New Kind of Limited Counsel to Pro Se Clients: Pilot Project on Helping Self-Help

Posted by Alan Childress

Robert Ambrogi reports here on LawSites (via Massachusetts Law Updates, with further links) about a pilot project in Massachusetts permitting attorneys to take on limited appointments of self-represented people, to counsel them on discrete or limited parts of their matter without obligation to take on the case as a whole.  It’s starting with family law and probate courts, and even includes drafting documents signed by the client but with the notation “prepared with assistance of counsel.”  This may be the closest thing, coincidentally, to something MyShingle‘s Carolyn Elefant was just kidding about last week when she marveled at a cooking service that makes the customer do most of the work–and joked we should do that in law practice too.  I suspect she didn’t mean to be so prescient.