LPT: If you can’t afford a lawyer, you can usually ask the clerk of the court to appoint you one, particularly in eviction cases

I used to work as a clerk of court in the housing division. If someone filed an eviction case against you, the court would send you a notice to come in for court. If you couldn’t afford a lawyer, you could come in earlier and talk to the clerk. The clerks would tell you about your options (such as a stay of execution - essentially a delay) and tell you what to do to get a lawyer appointed to you.<br><br>A lot of tenants didn’t know that they could ask us to appoint a lawyer to them for free, even if they made too much to qualify for legal aid. We needed you to come in early to do the paperwork for this (and the judge needed it early to review your application). If you came in earlier, we could try to appoint a lawyer to you for free (we would send the paperwork to the judge to review whether you qualified).<br><br>If we got the paperwork to the judge soon enough, you would often be appointed a lawyer who specialized in that type of case (like an eviction lawyer), and they would represent you for free! They would tell you what your rights were, what your options were, and would go to court with you to fight the eviction. <br><br>We never told tenants to do this, because we weren’t supposed to give legal advice. But! If they asked us what their options were, we would tell them about this. It was obvious when someone was broke and couldn’t afford a lawyer, so we would always wait for them to ask us what their options were so we could tell them about this without giving unsolicited advice. <br><br>A lot of tenants didn’t ask us for our options, they just came to court without a lawyer (DOOMED!!) because they didn’t know they could ask for a free lawyer appointment. It usually didn’t end well for them because they didn’t know their rights, or what they were allowed to say (objections, etc.) and they would just agree to be evicted because they didn’t know what else to do. <br><br>I saw a lot of tenants lose their case because they didn’t have a lawyer and they tried to bring up something that the law didn’t allow, like “my landlord is racist!” or “my landlord is a jerk!”. The judge wasn’t allowed to listen to that kind of stuff. But a lawyer would know what to say to get the judge to hear relevant information that would help you win your case.<br><br>If someone asked for a free lawyer, we gave them the paperwork right away, but it was better if they came in 2 weeks before their court date to ask for it. If they came in on the actual day of their court date to ask us to appoint them a free lawyer, we would try to do it for them, but it was harder to get the judge to appoint them a free lawyer on such short notice. <br><br>I’ve seen judges appoint a lawyer right on the spot, the day of the court date, but only if it was for a particularly sad case, like a domestic abuse survivor who literally had no money and was afraid for their life (and had the paperwork from the abuse shelter to prove it). <br><br>It’s worth noting that this might not work if your income is too high. They won’t appoint a free lawyer to you if you make a lot of money. I once tried to help a tenant who owned a business, and the judge wouldn’t appoint her a free lawyer because she made too much money (even though she didn’t actually have a lot of money).