Audio video recording produced by the Office of the Jury Commissioner in association with the Boston Neighborhood Network. Transcript produced by Approved Court Transcriber Donna H. Dominguez. For more information visit our website JuryDuty.MAjury.gov or call 1-800-THE-JURY, 1-800-843-5879.
Executive Producer: Pamela J. Wood, Jury Commissioner for the Commonwealth
Producer: Michael Ryan, Communications Coordinator, Office of Jury Commissioner
Directors: Cullen Cockrell, Theji Jayaratne, and David Palomares, BNN
Audio and Video Tape Operator: Wallace Fashaw
Camera Operators: Marcela Maroso and Vsevolod Iskiyaev
Studio Manager: David A. Palomares, BNN
Assistant Studio Manager: Cullen Cockrell
Project Manager/Editor: Gregory W.R. Fulchino, Office of Jury Commissioner
“Jury Duty” was produced in association with the Boston Neighborhood Network, 3025 Washington Street, Roxbury, Massachusetts 02119.
Copyright 2015/2016 [Episodes 01-11/Episode 12] - the Office of the Jury Commissioner for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 560 Harrison Avenue - Suite 600, Boston, Massachusetts 02118. Website: MAjury.gov.
CAPTION: Jury Duty, Michael Ryan, Host
MICHAEL RYAN, BNN LIVE HOST: Hello. My name is Mike Ryan. The name of the show is Jury Duty: You Make a Difference on BNN, the show that should answer all your questions about the one day, one trial jury system.
HOST RYAN: Our special guest today is Sheriece Perry, Senior Manager of Support Services to the Massachusetts Trial Court. Thank you for being on the show.
MS. PERRY: Thank you for having me.
HOST RYAN: And today we’re going to talk a little, something that’s not really jury related. We’re going to talk about Court Service Centers which is kind of a new innovation in the Trial Court. Sheriece is a graduate of George Washington University, earned her law degree at Suffolk University, and she worked in private practice with a focus on family law, probate law, and real estate law. And then while she was at the volunteer lawyer’s project, she represented low income clients in family law and guardianship matters. She’s also an adjunct professor at Bunker Hill Community College. She serves as secretary for the Mass Bar Association’s Black Lawyers Association, and is a board member for Hip Hop which is a private youth nonprofit organization here in Roxbury. And she came to the Trial Court in early 2014. So what exactly is a Court Service Center?
MS. PERRY: Well, a Court Service Center is basically a combination of multiple types of spaces. So in Boston, for example, the Court Service Center is a huge space with a variety of rooms, computer access, a small play area, multiple tables for either private conversations or kind of out in the area, out in the open conversations. And basically, the Court Service Center’s model is really to provide a place for litigants that can't afford attorneys. And so a typical day is really someone that needs to file for divorce or they need to respond to an eviction matter or they’re just having difficulties obtaining child support, filing a small claims. Right now, there is really not a place for those people to go. Legal aid is kind of inundated with a lot of clients, and they, they don’t have a place to go. So the Court service centers have staff attorneys, managers, legal aid clinics. It’s just kind of a combination of multiple things in one place to help the self-represented litigants.
HOST RYAN: And why were they created? Why, what was the impetus behind the Court Service Centers?
MS. PERRY: In 2007, 2008, the Court noticed that there was kind of a plunge in, decline in the financial markets and so forth, and a lot of people just couldn't afford attorneys. And what was happening is people were trying to navigate the Court system and they didn't know what they were doing. They had no legal education. They were limited English proficient. They may have low education levels, mental health issues. And they were coming into the Courts, filing any paperwork that they thought, not following kind of the Court rules, and it was creating Court clog, and people just weren’t happy and they were not satisfied and they were frustrated. And so what the Courts did is they, they put together a committee back in 2013 to explore Court Service Centers and self-help centers in different states. And then they came together and said you know what, we need to do it here but let’s expand upon it a little bit more than they do in other states. And they put together a plan and said let’s, let’s start helping people.
