utah found that 49 percent of the people who seek a divorce, and 81 percent of the people who receive divorce papers, go to court without an attorney.

• New Hampshire residents who try cases without lawyers account for 85 percent of the civil cases in district court and 48 percent in superior court. In almost 70 percent of the domestic relations cases, at least one person has no lawyer.

• More than 4.3 million people in California represent themselves in court each year, as do 80 percent of people who file for divorce.

Ben Busha of Davenport opted to use the online divorce forms after losing one-quarter of an earlier $10,000 legal award to his lawyers. Busha said his divorce was legally straightforward because he and his ex-wife had no children.

"I've used lawyers for other things -- car accidents and whatnot -- and it cost me a lot," Busha said. "I didn't have any problems with this at all. It was all pretty much laid out."

Most Iowans who try their own cases do so for financial reasons and, in some cases, because they distrust lawyers, experts say. They tend to have lower incomes, but generally have at least a high school education, said Tim Eckley, an attorney for the American Judicature Society, a national legal group in Des Moines. A majority are women and young adults, he said.

"We've become more of a self-help society," Eckley said. "People trade their own stocks online. This is just another kind of trend."


Pro se cases create challenge for courts

Judge Richard D. Morr frowned as he thumbed through the Taylors' tentative divorce agreement.

The settlement was incomplete. Marvin Taylor had submitted one set of forms without his wife's signature, and the form that split their work benefits was incorrect.

"It takes a separate document to do this, and I'm not going to do it for you," Morr told the couple. "It's extremely complex."

Pro se cases pose a significant challenge to judges and court clerks, Eckley said. Legal questions and paperwork errors clog judicial dockets. Do-it-yourselfers ask court clerks and judges for advice they cannot ethically give, or stumble during routine hearings.

"Not a lot of legal matters lend themselves to being conducted without a lawyer," Eckley said. "There's a reason people go to law school."

The self-help divorce forms have simplified legal proceedings to a point, said Polk County Judge Robert Hanson. But the complexities of law, he said, are not easily condensed.

"People have questions - a lot of questions," said Hanson, who frequently hears pro se family law cases. "It's pretty hard to distill the forms down to the point where the average layperson wouldn't have any questions."

Greg Hurley, an analyst with the National Center for State Courts in Virginia, said the litigants often make mistakes that a lawyer would not. Some, for instance, present paperwork from other states that do not conform to Iowa law.

But in cases with lower stakes - a simple misdemeanor, or a claim of less than $5,000 - proceeding without a lawyer "might be worth a shot," Hurley said. "If you have a civil case where you're looking for $2,000 or $3,000, and you don't really want to give one-half to two-thirds of that to a lawyer, it may behoove you to go it alone."

Such cases also attract lawyers who offer limited, or "unbundled," services, such as document preparation without courtroom representation.

"It's a win-win," said Will Hornsby, a lawyer for the American Bar Association. "The lawyer can charge their hourly fee, but with fewer hours. Clients benefit because they receive legal services at a lower cost."

The 2005 task force wanted to make legal jargon simple and forms understandable. Dan Bray, an Iowa City family law attorney who was on a joint task force that addressed the state's growing pro se load, said Iowa's courts will likely move more toward do-it-yourself forms in cases commonly filed without lawyers, such as child support modifications. The group did not tackle the forms for Iowans who speak little or no English, a growing statewide demographic.

"As our economy has changed, it's become harder and harder for people in a marginal economic situation to process basic legal needs, like getting a divorce or modifying child support," Bray said.


Self-representation rare in crime cases

The number of Iowans who defend themselves in felony criminal cases remains low, experts said, largely because the state provides free public defenders to accused criminals who cannot afford their own.

Judges cannot force an accused criminal to take an attorney. But to preserve a trial's fairness, they often appoint "standby counsel," a job many attorneys loathe.

"Let's suppose you were a college basketball player," Rigg said. "It's like taking one of your starters and replacing him with someone who has never played basketball. Then imagine someone telling the starter, 'We want you to assist him, but you can't dress out. When we have timeouts, you're going to describe to him how to dribble and shoot the ball.' Can you imagine what that would be like?"

Hurley, a former West Virginia criminal defense attorney, worked as standby counsel on dozens of pro se cases.

Clients, he said, often didn't know when to object. They offered secondhand information in hearings, which forced judges to intervene, and spouted far more information than needed. In about 10 percent of the cases, clients would try to explain their actions in court and accidentally incriminate themselves.

"The cases are not as polished as they would be going into court with an attorney," Hurley said.

Pro se criminal cases also worry prosecutors, said Johnson County Attorney Janet Lyness. Efforts to strike a plea deal are complicated, she said, because prosecutors cannot talk to unrepresented defendants without a judge's permission. In first-time drunken-driving cases, she said, defense attorneys can frequently arrange probation and a deferred judgment, in which the conviction is eventually wiped clean.

"But if a defendant doesn't have counsel to request it, nobody's going to give them that device," Lyness said.

Jody Nolan McCullah, 39, represented himself recently in Polk County against a slew of assault charges for an attack on jail guards. A jury convicted him.

Corey Michael Forrester, 31, defended himself in February against charges of kidnapping, false imprisonment, assault and eluding authorities. A jury convicted him on the eluding and false imprisonment charges.

During the first day of his trial in February, Forrester -- hunched over a pile of legal papers -- interrupted Judge Robert Hutchison with a question about jury selection. Hutchison gently explained a legal fine point.

"I'm sorry, your honor," Forrester said, shaking his head. "This stuff's complicated."