Ohio Legal Help

The Ohio State Bar Association’s “Access to Justice” website page carries
a very important message:

“It is only by ensuring access to justice for all that a free people will have trust and confidence in the fairness, impartiality and administration of the law. For the Ohio State Bar Association, that means all Ohioans deserve to have the backing of a skilled attorney who can help them navigate their legal problems, be they criminal or civil in nature.” 

As lawyers, we are certainly all aware that accessing a skilled attorney can be difficult for individuals of limited financial means, particularly in the rural areas of our state where the number of attorneys is limited.¹

Statistics show that, 86 percent of civil legal problems reported by low-income Americans receive inadequate or no legal help. People who need legal help the most are often the ones who don’t have access to it. This is often referred to as the “justice gap” and refers to the difference between the civil legal needs of low-income and vulnerable Americans and the resources available
to meet those needs.

This justice gap has been recognized and acted upon by the Ohio Supreme Court. The Ohio Supreme Task Force on Access to Justice was established by Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor with the reminder that open and accessible courts are the hallmark of a civilized society. The task force brought together representatives of the courts, legal aid, the Ohio Access to Justice Foundation and the private bar. In March of 2015, the task force released its Report and Recommendations. The goals of the task force included identifying gaps in the civil justice system and reviewing possible means to address these gaps.

One of the many recommendations of the Task Force was for the Supreme Court to “encourage the development and maintenance of a statewide website devoted to providing free and accurate legal information to Ohio Residents who find themselves in the civil justice system.”² The Task Force recommended that the website include self-help tools that would assist people in handling simple legal matters on their own, remote access to courts and forms and links to local community service organizations, Legal Aid and bar association referral services for people that need assistance with their legal matters.³

Ohio Legal Help was created to meet this recommendation and to bridge and close the justice gap in Ohio. Ohio Legal Help started with the idea of equitable justice for all. In 2017, a group of community and legal organizations met to plan the creation of a statewide, user-centered legal portal that would become Ohio Legal Help. The Steering Committee included the Supreme Court of Ohio, The Ohio Judicial Conference, The Clerk of Courts Association, the Ohio State Bar Association, The Ohio Access to Justice Foundation, The Alliance of Ohio Legal Aids, The Consortium of Ohio County Law Libraries, The Ohio Library Council and the Ohio Domestic Violence Network. They started with a vision to not only improve access to justice and education about the civil justice system, but to empower Ohioans by giving them tools and resources to resolve their legal issues. This group became Ohio Legal Help’s Steering Committee and is now its Advisory Committee. After two years of research and design, Ohio Legal Help launched to the public in 2019.

Today, Ohio Legal Help serves nearly 65,000 unique users per month and hosts more than 75,000 visits. To date more than one million users from all 88 Ohio counties have received assistance via Ohio Legal Help and have had more than three million page views. Topics include family law, housing issues, money and debt, COVID-19 resources, veterans and service members, seniors, public benefits, education, immigration, crime and traffic and going to court. More than 650,000 users are expected to use Ohio Legal Help in its third year of operation.

In addition to serving Ohioans affected by the justice gap, Ohio Legal Help can provide users with a gateway to accessing the assistance of a lawyer. To date more than 15,000 referrals have been made to the Ohio State Bar Association and to county and metro bar associations and their lawyer referral services. To take advantage of this important referral source, Ohio attorneys can enroll with their local lawyer referral service and update their profile with the Ohio State Bar Association.

The benefits to the public and to lawyers is magnified by the ability of lawyers to provide limited scope representation and unbundled legal services under the Ohio Rules of Professional Conduct.⁴ Ohio Legal Help allows an individual with limited financial resources who might not qualify for assistance through Legal Aid to do some self-help through Ohio Legal Help’s plain-language legal information and then turn to a lawyer for a review and/or modification of documents, for advice on how to represent oneself in court or advise the client of the perils of self-representation if the client’s situation is one that should only be handled by competent counsel. 

I invite you to take a tour of the Ohio Legal Help website. To be useful to people with limited means, it can easily be accessed by a smart phone. One of the predominant features on the site is the “Find a Lawyer” tab. It reminds the user that for many situations, a skilled lawyer is a necessity and provides “signs” that a lawyer should be consulted. The page also includes links to tools to help an individual find a lawyer. Even if a user goes directly to a particular subject, the site carefully guides the user through a number of questions on the topic of their choice, including questions that will cause the site to recommend that the individual seek the help of a lawyer through their local Legal Aid or bar referral service, depending on their income. There is also a link for self-help centers to direct users to court-based centers and “help desks” to assist them in solving their legal problems.⁵

Self-help and the use of virtual tools is embedded in all of our everyday lives. The reliance on such tools was exasperated by the recent pandemic. Ohio residents are fortunate to have an accurate, closely monitored and updated website to guide them through their legal dilemmas and provide easy access to a lawyer. In that way, Ohio Legal Help is a win-win: The public is served, the justice gap is narrowed and those seeking legal services can be referred to competent Ohio lawyers. 

Endnotes

¹ The Ohio State Bar Association has taken strides to address this issue through its rural clerkship programs which allows law students to be paired with rural attorneys for a summer clerkship with the goals of those students returning to a rural community to practice law following Bar passage.
² Report and Recommendations of the Supreme Court of Ohio Task Force on Access to Justice, March 2015, at 25.
³ Report and Recommendations of the Supreme Court of Ohio Task Force on Access to Justice, at 26-27.
⁴ Ohio Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 1.2(c) provides, “A lawyer may limit the scope of a new or existing representation if the limitation is reasonable under the circumstances and communicated to the client, preferably in writing. The ability of lawyers to provide limited scope or “unbundled” legal services was also a recommendation of the Supreme Court of Ohio Task Force on Access to Justice. See pages 29-32 of the Report.
⁵ See Recommendation 7 of the Supreme Court of Ohio Task Force on Access to Justice Report and Recommendations, pages 28-29.