Navigation FCTC withdraws self-represented litigant recommendations
The Florida Courts Technology Commission has withdrawn a recommendation to establish a court standing commission or committee to study a comprehensive approach to helping self-represented litigants navigate the court system.
The commission, at its August 20 meeting, voted to withdraw the proposal it has passed in May on first reading (see story here) that called for a more wide-ranging approach to helping pro se parties. It was up for final approval at the August meeting and would have gone to the Supreme Court if it had passed.
Seventeenth Circuit Judge Martin Bidwill, who chairs the FCTC’s Portal Subcommittee, said the subcommittee felt that the Supreme Court’s Workgroup on the Continuity of Court Operations and Proceedings During and After COVID-19 had covered some of the same ground in its recently recommended procedural rule amendments to the court. Consequently, he said, it was best to see how the court reacted to that before pursuing the FCTC’s self-represented litigant (SRL) effort. Since that review could take some time, he said it was better to withdraw rather than table the recommendation.
