by RICH CASSIDY on SEPTEMBER 15, 2010
This month’s American Bar Association Journal includes an article on ghostwriting. In this context, ghostwriting refers to lawyer prepared pleadings filed by persons who are not represented by an attorney, sometimes called a pro pers.
Many Americans with low or moderate incomes want legal help, but do not feel they can afford to simply put a case into the hands of a lawyer. Some lawyers are trying to provide help by providing legal services on the basis of an agreement providing for a limited scope of representation (also called “unbundling”). But some lawyers are uncertain about the circumstances under which they can prepare pleadings or legal memoranda for clients who are representing themselves in litigation. And some judges remain skeptical.
The article, “Seeing Ghosts: Lawyer-drafted Pleadings for Pro Se Litigants are Scaring Fewer Courts” available at http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/seeing_ghosts/ gives a good primer on the issues presented by attorneys who prepare pleadings and memoranda for pro se parties to file on their own.
The writer, Richard Acello, was kind enough to include some of my thinking on the subject, thinking that is very much informed by the need to find and accommodate innovative ways to provide legal services to those who can’t afford to buy them in the traditional market.
What do you think? Should disclosure of the participation of such a lawyer be required? Should the lawyer have to sign the pleading and affirmatively take responsibility for the filing? If he or she does sign, have they appeared in the case and slipped from limited scope to full representation by accident?
As the number of pro pers continues to rise, and lawyers become more interested in providing limited scope representation, the need for clarity on these issues is growing.
Rich