 To those of you who are alumni, it is sponsored by the Wall Alumni Association. If you haven't been involved in the Alumni Association, I encourage you to get involved. You are all members of the Alumni Association. We have board directors, and all of us would like to hear from you what we can do to help you, in addition to providing free CLEs, which we'll continue to do on an at least annual basis. Housekeeping, you should have all gotten an email either yesterday or this morning, and if not, please check your spam builder with the link for materials for today's CLE. We do have a limited amount of extra copies of printed materials at the desk outside. There was also in that email a link to a survey. We're asking if you could please complete that. It's a very short survey. It's going to help the law school as we try to advocate for increased access to justice and use of limited scope representation. Let me briefly introduce our two panelists, and then we'll get started. I want to note that this is being reported today. Credit will not be available to those of you who aren't here. But if you ask the question, I'll ask the panelists to repeat the question, so the recording will capture it. First, we're going to have Bob Weisberger, who is counsel at Stotten and Hanburger, where he focuses on estate planning, guardianships, and litigation. He's a Rhode Island native. Previously worked for many years at Edwards and Angel now a block board. Linda Lange is our next panel. She's the secretary of the Rhode Island Bar Association and a member of Strauss Factor, Lange and Lyons. She devotes her practice primarily to litigation, commercial law, and creditors' rights. And I should have asked Linda, are you a Rhode Island native? No. I didn't think so because she didn't have the accent. So thank you to both of them for coming today. And I'm sorry that our third panelist who had to decline participating today because of her new judicial responsibilities, Melissa Darigan, now Judge Darigan, was supposed to be on the panel with us. But as you know, this was rescheduled due to snow. I'm glad all of you could make it. Bob's going to speak first. And then Linda, during Bob's portion of the presentation, please hold your questions until the end. He has allotted some time for questions. During Linda's portion of the presentation, which is more in the nuts and bolts, you can feel free to ask questions during. So thanks for coming. Thank you, Amy. Good afternoon. What accent? What does the phrase Unbundled Legal Services mean? Does anyone know? How about the phrase Limited Scope Representation program you're here for? You all know what that means, right? I can tell you, about six years ago, my first brush with it, I had no idea what those things meant. But I have a little bit of an idea now. And, you know, first take a self-represented litigant who needs assistance of counsel but isn't able to afford the cost of the full representation. However, he or she is able to afford some limited assistance of counsel on a more a la carte basis. So, you know, such as drafting legal pleadings. And voila, you have LSR. Now, we have a lot of material to cover. And I've been told to forget this story, but I'm going to tell it to you anyway because I'd like to start off this way. The story my dad used to tell. And it has to do with Winston Churchill. Well, Linda, she's already heard this point. And he was invited to speak at the Ladies Temperance League, which was kind of strange because Winston Churchill had quite a reputation for drinking liquor. And so the president of the Ladies Temperance League came up to him and said, Winston, I think it's odd indeed that we've invited you to speak before the Ladies Temperance League. After all, if we were to fill this room with all of the brandy that you've imbibed, it would fill a place to there. And she pointed to the wall just a little bit below the ceiling. And Churchill looked at where she was pointing and looked to the ceiling and said, oh, Madden, so much to do and so little died. So now that I've burned up a couple of minutes with that, I'm sitting here. You know, in state courts, most people proceed prosaic most of the time. The high-volume state courts, including traffic court, housing, small claims like in the district court, they're really dominated by self-represented litigants. Now, in the last 25 years, domestic relations courts and many jurisdictions have shifted from litigants being mostly represented by lawyers who were self-represented litigants and that that was really, you know, the most common situation. And anecdotal evidence suggests an increase in self-representation in personal civil litigation matters. I've read anywhere from 61 to 94%, where at least one side is self-represented. Now, although the courts and the bar are attempting to provide substantial assistance to self-represented litigants, the scope of this assistance is limited. Many self-represented litigants now have widely available resources of private document preparation, services both online and over the counter. And despite challenges based on allegations of unauthorized practice of law, these services, such as legal Zoom, have prevailed in the courts. Despite all of these changing landscapes, many, if not most, self-represented litigants need more than just procedural assistance offered by these resources. They need to know more than which forms to use, how to docket their cases and what time to appear in court. They need assistance with decision-making and judgment. They need to know their options, the different possible outcomes, and the strategies to pursue their objectives. In some cases, self-represented litigants need advocates for some portion of the matter. The services can only come from lawyers. So beyond mere advice, self-represented litigants also need direction on completing forms, not just make them legally compliant, but to make them strategically advantageous. They need more than mere mechanical documents with mechanical preparation. They need documents filled out and filed with both foresight and with judgment. And to optimize the self-represented litigants' outcomes, they require a lawyer to advocate their interests before the tribune, at least for a limited purpose. Now, this added input from lawyers not only assists the litigants, but the court as well. As the better prepared litigant, the more efficiently the court operates. Now, in most venues involving prosa litigants, a court's choice is not between a fully-represented litigant as is much preferred, but the hope of a prosa litigant who is well-prepared, as opposed to one who is not. Now, courts can avoid in a procedural, courts can avoid litigants in a procedural revolving door when those litigants have access to services that lawyers provide. Now, if we look at Rule 1.2 of our Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 1.2c, now 