New legal site helps you help yourself in Will court

JOLIET -- Can't afford a lawyer?

In some cases, you might be able to do without one, now that the Will County Legal Self-Help Center is up and running. It's on the Internet.

Will County Chief Judge Gerald Kinney, County Board member John Anderson, D-Monee, and Circuit Court Clerk Pam McGuire explained the new free service during a presentation Tuesday morning at the Will County Office Building, 302 N. Chicago St., Joliet.

"We have more and more people involved in the court system representing themselves," Kinney said. "Traditionally, that was not the case."

The court system is based on the premise that most people have a lawyer, he said. In general, before something happens in court, the appropriate documents must be submitted to a judge, for example.

"That is difficult for people without legal training," Kinney said, and then he made a quick joke. "And sometimes that's difficult for people who do have legal training."

Now Will County residents can go to http://will.illinoislegalaid.org to help them make their way through the court system.

The Web site can't do everything a lawyer can, said Teri Ross, the Chicago-based outreach coordinator for Illinois Legal Aid On-line. But it can help with certain kinds of legal issues -- most of them civil, not criminal -- such as divorce, child support and some mortgage problems. There isn't information on more complicated subjects such as medical malpractice cases or setting up a trust fund.

"It's always better to get an attorney, but this site is there to help some people prepare," Ross said.

The site is very easy to navigate. And the explanations are given in plain, common-sense language, Ross said. Some topics are explained with short videos, and there also are written discussions of the same issues. With a click of the mouse, the language on the site can be changed to Spanish.

There's also a feature that allows someone to submit a question between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and then discuss the issue with an actual person, Ross said.

Although several people worked on the project, Anderson proposed it.

He practices law in Chicago and is on the board of directors of the Lawyers Trust Fund. That group distributes some cash to help the disadvantaged and needy with certain legal problems, Anderson said.

He heard about the legal self-help centers last year and wondered why Will County didn't have one, particularly because the sites cost very little to set up and maintain. During a meeting of the county board's judicial committee, he proposed creating one.

"It's really a win-win for the judges, a win-win for the attorneys, a win-win for people in the clerk's office and a win-win for people who need legal assistance," Anderson said.