Jefferson Coulter (University of South Carolina – Joseph F. Rice School of Law) has posted Courts Built for the Unrepresented: Self-Help Clinics as Access-to-Justice Infrastructure on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
The civil justice system increasingly depends on self-represented litigants, especially in family, housing, consumer, eviction, debt-collection, and probate matters. Yet many courts continue to operate through procedures designed for represented parties. That mismatch produces more than individual hardship. It creates procedural errors, delayed hearings, repeated clerk interactions, avoidable continuances, incomplete records, and diminished public confidence in courts. This Article argues that pro bono self-help clinics should be understood as access-to-justice infrastructure: durable, repeatable systems that convert formal legal rights into usable legal processes when full representation is unavailable. Drawing on access-to-justice scholarship, limited-scope representation doctrine, empirical research on court self-help centers, and recent work on human-centered self-help models, the Article shows that targeted assistance can improve litigant understanding, increase procedural compliance, support court efficiency, and strengthen institutional legitimacy. The Article does not claim that self-help clinics can substitute for full representation in every case. Instead, it argues that courts, bar organizations, legal aid providers, law schools, and access-to-justice commissions should treat self-help clinics as one essential layer of civil justice infrastructure.
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