1.2d, states in pertinent part a lawyer may limit the scope of the representation if the limitation is reasonable under the circumstances, and the client gives informed consent. The client must give knowing an informed consent as part of the written, limited scope representation engagement or retainer agreement. Court administrators and non-lawyer legal service providers in the marketplace, such as document preparation services, provide general legal information, but that's not based on the specific individual facts, as only lawyers are capable of providing clients with legal advice about specific matters. Thus, a question is raised about whether a lawyer can provide a client with any legal information, such as that provided by a document preparation service, without any further inquiry. Now, we know that there's transactional legal work that occurs all the time. A lawyer may get a call and say, I'd like to send you a contract. I'd like you to look at it and you tell me what you think. Well, that type of limited scope representation happens all the time in the litigation area. So, if, for instance, this contract was going to be the subject of litigation or negotiations, probably more than just a phone call would be required. But whether or not a lawyer can provide a client with only legal information is a thorny issue on this new frontier for the bank and the bar and lay public alike to adhere to the ethical rules of conduct. Now, as our Rhode Island Supreme Court really is stupid to address in its order amending Article 5 of the Rules of Professional Conduct and specifically Rule 1.1, a lawyer must provide competent representation to a client. Accordingly, the Rhode Island Supreme Court augmented Rule 1.1, addressing competent representation in a limited scope representation is a situation to read as follows. Quote, a lawyer and client may agree pursuant to Rule 1.2 to limit the scope of the representation with respect to a matter. In such circumstances competence means the knowledge, skill, thoroughness, and preparation reasonably necessary for the limited scope representation. Quote, thus, even though competence means skill, thoroughness, and preparation reasonably necessary for such limited scope representation, it does not mean that the lawyer's scope of duty is limited to the client is limited in the limited scope representation context. In other words, the lawyer must consult with the client about the degree of thoroughness and the level of preparation required as well as the estimated costs involved under the circumstances. So, while the rule affords the lawyer and the client substantial latitude to limit the representation, the limitation must be reasonable under the circumstances. Therefore, using the ADA's comment to model Rule 1.2C to illustrate, if, for example, a client's objective is limited to securing general information about the law the client needs in order to handle a comment and typically uncomplicated legal problem, the lawyer and client may agree that the lawyer's services will be limited to a brief telephone consultation. Such a limitation, however, would not be reasonable if the time allotted was not sufficient to yield advice upon which the client couldn't rely. The comment ends by saying although an agreement for a limited representation does not exempt a lawyer from the duty to provide competent representation, the limitation is a factor to be considered when determining the legal knowledge, skill, thoroughness, and preparation reasonably necessary for that representation. So, I submit to you that it has to be thought of in this way that the representation isn't what is limited. Therefore, if the limitation of the scope of the representation prevents or limits the thoroughness in the advice or advocacy that's provided that's necessary to handle the client's legal problem, then the limited scope representation probably is not reasonable under the circumstances. Now, since close to six years ago when this started with me I've only had the opportunity to do one limited scope representation matter and I was really very glad that I set it up this way when the Supreme Court we already had limited scope representation in the sense under Rule 1.2 back before the cases that went up on appeal and we'll talk about in a moment we have no guidance no rules, no procedures no rules of practice and so the problem was you really could get yourself into a situation where you were in a matter and you couldn't withdraw. So when the Supreme Court came out with an amended rule and more guidance they put in some guidelines that were very helpful in this regard. However, they made them applicable I think the rules make limited scope representation applicable to Superior Court, District Court, Family Court, Workers' Compensation Court the traffic tribunal, those sorts of things but I'm not so sure in probate court and as luck would have it the matter that came up with me was a probate court matter and this was a fellow who lived in California a wrongful death case for his daughter she was hit by a ripped of bus in Rhode Island badly injured and later died and his estranged wife in Rhode Island had preceded the wrongful death action and the matter was pending in the probate court in Coventry because that was the appropriate court to that time and administration had to be taken out for the decedent's mother in order to pursue the wrongful death action and this fellow called and he said I really need representation I'm in California, I'm 3,000 miles away I need someone to go to the probate court I need to know what's been done so far and I have a sense that the case is soon going to be reaching some sort of a settlement and I don't want to be left out of the mix in this and he and his wife had been divorced for many years and were estranged so I was happy to help him but I did not want to get so involved with him in the case that I wouldn't be able to extricate myself although it wasn't in litigation but that involved other parties but I didn't know where this was going to lead so I said well I'll enter into a limited scope representation with I'll charge you X amount per hour I'll put this all in writing these will be my specific duties and responsibilities this is what I will do these responsibilities will be and will proceed accordingly and then I will represent you soon thereafter what happened was there was going to be a settlement for a substantial amount of money and then the allocation of how the damages would be applied how much to the wife's consortium claim the husband or the father I should say didn't have a consortium claim because he wasn't involved in the beginning of the litigation and so the litigation was going to put most of the money under the consortium claim to the ex-wife and almost nothing to pay in suffering whereas the two years of law they would have shared 50-50 so I said well