The Sixth Amendment provides American citizens the right to legal counsel in criminal cases, assuring that a lawyer represents even those who cannot afford one. There is no such provision, however, in the case of civil matters. The Florida Commission on Access to Civil Justice is trying to find ways to meet the needs of low income Floridians.
For cases like family or landlord-tenant law, defendants have to pay for a lawyer themselves or figure out how to navigate legal proceedings on their own. The Access to Civil Justice Commission is proposing a website that will use an algorithm to route traffic to legal and community resources. Member James Kowalski compares the site to an air traffic controller.
“The air traffic controller, the gateway, is the person who’s ultimately in charge of making sure that the people on the airplanes, who are trying to get to their destination, in this case through the civil justice system, do so as efficiently and expeditiously, and promptly as possible,” he says.
The site would use an algorithm to determine whether a lawyer is even necessary. If not, it can redirect someone to the appropriate non-legal resource or a DIY system to instruct the user how to handle their situation without an attorney. A subcommittee is working with a domestic violence group to develop a process by which the website can identify an emergency situation and direct the person in need to proper protection.
