Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid Continues to Advocate for Hybrid Eviction Hearings

Minnesota Lawyer’s recent article Hennepin court’s return to in-person eviction hearings draws criticism, takes on the issue of how the need to physically appear in court can make a significant impact on the outcome of a case. Because of the backlog of pandemic-related eviction cases and the end of the moratorium, Hennepin County District Court has returned to in-person hearings for many cases. After a significant period of remote hearings, the return to court appearances is causing disruption and even harm.

Mary Kaczorek, managing attorney at Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid (MMLA) told Minnesota Lawyer, “If you miss court or come too late, the judge issues a default judgment, the landlord gets the writ of recovery, and the sheriff comes out and puts a 24-hour notice on your door. This all happens in a matter of days.”

As things return to normal, including at court, many advocates, including Kaczorek, feel that the access to justice gained by remote hearings will be lost. In communities with lower incomes, where issues like a lack of reliable child-care and transportation can make getting to court harder, in-person hearings could seriously affect housing stability.

For a number of reasons, Hennepin County District Court’s significant backlog of cases is able to be handled more quickly in-person than remotely.

“The referees and clerks at housing court do great work, but they have been given too many cases to handle at one time,” Kaczorek said. “The policy choice to return to in-person eviction court prioritizes timeliness over fairness.”

MMLA and other housing advocates continue to support a hybrid option, with remote hearings as the default mode. If a person has limited access to technology or chooses to be in person because of a disability, that option should be available as well. Read more in Hennepin court’s return to in-person eviction hearings draws criticism.

LASNEM and ALS Discuss Impact of Virtual Court

In October’s cover story for Bench & Bar of Minnesota, remote court proceedings are the new normal and what that means for clients, attorneys and the courts is explored. Dori Rapaport, executive director of Legal Aid Service of Northeastern Minnesota (LASNEM), discusses the impact of virtual court on her program’s clients and legal aid in “Courtrooms without borders.”

Before the prevalence of remote court, LASNEM staff were forced to make difficult decisions. The logistics of appearing in court for one client in Duluth and for another the same day in Grand Marais, three hours away, was sometimes insurmountable. With the use of “Zoom court” responsiveness to clients has increased dramatically and made it easier to secure representation. Clients have also benefitted by not having to take time off work and find child-care or transportation.

“Because we had virtual courts, we could coordinate all the housing hearings in one calendar. It was one referee hearing all the cases and he became a subject matter expert,” Rapaport said. “Instead of picking and choosing where we could drive to and pick which clients we could help, we could represent them all.”

Litigation director Valerie Field of Anishinabe Legal Services (ALS) has mixed feelings about the impact of remote court. ALS provides civil legal services in tribal and state courts and many of their clients have limited access to the internet. The tribal courts have developed different pandemic approaches, with some remote, some mostly in-person, and some, like Leech Lake, a mix of both.

For more about the benefits of remote court in greater Minnesota and the metro, as well as drawbacks, and a view from the bench, read the full article.

LASNEM Staff Publish Scholarly Article in Mitchell Hamline Law Review

This summer, staff from the Legal Aid Service of Northeastern Minnesota (LASNEM), wrote a scholarly article about the profound impact of the Reach Justice Minnesota project in northeastern Minnesota. Specifically, Jude Schmit, staff attorney, and Rachel Albertson, development and communications manager, zeroed in on the year-old Justice Bus initiative and their article was published by the Mitchell Hamline Law Review.

In Witnessed From the Justice Bus: Covid Drove Equal Justice Off the Road, But Technology Grabbed the Wheel and Is Steering Us Into the Future, Schmit and Albertson, with a combined 22 years of experience at LASNEM, discuss the implementation of the Justice Bus and Legal Kiosk initiatives, which they oversaw, and how through leveraging technology LASNEM was able to reach clients in the rural areas they serve during the pandemic. Ultimately, it argues, “bridging the access-to-justice gap in rural Minnesota requires a multidimensional approach utilizing technology as the vehicle.”

Dori Rapaport, LASNEM executive director, explained “The challenges facing rural America predictably only intensified as the pandemic moved our justice system virtual. The lack of technology, access to broadband internet, and infrastructural poverty became glaring problems in how communities were now expected to access the justice system. However, as this newly published law review article describes, technology to reach rural communities has proven to be a solution with impact that has surpassed expectations. This important article gives real examples of how technology, namely in the forms of justice buses, kiosks, and virtual court, have bridged the divide for those seeking civil legal services in a more meaningful way than decades of other tried solutions.”

Witnessed From the Justice Bus: COVID Drove Equal Justice Off the Road, but Technology Grabbed the Wheel and Is Steering Us Into the Future

NLADA Honors State Support with Innovations in Technology Award for LawHelpMN

The 2022 Equal Justice Conference (EJC), held in Minneapolis in mid-May, was an exciting opportunity to meet colleagues in person for the first time since 2019. A project of the American Bar Association (ABA) Standing Committee on Pro Bono and and Public Service and the National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA), EJC 2022 was a resounding success that brought together legal aid staff, access-to-justice organizations, the courts, and private practice attorneys from across the country to share and learn about developments and innovations in the field.

The excitement and inspiration were on full display at the NLADA Awards Presentation and Luncheon held on May 13th. Legal Services State Support, and program manager J. Singleton, were honored with NLADA’s Nan Heald Innovations in Equal Justice Award, conferred on LawHelpMN for outstanding vision, creativity, and leadership in increasing access to justice for all. Presented annually at the Equal Justice Conference, the Innovations in Equal Justice Award honors an individual or group who has made outstanding career contributions to creativity and innovation in the delivery of legal services to people with low-incomes.

With the award, State Support and its partners were commended for an “incredible feat of coordination both of humans and technology” and for legal help resources that were “carefully and thoughtfully developed and designed with usability and accessibility at top of mind and stand out as a model to others around the country.” J. Singleton’s contributions were also lauded, beginning in 2014 as State Support’s legal technology project manager and then as program manager. Singleton led the development of LawHelpMN’s ground-breaking Guide tool, as well as the Legal Organizations Online Network (LOON), both instrumental in the redesign of LawHelpMN in 2019. As co-chair of the Self Represented Litigation Network’s triage and portal working group, and frequent presenter, Singleton shares and teaches about her experiences within the statewide legal services community and at conferences nationwide. Many self-help website and portal leaders from other states look to LawHelpMN and its various tools, like the Guide and LOON, for insight and guidance on how to model their own tools and resources. Singleton is a leader in Minnesota, guiding coalitions of legal services providers as well as collaborating with other community organizations. Last year, J. was awarded the Minnesota State Bar Association’s Bernard P. Becker Emerging Leader Award.

In accepting the award, Singleton said, “One of the things I’m most proud of is that LawHelp is a real collaborative effort between my office and so many others. Our legal aid partners not only provide us with their legal expertise to make sure our content is accurate, but also give us the feedback we need to continue improving. In addition, we’ve had such great support from our state court system, LSC, The Pew Charitable Trusts, the private bar, and partners like our state and county law libraries. Without this group effort, LawHelpMN would not be possible.”