I'll go into the court and I'll represent you on this and without all of the details about what happened with the litigation at that stage they said he is not entitled the other side said he is not entitled to recover anything because he was supposed to make child support payments ordered by the family court and he never did so consequently he's in contempt of court and therefore under the section of the wrongful death statute that deals with this he should not be allowed to recover anything well the problem with that is no contempt proceedings have ever been brought and they were about to be brought in the family court and I don't go to family court I mean I could in 35 years of practice I had a number of times I've been there and so I was really not equipped to go in and represent him in that so fortunately I was able to set him up with another attorney who was able to take that part of the litigation handle that and then you know I took over from there with an additional agreement which Linda will tell you about under the limited scope but if I had really agreed to represent him it would have been a very difficult situation if I had not been able to find someone else to take over this part because I really what didn't feel that I was confident to do that aspect so it worked very well because as Linda will tell you there is a limited entry of appearance under limited scope representation and what happens in limited scope in litigation is that you are always concerned to enter your appearance in a case where you're going to have to file a motion and get court approval to withdraw and if you're trying to do limited scope you want to be able to automatically withdraw once you have fulfilled those responsibilities that you've agreed to fulfill under your agreement with the client so under limited scope and the rules that have been promulgated by the supreme court when you file this limited appearance once you've signed the certification and filed it that you have fulfilled those duties you are allowed to automatically withdraw which is very, very helpful and I won't go any further on that aspect of it because Linda is going to be covering that I know but let me give you a little bit of background about the Rhode Island Bar Association's involvement in the issue of LSR so it was about more than five years ago on November 22nd, 2013 and the Rhode Island Supreme Court was invited the Rhode Island Supreme Court invited the Rhode Island Bar Association to submit an amicus brief regarding whether ghost writing is permitted under rule 1.2 of the rules of professional conduct and they also wanted to know about the propriety of the imposition of sanctions for sort of to rule 11 relative to three cases that were up on appeal now the three cases each involved attorneys who authored pleadings on behalf of prosa defendants in three separate debt collection cases these attorneys did not disclose their identities on behalf of the prosa defendants now all three attorneys were separately sanctioned by the superior court and all three attorneys took timely appeals to the supreme court the issue of whether the anonymous preparation of pleadings for self-represented litigants was the issue of whether the anonymous preparation of pleadings for self-represented litigants was a permissible practice pursuant to the supreme court rules of professional conduct was the court wrote one at first impression in Rhode Island now at least one year prior to the invitation to submit the amicus brief the bar association had already begun a task force to examine the subject of limited scope representation now at that time I was chair of the task force when it began and the subject of unbundling of legal services and limited scope representation was one on which the ABA had already done substantial work including the issuance of a formal opinion in May of 2007 and also virtually every jurisdiction in the United States every state in the United States had limited scope representation including all of the New England states except Little Brody so we had already adopted rules for these other jurisdictions many of them had implemented adopted rules for the implementation of limited scope representation with procedural mechanics such as limited entries of appearance that I was just talking about so that attorneys could provide legal services that is handling less than the entire litigation so limited entries of appearance with the ability to withdraw the appearance without a motion and court approval of withdrawal were in our key procedural mechanics for limited scope representation in litigated matters without these procedural dispensations limited involvement became impossible as an entry of appearance would potentially marry an attorney to the litigation too long to risk involvement which is how these three attorneys with pleadings that they filed anonymously got into trouble for ghost writing in the Superior Court and that was the issue that went up to the Supreme Court because they didn't want to sign those pleadings because if they did the signing of a pleading and the filing of it in the Superior Court or the District Court whatever court for that matter in Rhode Island is an automatic entry of your appearance now you can't get out of the case without a motion before the justice and asked to be allowed to withdraw so when the invitation came to serve as amicus curiae came the task force had already begun Linda and I were on that and at that time I was president of the run island bar association and we had been working with the task force toward putting together some sort of comprehensive report to submit to the run island Supreme Court to give them ideas and our input on how we should expand rule 1.2 so we spent leading up to the time of the invitation to file the amicus brief a lot of hours reading what was going on in the other states we were researching, we were discussing the subject and we were meeting with chief judges of all of the run island courts and the traffic tribunal as well as with representatives from Massachusetts because they already had a pilot program for LSR in Mass and we had a judge we had a clerk from Massachusetts we had practitioners from Mass who addressed us addressed the task force and gave us information about how they developed their program, how it was working so on and so forth and they had been working in close connection with the agency in Massachusetts as I said it started a pilot program, started there I think in what they call their land court and then expanded into the probate the family court of Mass so anyway, within that time frame the initial task force had been able to examine the ethical philosophical and practical aspects of limited scope representation but had not yet been able within that time frame to write the report for submission to the bar and that would have been to our governing body the