HOST RYAN: SO when you were brought on board, your mission was to create the Court Service Center at, at the Brooke Courthouse, correct?
MS. PERRY: Yes.
HOST RYAN: Now, that just didn't happen overnight, correct?
MS. PERRY: No, it did not.
HOST RYAN: Because you had to carve out a space somewhere in the courthouse?
MS. PERRY: Yes. So before I started, there was a Court Service Center Committee, a much smaller committee, that consisted of local advisors, Court departments, community organizations to really say where do we need this space and what are kind of the big picture items that we need in this space. You know, we need large space. We need a place for children to come, a place that maybe you can get water, place that’s going to provide language access. And so that group really went out, figured out where they were going to have these spaces, and then allowed the local committees to submit proposals to the Executive Office of the Trial Court. And then Chief Justice Carey and Harry and that committee sat down and they decided which were going to be the first two locations, which was Boston and Greenfield. And when I came on, it was this is the big picture of what it looks like. Now, take your small space with the white walls and green carpets and figure out what it looks like.
HOST RYAN: So you --
MS. PERRY: And, and how you want that to happen.
HOST RYAN: So you had no template, you had guide?
MS. PERRY: There was no blueprint, not one at all.
HOST RYAN: So besides, where exactly is the Court Service Center in the Brooke located?
MS. PERRY: If you go into the Brooke Courthouse through the front door, you take the escalator or the elevators up to the second floor, and we’re in the left rear corner. So we’re close to Juvenile Court Clinic, the D, Department of Children and Families Office, and Boston Municipal Court’s Probation are all kind of located on that second floor.
HOST RYAN: So it’s, it’s pretty easy to find?
MS. PERRY: Yes, absolutely.
HOST RYAN: And what are the hours of the, of the Brooke Courthouse Service Center?
MS. PERRY: The Brooke Court Service Center, as the other ones, is 8:30 to 4:30, and all of the Court Service Centers close from 1 to 2 for lunch.
HOST RYAN: So, okay. So you’re finally allowed to get lunch.
MS. PERRY: Yes.
HOST RYAN: So now to staff this Court service, you had to do, go out and do a lot of outreach to get people to staff the center, correct?
MS. PERRY: Yes. So I was hired individually as was the Greenfield manager, and a lot of what I did was to kind of use my resources and my relationships and networks that I had with different, the Bar Association, Legal Aid, Volunteer Lawyers Project, Greater Boston Legal Services, the law schools. Prior to that I had really even in practice had supervised a lot of the interns, so I had a lot of different contacts at the law schools. And I sent them an email, a, kind of a cold email and said, you know, we have this new program. I don’t know how it’s going to run. You know, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know how many litigants are going to show up. But, you know, I, I am passionate about this. And we are going to need help because as soon as people know that there’s free legal help, it’s, the people are going to come.
HOST RYAN: So how many people on, on a daily basis work at a Court Service Center roughly?
MS. PERRY: Right now, the Court changed their model so it’s a two staff person model. There’s a manager and there’s a higher staff attorney. Everyone else is volunteers. And so on average, there could be four or five people, and that allows us really to kind of manage the crowd. I think that if we had closer to six or seven, it would be, the wait would be a lot shorter. But even on days that we have legal clinics through Volunteer Lawyers Project, we could have ten attorneys there, and it’s still very, very difficult to kind of manage because there are more people that need help than there are actually people that can provide it to them.
HOST RYAN: About how many people on average come to a clinic, say at the Brooke on --
MS. PERRY: It’s probably about 40 to 50 depending on the day. Our clinic days, there’s usually more people. Mondays, there’s usually more people if the situations happened or emergencies happened over the weekend, and they’re coming in on a Monday.
HOST RYAN: What’s the kind of issues that people need help with?
