Adjartey v. Cent. Div. of the Hous. Court Departmentand, 120 N.E.3d 297 (2019)

Citation: Adjartey v. Cent. Div. of the Hous. Court Departmentand, 120 N.E.3d 297 (2019)
Parent Document: Adjartey v. Cent. Div. of the Hous. Court Departmentand, 120 N.E.3d 297 (2019)
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts (state)
Effective Date: 2019-04-10
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/7178223/adjartey-v-cent-div-of-the-hous... ↗

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Legal services organizations and attorneys working pro bono have sought to mitigate these difficulties by providing unrepresented litigants with free legal assistance. The "lawyer for a day program," for example, is available to Housing Court litigants on the date of their eviction hearings. See Housing Court Standing Order 1-01 (2001). This program, which operates on a first-come, first-served basis, "seeks to address the challenge and promote the fairness of the process by allowing self-represented parties to obtain limited representation from volunteer lawyers." Cambridge St. Realty, LLC, 481 Mass. at 133, 113 N.E.3d 303. See Housing Court Standing Order 1-01. A volunteer lawyer may, for instance, assist or represent a party during mediation, answer legal questions, or even enter an appearance in a litigant's eviction case. Legal services organizations and programs, however, are severely underresourced, leaving most individuals to face summary process without **839legal representation. See Boston Bar Association, Investing in Justice: A Roadmap to Cost-Effective Funding of Civil Legal Aid in Massachusetts 1 (Oct. 2014) (due to insufficient resources, Massachusetts civil legal aid programs turn away approximately two-thirds of eligible cases).

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