One of the silver linings of these uncertain times is that they can cause us to think about things that all should – but often don’t. No one LIKES to think about unpleasant outcomes or unforeseen changes in life circumstances, but just a little planning can make such possibilities much easier for those around us. This Above The Law article gives you a brief, but solid review of three documents that we should all have in place before we need them.
Washington State governor Jay Inslee has extended his “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” emergency order to May 4, 2020. Read details about this extension and the governor’s original order here.
For more information about Washington State’s response to the COVID-19 situation, including current COVID-19 infection statistics, information about travel, and information for businesses and works, visit the State’s official COVID-19 response site here.
The Northwest Justice Project has added a new law resources page to WashingtonLawHelp regarding COVID-19. It currently includes the following categories of information:
Understanding the Basics
Court Schedule Changes and Closures
Health Care and Insurance
Paid Leave
School Info
Unemployment
Your Job and Coronavirus
Until further notice, the King County Family Law Information Centers in both Seattle and Kent are suspending walk-in hours and will be assisting people by phone only at the following numbers from 8:30 am to 12:00 noon:
On Monday, February 12, the Seattle City Council unanimously passed a new ordinance that will significantly restrict residential evictions during the winter. Council Bill 119726, if signed by the Mayor or allowed to pass into law without her signature, will prohibit Seattle landlords from evicting low- and moderate-income tenants for unpaid rent between December 1 and March 1. The unanimous vote was only possible after amendments were added to reduce the time period, to exempt landlords managing four or fewer housing units and to restrict the scope to low- and moderate-income tenants.
Read the full text of CB 119726 here.
When or if CB 119726 becomes effective depends on whether or not Mayor Durkan chooses to veto it and is governed by SMC 1.04.020.
The QLaw Foundation of Washington is sponsoring a new, free, full-representation legal clinic called Family Matters to help LGBTQ families get legal orders affirming their legal parental relationships to the children they are raising.
Assistance will be provided by both attorneys and social workers and will vary in length depending on the family’s needs. LGBTQ families living anywhere in King County are eligible to apply. All services provided by Family Matters are free of charge.
To request help, you can complete the online registration form here or send an email to info@qlawfoundation.org indicating your family would like help from the Family Matters clinic.
According to a recent article in Crosscut – Legislators passed eviction protections. Washington landlords found loopholes — a new provision in the recently-revised Residential Landlord-Tenant Act may prove to be a scary prospect for month-to-month tenants.
RCW 59.18.410(3)(d) states:
“A tenant who has been served with three or more notices to pay or vacate for failure to pay rent as set forth in RCW 59.12.040 within twelve months prior to the notice to pay or vacate upon which the proceeding is based may not seek relief under this subsection (3).”
On its face, this subsection would appear to undo many of the new tenant protections put in place by the Washington Legislature. Crosscut asserts that landlords across the state have started serving pay-or-vacate notices the day after rent becomes due, often in situations where tenants have been accustomed to a short grace period. That grace period can be important for low-income tenants relying on the arrival of Social Security or other social services’ payments. Tenants who receive three such notices in a 12-month period, regardless of having made their rent payments, would not be able to take advantage of the other protections provided in RCW 59.18.410(3).
The text of ESSB 5600, as signed by the Governor, is here.
The New Hope Act (Chapter 331 of the Laws of 2019) became effective on July 28, 2019 and makes substantial changes to the rights and procedures for clearing criminal misdemeanor and felony conviction records in Washington State.
Among these changes are improved notice requirements for the Department of Corrections and the clerk of the court; the ability to vacate Assault in the second degree, Assault in the third degree when not committed against a law enforcement or peace officer, and Robbery in the second degree under specific circumstances; and the removal of restrictions based on prior vacations and the modification of restrictions based on prior restraining/protection orders.
For instructions and forms related to these new provisions, visit the New Hope Act portion of the Civil Survival web site.
Recognizing that the legal process can be confusing and intimidating, the Washington State Attorney General’s Office has an a program called the Office of Military and Veteran Legal Assistance which helps active service members and veterans find legal assistance programs.
The Office’s web site includes links to legal assistance events aimed at veterans, a register of Washington State and national legal service providers and programs, and a nation-wide index to legal assistance programs. The site also includes a link for attorneys who wish to volunteer to assistance veterans with civil legal issues.
We launched Civil Lawsuits Without Tears in March of 2018. It was the first workshop in our then new Self-Represented Litigants (SRL) Workshop series. That series now includes three civil procedure workshops, four family law workshops, a small business law workshop and a power of attorney workshop. Plans for a landlord/tenant workshop are in the works.
When we made that first launch we were confident we had created a new, practical, and sustainable mechanism for helping the self-represented litigants we work with become better prepared for their day in court. It was “new” for several reasons. It leveraged partnerships with volunteers from the local bar and the LLLT community, local public libraries like SPL and KCLS, and other community centers. It married face-to-face classroom instruction with follow-up content support on our website. It brought instruction out to where the self-represented litigants live and work in surroundings they are more familiar with. It was “practical” because KCLL staff worked closely with our volunteer instructors to choose content that was focused on the specific areas of civil procedure that most often confound self-represented litigants. It was “sustainable” because the load or weight of content development, instruction, and marketing was spread across all partners.
We had also hoped that workshop attendees would find the content understandable and immediately useful; that they would appreciate being able to attend the workshops in the local libraries or community centers they were already familiar with, and that access to the blank forms and research links on our custom SRL workshop website would continue to provide support down the litigation road.
To date, over 400 self-represented litigants have attended at least one of the workshops. We are hard at work searching for additional volunteer attorneys to help us develop and present relevant content and have plans for expanding the number of public library branches at which the workshops are hosted. Feedback from attendees has been very positive and they often return to KCLL for further research help.
The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) is a nation-wide professional association for law librarians who practice in pubic, academic and private firm law libraries. AALL sponsors a number of juried awards that recognize outstanding achievement in various aspects of law library management and services. This year, AALL added a new award called the Excellence in Community Engagement Award. This award focuses on community engagement and public relations and was created to “ …recognize and acknowledge outstanding contributions achieved by the Association’s members in raising the visibility of the profession and its Association.” In February of this year, LeighAnne Thompson and Stephanie Wilson from the Seattle University School of Law Library nominated our Self-Represented Litigants Workshop series. In March, we were overjoyed to receive this communication from Sally Holterhoff, chair of AALL’s Excellence in Community Engagement Award Jury:
“…your library’s Self-Represented Litigant (SRL) Workshops have been selected as one of two recipients of an inaugural AALL Excellence in Community Engagement Award. Congratulations on this honor. Our jury felt that your project does an outstanding job of reaching people in your community at their point of need with practical information. With these workshops, you are involving the legal and library communities in partnering to address the information needs of self-represented litigants and to help them successfully navigate the legal system.”
We are very grateful to our SRL workshop partners, without whose help the workshop series would not have been possible. KCLL is indebted to the following individuals and organizations for their contributions to the workshop series and is excited to continue the collaboration to support and improve the education of self-represented litigants in King County:
If you are interested in learning more about our workshops – or the possibility of facilitating them, we’d love to hear from you. Please contact us here or call us at (206) 477-1305.