Domestic court cases, like divorce, child custody or child support, are often complicated.
When people take on those cases without an attorney, the process can feel outright overwhelming, said Emily Kirsch, court administrator at Lorain County’s Domestic Relations and Juvenile Court.
“The justice system can be complicated and expensive,” Kirsch said. “When you have a court hearing, you're taking time to travel there, so we have transportation barriers. You could have child care barriers or work barriers.”
That’s why Lorain County’s court recently launched a legal help tool that helps people make domestic relations court filings from home. The new virtual self-help center, developed by Ohio Legal Help, allows Ohioans to conduct court paperwork on their phones.
Breaking down ‘legal-ese’
For many Lorain residents, hiring an attorney to help dissolve their marriage isn’t a financial option. More than 12% of Lorain County residents live below the federal poverty level, according to 2023 data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
But without a background in law, it can be hard to understand which forms need to be filed and when, said Susan Choe, executive director of Ohio Legal Help.
“One of the pain points where people struggle is if they don't understand the ‘legalese’, the jargon. So what this does is it explains [the process] in plain language,” she said.
The help center asks simple questions around what kind of case you wish to pursue and gathers your personal information. Then, it plugs that information into the necessary legal forms and notifies you of your next steps and how to prepare.
“We make sure that folks understand what their requirements and responsibilities are, so that, at the end, it saves everybody time,” she said.
Successes so far
Since launching the online help center a couple months ago, Kirsch said more than 100 residents have accessed the virtual tool.
She’s optimistic many more will follow, as has happened in Montgomery and Cuyahoga counties, the first Ohio counties to pilot the tool.
Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Court, which launched its virtual help center last year, has already seen more than 20,000 people use the system to end marriages, alter custody or modify child support, according to Choe.
“They better understand what they need to do. They better understand what happens at the hearing,” Choe said. “And as a result, there's fewer delays. There's fewer times that a case has to be continued because someone's not prepared.”
Potential expansion
Kirsch said she’s already fielding questions from other courts interested in the tool.
“Since we've launched, four or five different courts have reached out to get more information about how we did this and to give them any advice that we could give,” she said.
Ohio Legal Help is working to expand access across the state. The nonprofit already offers a statewide forum that connects users to legal resources on housing, debt and immigration, among others.
But Choe wants to see more of these virtual help centers in rural areas where attorneys are scarce.
“We know that being mobile first is in particular more important in some rural communities where broadband access is not as readily available,” Choe said. “We'd love to be able to work with rural communities to expand [these resources] to those rural courts.”
