Executive Summary
The Model Self-Help Center Pilot Program is one part of the California Judicial
Council’s effort to address two key goals in its strategic plan: increasing access to justice
and improving the quality of justice and service to the public. The availability of court-
based assistance to self-represented litigants is critical to accomplishing these goals, and
one of the strategies the council has adopted is to increase the number of self-help centers
in the courts. The legislature has supported these goals by providing funding for this
project.
Since the early 1990’s, the number of people coming to the courts without lawyers has
grown dramatically. Courts report that 80 percent of parties in family law cases are
representing themselves, as well as 90 percent of tenants and 34 percent of landlords in
eviction cases. The number of self-represented litigants has also steadily increased in
other areas of the law. Because court procedures were designed for lawyers, the large
number of people coming to the courts without lawyers presented new challenges in the
courts’ ability to efficiently process cases. For the past eight years, the Judicial Council
and its staff arm, the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), have worked on a group
of projects designed to assess and address the needs of the public and the courts with
respect to cases involving self-represented litigants.
In 1997, California’s family law facilitator program was implemented. Funding for this
program provided an attorney in each of the 58 counties to provide assistance with issues
of child support. In 1999, three pilot Family Law Information Centers were created to
address a broad array of family law matters involving low-income self-represented
litigants. In 2001, four conferences were held in which courts developed preliminary
action plans for serving self-represented litigants. To encourage further planning,
funding has been provided to local courts to assist in additional development and
implementation of these plans. As the courts continued to work at the local level, a
statewide Task Force on Self-Represented Litigants was appointed by the Chief Justice in
May 2001 and charged with developing a statewide Action Plan to Assist Self-
Represented Litigants for the judicial branch.
The Model Self-Help Center Pilot Program, implemented in 2002, is a key component of
this statewide plan. The program was designed to develop solutions to four major
challenges local courts said they faced in meeting the needs of self-represented litigants:
• Self-represented litigants need access to more legal information;
• Many people have limited English proficiency;
• Geographic and transportation barriers reduce access; and
• Resources are limited.