The goal with eviction RTC is to connect with tenants well before the day of the first hearing, so that attorneys have time to meet with the client and then engage in whatever investigation/preparation is necessary. The better the outreach program, the fewer tenants will appear in court without counsel. The reality, however, is that there will still be a percentage of tenants who seek legal assistance on the day of court, especially towards the beginning of implementation.
As described in Section 3.4, your eviction RTC law might have provisions about continuing cases where the tenant appears at the hearing without counsel. But you may also be able to get regulations or court rules instituted after enactment that provide for this. In NYC, Cleveland, Washington State, and New Orleans, continuances are part of the eviction process either as part of the existing landlord/tenant law in the jurisdiction or as paired with eviction RTC. In fact, in Washington State, the Attorney General also issued a letter stating that because the eviction RTC law requires a judge to appoint counsel, “an indigent tenant must be offered a court-appointed attorney before an unlawful detainer proceeding may go forward.” You can also check out a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) from one of the Washington State court systems that outlines the continuance process.
Not all court systems will issue orders or rules that require continuances if a tenant doesn’t have counsel. And local jurisdictions may not have the power to require courts to issue continuances. In these situations, you might:
Ask the court to collaborate in other ways
If the courts won’t give you continuances, try to collaborate with the court around securing space in the courthouse where you’ll be able to conduct intake and meet with clients on the day of the hearing, and ask courts to make announcements about the presence of day-of counsel. Be prepared that some courts may be resistant to this:
In Texas (where there is no eviction RTC in place yet), an emergency order issued by the state Supreme Court explicitly states that lawyers must be allowed in the courthouse, and legal aid programs used the order to push for space inside the building.
A tenant attorney in one city commented, “We now need space for many more attorneys and the city has made the intake process much more cumbersome with eligibility documentation. The court's position is that there simply is no place to put us. They have made 3 small one staff ‘offices’ available but that is it.”
An organizer in a different jurisdiction explained, “The county has no oversight of their courtrooms. Ultimately, it is really up to the discretion of the judge. A couple judges (pro-tenant stabilization) have designated specific working areas or private rooms in their courthouse where they've allowed legal aid to conduct their work. Others have created hostile environments for legal aid such that the tenants themselves are less likely to solicit assistance because having legal aid represent you in that courtroom may adversely affect the case. One judge forces legal aid to set up their table in the tiny and un-A/C-ed entrance way (it’s probably about 20x5 foot area between two glass walls and 8 doors with alot of other signage and all of the foot traffic). This particular judge is known to schedule from 100-300 eviction cases in a single day.”
Reduce intake time
Some providers have explained that requiring them to gather a large amount of data at intake makes it almost impossible to also prepare to represent the client, given how quickly the hearing process moves. Consider whether the intake script can be pared down to obtain only essential information at these day-of representations, and see whether any intake can be done ahead of time, such as immediately doing conflict checks of all tenants who are listed on the docket. Also, see if the attorney can do a brief intake to gather enough information to start preparing for the hearing and then hand off the rest of the intake to a paralegal or social worker.