Page 28 - Delaware Lawyer - Summer 2019
P. 28

FEATURE
 treated (receive representation) to observe one person who avoided a PFA dismissal. Overall, the number of people granted legal protections from abusers across de- fault, consent and judgment would well exceed 200 people per year.
Eviction. Justice of the Peace Court reports help to clarify eviction rates in the state. Eviction Lab estimated 5,468 evictions in Delaware during 2016.17 However, 2017 and 2018 court data sup- ported annual evictions of 2,767 and 2,741. Court data combined across two years (2017/2018) are roughly equivalent to the number of evictions estimated by Eviction Lab over one year (2016). The discrepancies between Eviction Lab and Delaware Court results are likely due to the extrapolation methods used by Evic- tion Lab as well as potential discrepan- cies regarding the case definition of an eviction. The court definition of an evic- tion is based on the completion of four elements: a writ of possession is awarded; the sheriff/constable posts a 24-hour no- tice; the sheriff/constable clears the prop- erty and changes the locks after 24-hour notice; and the sheriff/constable notifies the court that the 24-hour notice had
Unrepresented or self-represented defendants in eviction cases were 50 percent more likely to be evicted than represented litigants.
been executed. Beyond identifying evic- tion prevalence based on Delaware evic- tion criteria, court data can also be used to evaluate the impact of representation on eviction outcomes.
The crisis of unrepresented litigants in the Delaware courtroom is clear. In PFA cases, it is reasonable to assume that ap- proximately 70% of PFA petitioners were pro se. Based on aggregated court eviction case reports, 98 percent of defendants were unrepresented or self-represented
in court proceedings. Although the ag- gregate state eviction data could not be broken out by judgment type, like in PFA cases, there is a clear signal amongst the noise. Across 2017 and 2018, unrepre- sented or self-represented defendants in eviction cases were 50 percent more likely to be evicted than represented litigants. This would indicate an attributable risk of 33.3 percent, indicating that one-third of evictions among the unrepresented could be averted if the tenants had representa- tion — approximately, 1,810 evictions during 2017-2018, based on Delaware court data. As in the PFA example, more rigorous research in New York City18 that further isolated actual defendant repre- sentation (as opposed to the mere offer of representation) indicated that the risk of eviction was 341 percent higher for those self-represented, meaning that up to 77 percent of evictions could be avoided if a litigant were represented. In the New York City intention-to-treat experiment, results also supported that some litigants who were offered representation did not accept, others not offered representation found it elsewhere, and some cases result in defaults or settlements. Given the effect
     26 DELAWARE LAWYER SUMMER 2019
Figure 1. Population estimates of Delaware civil justice issues and impacts
Issues with Adequate Helpd 19,048
Positive Outcomes Atributable to Helpe 14,667
    Civil Justice >1 Issueb 68,030
Number of Civil Justice Issuesc 136,060
   Negative Outcomes Atributable to Lacking Helpe 90,099
  Lower Income Householdsa 90,706
Issues with Inadequate Helpd 117,012
  Civil Justice 0 Issueb 22,676
a= Population below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, divided by the average household size of 2.55.
Kaiser Family Foundation estimates based on the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, 2008-2017.
b= 75 percent of households have civil legal issues.
c= Typically, households have two civil legal issues.
d= 86 percent of households received inadequate legal help.
e= If the typical relative risk of representation status is 4.4 and the attributable risk is .77.












































































   26   27   28   29   30