MS. PERRY: Typically, we’re probably about 80 percent Probate and Family Court, so the majority of the litigants are trying to figure out how to file for divorce, how to request custody, how to get guardianship of their grandchild. You know, we’ve noticed a spike in the opioid addiction issues throughout the Commonwealth, and there have been a lot of guardianships filed as well as guardianships of adults. Issues with the Department of Revenue, child support, incarceration issues, so trying to do modifications and address those issues. So that’s a big bulk, but we also do a lot in the Housing Court. So we see litigants that are either trying to respond to an eviction matter or they’re having issues, and they’ve asked the landlord to, you know, repair the leaking, you know, faucet or fix the windows or they have a big hole in their ceiling that hasn’t been replaced yet, so we see a lot of those as well.
HOST RYAN: Now what about those people who may be language impaired? They may not have a fluency in English. Are you able to accommodate them?
MS. PERRY: Well, the Trial Court has taken a really aggressive approach to language access. And part of that is to, one, provide language, interpreters to litigants at the actual hearing. But Access to Justice and that committee really looked at what does access look like and does it begin when you first walk in the building. And so what we try to do there is let all the departments know that if people that need language access, they can come down, and what we use is a system called telephone interpretation, and we use Language Line. And what we’re able to do with that is to call a number, give the Trial Court kind of password, and then they’ll put an interpreter on the phone, and we can discuss what the litigant needs remotely.
HOST RYAN: Now, you deal with a lot of pro se litigants. Now, I throw that term out. But what does a, what is a pro se litigant?
MS. PERRY: So a pro se litigant means a variety of things to different people. Typically, it’s a person that does not have an attorney. Some people will call pro se litigants self-represented litigants. Some people call then under represented litigants because I think the reality is some people with enough of the tools, you know, you put enough tools in the toolbox, they can kind of take that and they can represent themselves. And, you know, they give, they have enough education, and you’ve empowered them to really do what they need to do. There are people that even if you gave them the tools in the toolbox have other issues that would not allow them to kind of represent themselves, and that might be mental health issues, that might be cultural issues, it might be low literacy. So we just, you know, we try to take everyone as they come and spend a lot of time looking at what organizations are available, what are the outside resources, what legal aid offices focus on certain areas that we can send referrals to. So that’s been really great because sometimes we know someone needs help, and we can call a legal aid office and say, you know, can you take this or at least do a walk in type of consultation and see if you’re able to provide the representation.
HOST RYAN: So you offer free legal information but not legal advice, is that correct?
MS. PERRY: Absolutely. And some people don’t know the difference.
HOST RYAN: And what would be the difference?
MS. PERRY: So legal advice is basically advising someone about what their best options are. Legal information, and, and the Court Service Center and the position the Court takes is that we can't tell people what’s best for them. But rather, we want to give them neutral information about how the Court system works, what do the rules say, what’s the Court process. So for example, someone walks in and says I want to file for divorce. I have not seen my spouse in ten years, but this is the last address that I have. I have the marriage certificate. And I live in Boston. That’s someone that knows exactly what they want. They just don’t know either how to fill out the form or what the process is. We explain it to them, explain publication or bringing the paperwork to the sheriff, and they go through those steps, and they get a hearing in six months, and the Judge says you’re divorced. The other people are, they’ve been together for 10, 15 years. One party has disappeared. They were the sole supporter for the family. They’re not really sure what to do. They don’t know if they go in and file for divorce if the part, you know, what the other party’s going to do, and they’re, they’re really struggling with what to do. They need a lawyer that can give them advice to tell them these are the steps that you should take in terms of making a decision to file for divorce or not file for divorce.
HOST RYAN: What are some of the kind of forms that are found at a Court Service Center?
MS. PERRY: So we typically have Court prepared packets. So many of the, like the Probate and Family Court --
HOST RYAN: Is that per --
MS. PERRY: -- for --
HOST RYAN: -- per department?
MS. PERRY: Correct.
HOST RYAN: Yeah.
