As DIY Litigants Crowd The Docket, Courts Step In To Help (Law360)
Law360, January 6, 2019
As DIY Litigants Crowd The Docket, Courts Step In To Help
“‘Ms. Cat made this. She did help, everything,’ Khan told Law360 in the court cafeteria before the Nov. 8 hearing. ‘I can’t make this thing myself. I finished high school only, no college — a little bit of college. I have nothing like this.’ ‘Ms. Cat’ is Cat Itaya, the director of the Eastern District of New York’s legal assistance clinic for ‘pro se,’ or self-represented, litigants; it lives inside the courthouse and is run by the City Bar Justice Center. Khan visited Itaya beginning four months before his first hearing, and over six or eight visits — a couple with volunteer lawyers, but most with Itaya — she digested his story and put together a complaint in language the court could parse. While they remain rare for now, clinics like the one in the Eastern District of New York appear to be catching on in federal court as a way to aid self-represented litigants, for whom putting together a legally coherent complaint can be an insurmountable barrier.”