House of Delegates and let alone put together a compendium to make our recommendations to the run island supreme court so consequently when the amicus request arrived the task force decided after consultation with the executive committee of the bar association to call a special meeting of the House of Delegates to authorize submission of the amicus brief on the subject of limited scope representation and that we decided would substitute as supplying a report to the supreme court we could contain all of our findings and our recommendations in the amicus brief so the HOD House of Delegates authorization was forthcoming but it was after much debate and although it was recognized by the bar association that Rhode Island already permitted limited scope representation at that time pursuant to rule 1.2C which reads as I said before a lawyer may limit the scope of the representation if the limitation is reasonable under the circumstances and the client gives informed consent it was understood and agreed that rule 1.2C provided insufficient guidance or rules of practice to guide Rhode Island attorneys moreover it did not provide any of the mechanics for LSR thus the task force recommended that forms methods and procedures be developed for submission to the supreme court as part of our brief and it was further adopted that the bar recommend that LSR practice be allowed in litigation in all civil cases in all courts of Rhode Island where it's reasonable under the circumstances and where the client gives informed consent the bar also agreed that forms be recommended excuse me for use in limited entry of appearance with automatic withdrawal of appearance on written notice without court approval it was further agreed that the bar would take the position that ghost writing is permissible provided the attorney drafting the complaint or other pleading identifies themselves on the document with notice that the document was prepared by them because there were three schools of thought on how that would work the ABA position was the most liberal that you could draft a pleading and that and given it the prosa could sign their name to it but you didn't have to disclose your name or that it was done with the assistance of counsel a second which was more of a middle tier would be just that provided it was prepared excuse me with the assistance of counsel and then the third and the most conservative would be the lawyer preparer of the pleading whether it be a complaint an answer or any responsive pleading or motion that they would identify themselves but it would not act as an entry of appearance in the matter and that was ultimately with the Supreme Court in Rhode Island adopted and that was the part that the Bar Association through the House of Delegates had advocated so in essence our brief I think covered everything from A to Z with best of all and extensive appendix that showed how our sister states had implemented rules of practice and procedure as well as model forms for consideration and possible utilization so when the Rhode Island Supreme Court filed its decision in the appeals most three cases in June of 2015 it invited the Rhode Island Bar and other interested persons to submit written comments on limited scope representation it reversed the Superior Court decisions vacating the sanctions under Rule 11 and created provisional rules for lawyer drafting of pleadings without entry of appearance now at this juncture the Bar Association created a new committee on LSR which was then chaired by my colleague Linda Lang who did a fabulous job and really worked tirelessly to put together a complete recommendation in writing for the Supreme Court and submitted that so that hard work was rewarded when on May 23rd 2017 the Rhode Island Supreme Court entered in order provisionally amending Rule 5 of the rules of professional conduct as well as setting forth model forms for implementation in the Superior, Family, District and Workers' Compensation Courts and Traffic Tribunal the direction that the Chief Judicial Officers of those courts report results to the Supreme Court in one year so I believe it's fair to say that the Rhode Island Supreme Court implemented all of the critical recommendations that were made by Linda's task force and with, you know, only some moderate and reasonable modifications so that is an overview I know that was a lot to kind of throw at you in about 25, 30 minutes but that's the overview. Now the real interesting stuff is in the nuts and bolts and for that I'd like to turn the podium over to my colleague Linda Lang to give you stuff that will be absolutely nice to hear. Hi everyone my name is Linda Lang how I'd like to proceed at this point in time is if you have any questions whatsoever as we go along feel free to ask questions go ahead. Robert, if that one year report because it's been more than a year now if there, because I haven't seen any. There hasn't been but the courts aren't actually complying with that. It's my understanding that how they're tracking the this particular issue is by the electronic system so when you e-file a limited scope type of entry of appearance that then triggers the calculation of how many people are actually using it and there hasn't been enough drop downs in the electronic system for there to be a report as I understand it and that's one of the things that has been my biggest disappointment is I really think we have a great opportunity to grow our practices to serve people which need attorneys and we're still not using the rules and you know every time I get together with a group of people it's because they have concerns and they worry about whether or not the court system is really going to let them out of the case and your question kind of gets me a little bit off track but it's a very near and dear type question to me because if we don't start using it all of our you know these individuals which have very limited means to hire us will continue to use the pro se method and be kind of lost, get upset about the legal system, get frustrated with the results that they're giving in the system and that doesn't help our good will and community and so we need to find a way to start using limited scope and I was going to end with this but I'll start with this one of the things that was recently done by the bar association on February 27th, I don't know if you saw the email blast from our president Carolyn Barone but there's now a limited scope referral network, you can go in and actually sign up through lawyers lawyer referral service and you can actually go in and state that you want to participate in the limited scope opportunities that are with the bar association so we're trying to market this so that young attorneys can go ahead and start expanding their practice it also allows the process to receive legal assistance and the bar association just like every other organization that