MS. PERRY: And so every Court department has an idea of and they’ve put together packets of what is required in order to file let’s say a small claims. They have their small claims form, but then they also have a defendant’s verification of address. So if you walk into Boston Municipal Court, that’s what they would give them. So we keep that in the Court Service Center. There’s a lot of one page housing forms that we also keep in the Court Service Center. People that are looking for Department of Revenue services, we have those applications that we help people complete in the Court Service Center. Custody complaint packets, divorce complaint packets, guardianship packets. We’ve kind of identified what are all the forms that we really know that people are going to come in for, and we have those. And if not, we just, you know, walk up to the registries.
HOST RYAN: Do you and your, your service center managers meet with a lot of the Court staff to discuss what --
MS. PERRY: Yes.
HOST RYAN: -- what is handled?
MS. PERRY: So the, the most important part for the Court Service Centers are, one, they’re a program. You know, we are serving all of the Court departments, and not every lawyer or manager or staff attorney that comes in is, is going to know everything about everything. And so what we’ve all done is put together advisory committees that consist of sometimes outside Court departments, but primarily local Court Officers. So there’s typically a representation from Juvenile Court, District Court, Municipal Court, Family Court, Housing Court, and you typically meet about three times a year, maybe more. And they’re able to say this is what’s working, this is what’s not working. Could you, do you think this is what you could do? Or it gives us an opportunity to say it would be great, we get a lot of questions about this. It would be great if you tell us where the trial, where the courtrooms are for traffic hearings or mental health clinics. And now there’s the Veterans Court. So it’s, it’s a great place to kind of get everyone there and talk about how the Court Service Centers are doing.
HOST RYAN: Now there is now more than two Court Service Centers, correct?
MS. PERRY: Absolutely.
HOST RYAN: And they’re, they are where?
MS. PERRY: So the first two is clearly Boston and Greenfield which is way west and then north. And the other two are Worcester and Lawrence, and they had soft openings in September, at the end of September. And two more will be coming which will be in Springfield and Brockton.
HOST RYAN: Brockton. So that’s, that’s good, that’s good to know. Now, kids can come into the Court Service Center, correct?
MS. PERRY: Yes.
HOST RYAN: And you, you’re able to accommodate little kids, right?
MS. PERRY: Yes. So all of the, not that it’s a daycare.
HOST RYAN: Well, no. They have to, yeah.
MS. PERRY: But so what we do is, you know, I think people have families and, and when you’re in need or you come from low income and poor communities, it’s not easy that it’s not always easy to just say can you watch my child so I can go to Court. And so every Court service center has a very small play space with, you know, some kids toys, books, chairs, coloring books, things like that that will at least keep a child occupied for a short period of time to allow either mom, dad, grandma, aunt, uncle to kind of be able to come and, and sit down.
HOST RYAN: And you have computers on hand, right, when people need to use computers or print materials out, they can do that?
MS. PERRY: Yes. So the computers are great because sometimes people need legal resources that are available at the law libraries. And we’re able to go on the computers, chat with law librarians, sometimes, they’re able to send us emails. So there’s no restrictions on what sites we’re able to go to. Sometimes we need to do research. A litigant might need to know where the sheriff is located in Alabama, and, you know, we’re able to find that, print out information. The Judges love it because if a litigant comes in and says, oh, I forgot something or, you know, I didn't, I didn't bring my pay stub, pay stub. And the Judge says oh well, you don’t have your pay stub, can you access it electronically? Sure, go down to the Court Service Center and print it out. So it works.
HOST RYAN: What’s your busiest day at the Brooke?
MS. PERRY: Our busiest days equally are Monday, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays.
HOST RYAN: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. And you tell me that on Tuesday you have a guardianship clinic. What does that entail?
MS. PERRY: So yes. So working, my background, as you mentioned --
HOST RYAN: Yeah, probate.
