Slamming the Courthouse Doors Shut

Often we hear that the goal of tort reformers is to slam the doors to the courtroom shut for people injured by corporations.  Yet often it's judges and lawyers who fight hardest to keep poor people from litigating.

What is a client with, say, a small legal matter to do?  It's not usually worth it to hire a lawyer to litigate a $5,000 issue.  Yet $5,000 is a non-trivial amount of money to many people.  So what is an aggrieved person to do?

Some lawyers will tell the person: "Pay me $500 and I'll give you some some advice, and maybe even edit some pleadings for you.  But I'm not your lawyer; consider me a consultant."  This is something to be encouraged, right?  Shouldn't we want to prevent poor people from slipping through the cracks? 

According to at least one federal magistrate judge, the answer is, "No." 

The judge's opinion is indeed a sad thing for poor people.  While rabid pro se litigants seeking millions of dollars are a huge problem (if no lawyer would take the "million dollar case," maybe that's because it's no such case?), many Americans have legitimate beefs involving a lot of money to them, but not enough money that hiring a lawyer would be wise.  Such litigants should be helped, not hindered.

Comments

[Christopher King]

That's ridiculous and it's all because the Court does not want the little guy or gal in there exercising their rights in the first place.

On a related note, this is exactly relevant to something I witnessed two days ago in Boston where a judge slammed a pro-se litigant; it never would have happened in an attorney had been there:

http://christopher-king.blogspot.com/2007/04/kingcast-invites-inquiry-into-mgl-93a.html

Excerpt:

Based on the four corners of MGL 93A(9)(3) it would appear that a tenant's compulsory counterclaim would not require a 30-day letter because.... well, because that's what the plain language says, right? And the Volunteer Lawyers Project of the Boston Bar Association concurs, as they state: "the statute eliminates the requirement for a demand letter where the claim is raised as a counterclaim."

VLP goes on to state -- as noted in the comments section -- that a landlord's failure to offer a reasonable counteroffer within a reasonable time could be grounds for increased or trebled damages.

So why then, did a Judge yesterday tell a litigant in open court "well that's your interpretation of the law" after she directly read him the relevant statute section in response to his statement: "Your 93A claims are not valid because you failed to send the 30 day notice letter."

I mean, can anyone see any other interpretation that I'm missing?