tries to help those individuals receive a lot of telephone calls from the public and they might be in family court law, I know Carolyn has talked to the chief judge in that particular area because they have such a huge volume of process in the court system that they see this as an opportunity to perhaps give those individuals some help in the areas that they may need it certainly near and dear to myself it's collections you know, every day I'm in the district court and I see individuals which are struggling trying to figure out how to represent themselves I have one today and the woman came up to me and she said I don't believe I ever received the initial pleadings, I showed her the pleadings she still didn't remember receiving the summons but I can't tell her what to do as opposed to counsel but she really needed some limited scope and the opportunities to center in a direction is very limited but she I think she was on TDI and not working so she had no funds to pay for an attorney but she could certainly use someone's help to do a proper motion to vacate the judge tried to assist her somewhat from the bench but she didn't talk about the need for that motion to vacate to have an affidavit so I can almost guarantee that this individual is going to write a two or three sentence saying she wants the judgment vacated because that's the word that the judge said but she doesn't understand the rule and that's where she might have a need through limited scope where someone sat down and said to her we've got to put it into an affidavit what it is that you're trying to do why it is that this should be undone but that's one of the places that I think would be very very effective Landlord Tenant is another area that they're seeking we all know that there's tons and tons of situations with evictions but one of the interesting things that I've learned in my research is that foreclosures is another area that has a need Yale did a law review article in May of last year 2018 and they studied homeowners in the court system who were trying to prevent foreclosures and they found that 50% of the homeowners which had limited scope representation achieved a better result than those which did not so it's important to think outside the scope of just Landlord Tenant but also include some foreclosure work and then as Bob said contracts that's a very popular area that just maybe have a second look before you enter into a lease so that a person understands what they're signing before they sign and then end up having to litigate over it I think Bob probably addressed this fairly well with the what is limited scope and some of the examples we've already talked about one of the areas that we haven't talked about is also in the special needs advocacy certainly in special needs situations children have a need along with their parents and at least from my reading of other cases that's an area that could also use limited scope what is limited scope not well it's certainly not limited liability one of the biggest concerns that attorneys have in this particular area when we were talking about it is the malpractice does it affect my malpractice rates so on the committee that I chaired we had actually the insurance committee chairperson in and she asked which is the most of our insurers for the bar association in the bar whether or not they would insure something like with this with limited scope and they assured us that they actually do it all the time in Massachusetts and that they usually have forms that they can actually give to people to assist them and I think one of the places that we've learned is Massachusetts has a wealth of training materials so if you can get your hands on it it's very accessible on the internet you just can go in and it will provide you with all sorts of packet of materials I think it's about 60 to 90 pages of materials it even gives you mock interviews so that you can get a feel as to what types of questions you should use in an interview with a client in order to determine whether or not the case should be used for limited scope but it's a wealth of information which I would recommend to you it's not an ethical that is one of the other concerns that people have certainly a rule authorizes us to do limited scope however we also have to be careful every single case is conducive to limited scope representation and it's not just for poor people it's for people with limited means who might not be able to handle an attorney from start to finish at an expensive hourly rate so that's how limited scope exists and that's one of the reasons why I think it's important that we try to implement limited scope one of the things that we found as a committee is that we all know that there's a lot of prosaic litigants in our court system currently and there's certain effects that happen because we have more prosaic litigants in the system the court believes that there's an increased amount of time which they have to deal with prosaic so it takes court proceedings longer because they have to filter some of the information that they receive from prosaic because some of it may not be relevant prosaic litigants don't understand the process and they become frustrated with the court and then there's also just the economic pressures of dealing with prosaic and every judge has got a different method on how they deal with prosaic as we all know from being in the court system and one of the questions I'd just like to ask this group is do you feel that courts spend more time dealing with prosaic litigants do you believe that they have a different standard than what us attorneys may have and that all seems to be the opinions of the bar too did you have a comment can you just clarify whether LSR only applies to civil is it authorized in the criminal context I don't believe the rules dealt with that were given to us by the supreme court our committee decided not to include the criminal process because of the fact that there's due process problems that would arise once you started representing an individual it's kind of very difficult once the due process has started to get out of the case so we decided that we weren't going to recommend that it be used in the criminal sense but I don't believe that portion of our report was adopted by the supreme court yes you've referenced forms up until now I'm not aware of any forms or where you would locate those and also you've mentioned e-filing so how would that how's that mechanism how does that work in terms of if I filed something limited scope is there some way that it clicks or something that I'm not doing it in that my other capacity but in a different capacity or how does that work we're talking about e-filing at this point in time the only form that I know of that has a technical drop down box is going to be the entry and the withdrawal and I'm going to give you a very easy example because one of