MS. PERRY: -- was probate and guardianships. And I worked at Volunteer Lawyer’s Project. And part of that was to run the guardianship clinics. So I went back to them and said, you know, I know the guardianship clinic runs in the hallway. Would you like to run it out of the Court Service Center to give kind of more privacy and a better space? And so what they do is they come in from 9 to 1 on Tuesdays to run the guardianship clinic. And they bring their own private attorneys. They screen litigants for eligibility due to their federal funding. If they’re eligible, they’ll sit down with the attorney. They’ll do the paperwork. And then many times what they’ll do is they’ll refer it to a private pro bono attorney through Volunteer Lawyers Project.
HOST RYAN: And you mentioned something to me about passports.
MS. PERRY: Yes.
HOST RYAN: You, how does Court Service Centers get involved with passports?
MS. PERRY: So what we often see, and we haven't figured out how to kind of deal with it, but there’s certain times a year where we see an influx in people trying to apply for passports. And what has happened is they’ve applied for the passport, and the passport office has said we need some documentation that shows that you have the authority to obtain a passport for your minor child. And because of that, they, they don’t have a Court order if they’ve never had any interaction with the Court, or perhaps their order says they have custody, but it doesn't actually say that they can get a passport. And so many people are coming in a week before they are leaving to go on vacation to say I need a passport. And the difficulty is that the Court has all these Court processes and procedures that you have to go through, and many people, we have to tell them that your, you’re not going to be able to get a passport today.
HOST RYAN: On Wednesdays, you have family law clinic and pro bono appellate clinic. What, what, what are those?
MS. PERRY: Yes. So Volunteer Lawyers Project expanded from their guardianship clinic to now include a family law clinic. And what they do again is have another group of pro bono attorneys that come. They sit down with the litigants. They go over the forms. And the, you know, the hope a lot of times is to be able to refer it to their pro bono panel. And the appellate clinic was a six month pilot program also through Volunteer Lawyers Project that will be ending soon, which will be on November 18th. And that was an opportunity, there are no legal resources for people that need help with appeals. And many of the justices and the staff in the Appellate Court said, you know, how do we provide assistance to them? And because the Court Service Centers were new, we were seeing a lot of people. They said well maybe the Court Service Center is a perfect place to set up shop temporarily and see how many people will come in that either need information about how to file an appeal, what the process is and possible, maybe some limited representation to, you know, get them through the process.
HOST RYAN: Thursdays are very busy for --
MS. PERRY: The Court, but not us.
HOST RYAN: Right. But do, do a lot of people come in? That’s eviction day generally for the Housing Court, correct?
MS. PERRY: Yes. So most of the time, we see people either after they’ve had Court, or sometimes they’re coming in for questions about what’s going to happen during their Court proceeding, or they need some help to prepare for Court, or they didn't like the judgment, or what happened at Court, and they’re trying to understand what was going on. But the majority of the people on Thursdays are actually in Court because Probate and Family Court are more so, Department of revenue has their block day as well where they review, do reviews and follows, follow up on any of the child support related matters. So Thursdays are very busy in the Brooke.
HOST RYAN: Very busy. And you also, your job also in, touches on trial Court law libraries.
MS. PERRY: Yes.
HOST RYAN: What exactly, are they different than going to a public, a regular public library?
