DC judges sound alarm over shortage in lawyers to take on pro bono cases

Judges are sounding the alarm tonight about a growing crisis in the justice system. They say thousands of people end up representing themselves because there aren't enough attorneys to provide free legal help. Now those judges are speaking out to Fox 5 about the problem. Fox 5's Tom Fitzgerald live at the D.C. Court of Appeals tonight. And Fitz, how bad is this? Well, Kenneth, it's bad enough that D.C. judges, a group notoriously camera shy, came out in public today to raise the alarm about a lack of legal representation inside the D.C. courts. Now, to be clear here, we're not talking about criminal cases. We're talking about civil cases. But many times, these are people who have to go to court for very important reasons, and they cannot afford a lawyer or any legal representations. We're talking about cases like evictions, child custody cases, protection orders, debt collection, all of these things wind up in D.C. civil courts. But in criminal cases, if you can't afford a lawyer, your constitutional right is the government will provide one for you. That is not the case in civil court. So today, a panel of judges got together to talk about this problem. They told Fox 5 this means a lot of people are having to go into courtrooms on their own. That's mind-blowing, right? in a city like D.C. where we have the greatest concentration of lawyers in the country. We need more resources and particularly more attorneys filling their ethical obligation to come and make our system work for the people it affects. Now, the judges tell Fox 5 that this is creating an uneven playing field in D.C. courts. For example, about 85 percent of the people who are facing eviction go into the court without an attorney but 95 percent of the landlords of eviction cases have lawyers now law firms are not required to do pro bono work and many of them will contribute to charity in exchange for that but you know one of the things that the DC courts and the DC bar says is that these cases without attorneys are slowing down the courtrooms and in many times delaying justice all of the relevant information may not get before the judge or time is spent providing the judge with irrelevant information because people aren't trained to be lawyers. The supply just does not meet the demand in the district. We're seeing nearly 90 percent of parties in family court without an attorney. So it's a growing problem. The D.C. judges told Fox 5 today that the reason they're going public with this right now is they're trying to raise awareness within the legal community about this need. They're particularly trying to hone in on young lawyers. A lot of times when they start their careers at a law firm, it's hard for them to get a court case before a judge and get that practice. They're advocating pro bono workers a way to fill that need. We're live in Northwest tonight. We'll send it back into you.