the attorneys in my cases was representing a pro se individual and he filed an answer so what he did was that he filed a limited scope entry of appearance and then what he did was he filed the answer which was prepared by him and he filed through the court system and then what he did was because it was you know I don't get to see their agreement what then they did was that he immediately filed a withdrawal of the appearance and then the pro se was on their own after that so it was very very simple because you use the regular forms that you would normally use if you were going to do an answer but what would need to be done in that particular case is there would need to be a agreement that was between the parties and I believe when the rules were introduced by the court there were attachments as exhibits that were forms which you could use so there was a sample entry there were sample agreements where you could modify and there were the withdrawal was also there so there were some forms that the court actually put out with the rules back in June of 2017 that's correct if you go to the order of the Red Island Supreme Court where they promulgated what their decision was on all of this in exhibit B to that they have model fee agreement they have the entry of the parents they have the limited entry of the parents and the withdrawal and other documents that you can utilize and just create the film from that at the end of the rules of professional conduct there are three appendices one of them is for the forms for scope limited scope so and they're very definitive so there's limited scope representation engagement agreement language is pretty much dictated nature of the limited scope I mean it's very very detailed I think I was confused because you said forms making court files court form drop down box and that's what I was thinking and not necessarily that it was part of the order or anything to do with the case so I might be I'm sorry about that I personally believe because of each limited scope case it's going to be unique I personally believe some of the forms may need modification because of the fact that every case is going to be somewhat different and the scope of what you're being hired for may be different so it's very difficult to say for certain a form is going to be the end all that you're using so you're going to have to think a little bit about what it is I also like and I'm going to just throw this out there is that I have my client come in and they decide that they want to hire me just to do a citation hearing or maybe it's going to be to file an answer what I believe would be the best course of business is I would have a checklist of all the steps leading up to that answer I would have to review the complaint I would have to make certain that I have a discussion about the facts with the client and I would put down every single little task that I would have to do in order to prepare an answer on that case I might also take a step further that if I'm concerned because they only want me to file an answer maybe there's some counter claims out there maybe there's a fair debt collection practices that counter claim out there I don't particularly want to do that and so I might decline to do that because maybe it's beyond the statute of limitations I don't know but those are the things that you would also put on that list because you want to say these are the things I'm going to do for you and check off those things so that they know clearly and precisely exactly what tasks you're going to do and you're going to also have a list that you're not going to do I'm not filing a counter claim under the fair debt I'm not going to appear in court on the motion to dismiss so we're going to have a list of things that I'm not going to do and then I may also have a list of what they are going to do but you know especially in the e-filing arena who's going to e-file this document is it going to be me is it going to be the prosaic you've got to have a discussion about that because anyone can go ahead and enter their appearance in a case in fact our rules require that even though I'm as an attorney and entered on that entry the prosaic also has to enter at the same time so in the example we gave you with the answer that prosaic also filed an entry because there had to be the attorney entry and the prosaic entry at the same time when that answer was filed so when there's a withdrawal there's still the prosaic who's at it do you have a question? yeah let's say somebody files limited scope motion they agree in writing to do the right name for cooperation and then they can schedule for a hearing or whatever you file like a motion for summary judgment the prosaic party files their own motion and then that gets scheduled for a hearing and all you did was agree to file this written document what does that mean? well that's where the agreement that you have with your clients going to control technically if you drafted it well you should be able to withdraw after you file the motion and you're not going to argue that motion certainly you could also go ahead and use a different method maybe it's ghost writing because in ghost writing that's now authorized as long as you disclose that you're actually signing off on that document but it's not an entry of appearance so you wouldn't actually enter you would just assist them with the document but where I have my problems with your scenario is that you have I think is going to be an affidavit attached to that document and is that affidavit going to change at all because you could prepare it and then the prosaic might decide that they want to change that affidavit and you won't have any control unless you get that into your agreement as to who is going to control the affidavit because you know maybe faced if you are going to enter an appearance on this with any type of rule 11 sanctions because that still could be an opportunity did you have a question too? yes I'm pretty confused about this overlap between ghost writing with no entry and acknowledgement or declaration of involvement with the drafting and open the door with a limited entry and close the door with an automatic withdrawal which seems to me it feels safer to me as a drafter to open and close then to be a ghost writer who then I imagine that I would place something below the certification of service that the prosaic litigant would do with filing the document and serving it on the other party I would say prepared in consultation with my name and my bar number so can you comment on the distinction between ghost writing that does not constitute an entry and it kind of leads over from Jordan's question about well then who is going to argue the motion etc etc once it is drafted and the practice of making a limited entry only for purposes of filing a document that you have drafted on behalf of the prosaic litigant automatically