MS. PERRY: Yes. So the, the Trial Court law libraries are actually a really great resource. And what we’ve seen is that a lot of people us them. In modern technology, they’re using them by finding them on the internet or through the Court’s website. And you have the opportunity to walk into a law library. They’re free. You can get a free membership, but it’s all law books. And so if you have someone that’s trying to navigate the Court system or try to do research, the law libraries typically have about two people on staff, and you can go there, you can ask them for help. You have free access to Lexus, Lexus Nexus and West Law. There's Mass Practice. But the great part that we like at the Court Service Center is that, one, we collaborate with them. And, you know, if someone comes in and it’s a more complicated issue, we can say okay, we’re going to help you with this. Now we’ve identified it. We’re going to walk you over to the law library, or we’re going to put you on the computer. We’re going to chat with the law librarian. A lot of times they know about out of state resources. And so we’ve had people come in and say, you know, the child actually lives in New Hampshire but I live here. What can you do to help? And we can talk to a law librarian on the computer and say person’s here at the Court Service Center. He’s trying to figure out what to do. Child lives in New Hampshire. And they can say oh, well here’s a link. They have an online chat system or they have telephone numbers you can call. And it’s really just, otherwise this person probably would have walked into Court. Someone would have said, you know, New Hampshire, go to New Hampshire. And, you know, if this person’s poor, perhaps he can't go to New Hampshire.
HOST RYAN: So it’s another, another resource for the Court Service Center?
MS. PERRY: It’s another resource.
HOST RYAN: And you also touch on judicial response system. What exactly is that?
MS. PERRY: The judicial response system is the overnight kind of Judge’s communication system. And so what happens is overnight, I don’t, people don’t realize it, but there are Judges that are always on duty 20, almost 24/7. And so as soon as the Court’s closed, there are certain Judges that have these kind of like little flip phones. And if something happens at ten o'clock at night and there may be a domestic violence situation, and that’s usually what the calls that they get, there’s a domestic violence situation and the police are called, and they need to get an abuse prevention order for the person that’s called in. They’re able to call the Judge on that, on that phone, the Judge talks to the plaintiff or the moving party, and if abuse prevention order is what is granted, the Judge will grant it over the phone.
HOST RYAN: So they, and what do they have, a two week rotation on that?
MS. PERRY: I think it’s a month.
HOST RYAN: It’s a month that they’re --
MS. PERRY: And then they switch Judges, and --
HOST RYAN: Another set.
MS. PERRY: -- it’s done by regions. And you know, we keep data on that, and so, you know, what we try to tell people in the Court Service Centers are, you know, sometimes, you know, they may not have, meet the standard of an abuse prevention order, or something has not happened, or maybe there’s a fear that something may happen in the future, but it has not. You know, we’re able to let people know that even though it is Sunday morning and you can't walk into a Court, you can always walk into a police, a police station and say, you know, this has happened. You know, I, I think I need an abuse prevention order.
HOST RYAN: On your brochure for Court Service Centers, it says that Court Service Centers are walk in clinics to help people navigate the Court system. Would you say Court Service Centers serve as a compass to the Courts?
MS. PERRY: I think they do. You know, we, we say walk in because when you come into the Court Service Center, one, we want everyone to complete an intake because it, it helps us identify how many people are coming into the Court Service Centers, what departments we’re serving, what, what do they say they need help with, and what are we able to provide. We keep data on the languages that we receive requests for. And it helps us figure out how to pool better re, more resources into one area or not, or how to change the system, or should we be creating checklists, or, and more information, pamphlets for people when they leave. But it’s, it’s a bridge between people walking in and what they actually file. Some people after we talk with them, they’re not ready to file. Maybe they have to do their own investigation. Maybe they have to, you know, go get that marriage certificate because they were married in Las Vegas, and now they’ve got to contact the Las Vegas County, you know, Clerk’s Office and say can you send me. And some people just, you know, they’re not in the right Court, and otherwise may have filed something or spent a lot of resources. So we try to make sure we steer people in the right direction, and, and give them kind of the guidance that they need.
HOST RYAN: Well, we’ve run out of time. We’d like to thank you at home for watching Jury Duty: You Make a Difference on BNN. Just remember, if you have any questions about your jury service, you can always go online at MAJury.Gov or call the Office of Jury Commissioner toll free at 1-800-THE-JURY, that’s 1-800-843-5879. Just remember, you do make a difference. Please serve when called. It’s important to all of us. Thank you, Sheriece.
MS. PERRY: Thank you very much for having me.
HOST RYAN: And thank you at home.
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