We hope this email finds you, your family and your colleagues well!
Below is an opportunity for you and your colleagues to provide input on a new initiative, DIY Florida Small Claims Initiative, that’s coming soon from The Florida Supreme Court’s Judicial Management Council. The Access Workgroup has specifically asked for our section members to provide feedback. More information is provided below. The window is only open for 15 days, so please make sure to take a look at your earliest convenience.
If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me directly and I will be happy to assist.
Best regards,
Ericka Garcia
Chair, Public Interest Law Section
The Florida Supreme Court’s Judicial Management Council (JMC) needs your help and participation in a major initiative. The Chief Justice, in his role as chair of the JMC, convened the Access Workgroup to explore hurdles associated with delivering services to low and middle-income self-represented litigants in Florida. In doing so, the Access Workgroup developed a project called DIY Florida – a technology-based solution allowing self-represented litigants to draft legal pleadings through the use of web-based interactive interviews. The project is specifically designed to assist citizens throughout Florida who do not have access to or cannot afford a lawyer.
The programming of interviews for small claims cases is complete and a 15-day test review period May 14, 2020. We have attorney and lay person review ongoing, mostly through outreach to the legal services community. However, the Access Workgroup would also like to included members of your section in the test phase in order to obtain your unique perspectives; and we can always use more lay-person perspectives.
Please forward this information to your section members, and non-lawyer staff, who would consider completing the interviews and providing feedback:
The interviews have been put on a TEST site for the E-Portal. You will need to register by clicking on the “register” button, circled in the screen shot below. If you are unable to complete the registration, there is logon information for a dummy account that you may use:
User Name: OSCA1
Password: fsu591
Once you have registered, please log onto the TEST Site. Please select “I want to generate a DIY Document.” The program then notes “What is DIY Documents.” Please click on “Continue” and you will see the link to the small claims interviews -- “Statements of Claims” and the small claims answer “Answer”. Please work through both interviews. You will need to register your TEST example as though you are filing your document in Orange County as this will allow the data to fall directly into the Portal filing path for case initiation. If you select another county, it may not transfer all the data elements properly as the programmer has only been working with Orange County. So, for purposes of the TEST, regardless of where you are from, pretend you are involved in a small claims case in Orange County.
Once you have completed an interview, the program will display a button to produce the document. If you click on this button, either a pleading will automatically create and download or you will be taken to a case summary page. There you can click on the “Documents” tab and the document created from your interview will be listed. You should be able to click on it to download and view the document.
Please take note of any issues you see, edits that need to be made, or errors. Very importantly, please note that we have created a survey we ask you to complete and please provide us your feedback.
The deadline for completing the interviews is May 29, 2020.
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