withdrawing I think I am more comfortable with the filing the entry and withdrawal but in my practice because I see so many answers with my collection cases you'd be amazed at how many people prepare answers currently and do not even add the disclosures that are necessary for ghost writing I still have answers which look and smell exactly like an attorney answer the prosaic signs it and mails it to me because they don't use the system I know those documents are prepared by council because most of the prosaic wouldn't understand the language in them and when I found my summary judgments the prosaic never come to court to make a dispute which is really sad because I don't think they understand what it is that they were told was going to happen because they probably think their don't care of it in my scenario that isn't happening I think I've only seen one attorney which has disclosed that an answer was prepared by the defendant on behalf of the defendant and he took care of the e-filing to get around this particular issue he did the e-filing and then served it upon me but that's the only one which I've actually seen that way can I just say something to your point we don't have this in Rhode Island at least not yet and feedback that we don't have yet is probably going to become important in Massachusetts in order to represent someone in a limited scope manner you have to actually be certified through the Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts through a program that they have where you take a CLE course and you've completed that and you've been trained on the dos and the don'ts of what the rules are we don't have that in Rhode Island so people might get the word well you can do this but they don't know the particulars and so therefore violate what the rules are the other concern that I have with your scenario where the opposition also files a pleading in opposition the motion to dismiss or their own motion for summary judgment is I believe there's actually comments in the rules which say that only one person can speak at a time so that is so it would become very confusing because if you had been hired to also argue the motion for summary judgment you would then be speaking on the motion but your client would then end up having to say on the opposition and it would get extremely messy so I do have a solution for that and that is as you expand if you want to your limited scope agreement and the rules do cover this that you can at any time decide that you're going to take on more tasks I've been told by other attorneys and other jurisdictions that one of the things that they like is they sometimes will get a difficult client who comes into their office and they say this is a good case but boy this person just seems to be really difficult I don't really know if I want this person as a client well this is a great way to find out if this client and you are going to be able to get along in the legal environment so you enter your appearance at the beginning for a very limited scope maybe just filing the complaint but if everything is going well then you prepare a new agreement where you agree that you also do some discovery and maybe then you file another one which extends some things further and you agree to argue motions for them but it doesn't commit you to being with a difficult client for the entire relationship you're only entering for one specific task at a time so you're free to leave whenever you want one thing though like I said before is that Rule 11 still applies and you have to make certain that whatever you do file has to be well grounded in fact and warranted by existing law or a good faith argument well I guess we got going on questions and I didn't realize even the time but I want to make certain that I touch base on one more thing and that's what I was looking for is my notes on communication because I think I hit all the other points of what I was going to do but I'm going to use the example that I had with the collection case for a second and it's going to come up in every single limited scope case that you have you're not privy as the opposition to what the agreement is between the pro se and the attorney who is representing them on the limited scope so you don't know exactly what it is that they're in the case for is it just to file the answer maybe it's to communicate regarding settlement so in my scenario if we wanted to try to work out a resolution to something who do I call in the rules state that you probably should communicate with council first and find out what the scope is of their agreement so that you're not violating any type of ethical rules so you would call the attorney and you would say you know this is at the point that we've got a summary judgment pending can we talk about resolving this and you recall the attorney and they would say our agreement says that it's the pro se litigant who's going to control settlement or maybe it will be the attorney but one of them should have at least in their initial agreement who's going to be discussing settlement so that the attorney opposing council at least knows what exactly is involved and who they should communicate sometimes it's not real clear and I'll be honest about that and you may have to ask for direction if you get into that type of a situation as to communication I have sometimes and I don't know you know because I'll admit I'm not always in court as frequently as I used to be but there are times that I will ask the judge who do you want me to communicate with the pro se who has been served with the citation or their attorney who was representing them six months ago on a different hearing and it gets very confusing and sometimes the judge will both at least with the electronic system they will most of the time tell me that it's going to be you know whoever's in Tyler if it's the attorney who's still in they're going to still be the party who are in contact one of the things that you do need to know about Tyler and the e file system is when you file a withdrawal you also have to disconnect your service contact because otherwise you're going to continue to get pleadings in that case and maybe you want the pleadings I don't know but that's one thing if you don't want the pleadings you've got to make certain you also disconnect yourself as a service contact okay so I've got a few minutes still before five does anybody else have questions does anyone try limited scope one question in the back yeah so I'm confused whether you've heard any anecdotal like stories of people having issues withdrawing like any snap boot any challenges no I have not heard of anyone having difficulty I am assuming that once it's more popular I suspect some pushback but the rule is pretty clear that you are supposed to be able to use it this way we were talking about this earlier there is a comment that says it's somewhat discretionary with the judge I think it's comment number ten so you do have to be nervous a little bit about it but I think most judges will want would rather have an attorney in the courtroom than a prosaic so I think they're going to be more willing to deal with this issue than have no attorney at all yes it's one of the bad guys once you enter into that limited appearance and everybody's really happy with it sometimes the judge is going to be very very suspicious and that's what I I've already can see some areas where that would especially if you're in the family can you just comment or Robert can you comment on how the limits go for all legal service easier more manageable I was actually hoping they would be more easy but they're not I was hoping that we would have maybe at least in the legal relaxation of the rules I guess in this particular case like if you were doing a foreclosure assistance through the Bar Association you're still going to have to do an agreement you're going to have to do a conflicts check and then come up with an agreement that you still have what I was hoping for is that they might have weighed some of the requirements but that didn't happen but it still allows you to carve out a bite-sized task on behalf of somebody on a criminal basis we're at rule 6.5 for a non-profit in court an excellent legal services you don't need entries and appearances so much in that regard and you just you can go in and do your limited scope representation under the aegis of rule 6.5 but what you're talking about I think is when it's a private pro bono case and not through one of these agencies and in that situation it's still constrained with the entry of appearance so the limited scope rules would still apply so you could then only going to assist with your divorce or only going to assist with this visitation motion and you don't have to do the whole that's correct for instance someone is going through the whole procedure for their divorce but they need to enter a final decree of divorce so the transcript needs to be ordered and it needs to be reduced to writing for submission to the court for signature and you could do a limited entry of appearance and say this is what I'm going to do and you'd follow the agreement that's set forth in the order that was promulgated by the court you do that and then you go ahead do what you do and then you file your withdrawal of limited appearance and the only time that the court under the rule under the direct rule not the comment to the rule can challenge that is if the allegation you're trying to withdraw your appearance before you've completed everything you said you would do under the agreement but as long as you've done everything you're supposed to do under the agreement you can file your withdrawal of appearance and be automatically allowed to get out unless the client comes in and says well wait a minute judge I dispute this because notice of that withdrawal goes to the client they could come in and say oh no she didn't, no he didn't they didn't fulfill all the obligations and then the court would have to do an in-camera review of it and decide whether or not you have done everything you said you would do I hope that helps a little I guess my point is it's no different whether you're pro bono or not but it does make somebody who takes on a pro bono case doesn't have to envision sort of being in for a pound in for a penny it does, it does and you know that's like one of the reasons that I wish that this was explicitly applicable to the probate courts because like in my case I wanted to do I've done a lot of garden chips to do them on a pro bono basis through the volunteer lawyer program or through other volunteer programs but I was always afraid that a lot of the judges wouldn't let you withdraw automatically because you know you have the annual accountings to and you don't want to you know I didn't want to be married to them for the annual accountings but the courts don't want it less of the client to do the annual accountings because they won't know how to do them perhaps but they could come back and on a limited scope to do them but I just didn't want to be married to the gardener we've had a firm doing exactly that and doing an withdrawal at the end and have not had any problems with the accountings and the limited the the engagement letter says quite clearly you will be responsible you, the client will be responsible for those filings and explains exactly what they have to do I think that you know we have 39 cities in town and so we got 39 probably the courts and probs literally so you know maybe the great majority would allow that I know a couple of the judges probably wouldn't and so that's where I was kind of geared towards with that comment because I actually called the judge who remained nameless but he said would you want oh no no I will tell you that one place that you can always get in and out of a court is the federal bankruptcy court they've been doing limited scope representation for years and that's how come I knew when I got involved in this that it would work because it works very well over there we may agree to just file a chapter 7 bankruptcy for an individual but you exclude out all of the motions for relief or any non-distarchability agreements and that's something that has been happening in the bankruptcy court for years so it can't you know it with the right planning and the right attitude I think we can actually make this work and I think we can serve the public immensely with unlimited scope it's good for the judicial system it's good for access to justice it's good for pro se litigants that can only afford the Camry and not the Cadillac of new representation and it's good for lawyers too because if you can develop a practice in this area you really do have the opportunity to make an income and on many of these cases maybe expand it's all a card but you know there might be more selections made from all work done so it's kind of good for everybody in my opinion and I know you know the ADA sure is that point of view and I think to a great degree our Supreme Court does too but it's such an unknown it's kind of like you know the frontier the old web I mean they don't really know what to expect you've done more than just dip your toe into the water and kind of got a feel for it it takes a lot of experience trial and error and we're looking forward to the Bar Association to hearing more feedback from the Chief Judges of the various courts where this has been implemented let me cut us off here because I want to be respectful about Bob and Linda's time I want to thank them both for offering this seminar this was a great opportunity for us to learn about something new reminder again to please complete that survey if you are Roger Williams alum or a non-alum interested in pro bono you can speak to Liza and Susie back there thank you again very much and let's do it