During her first year on the 13th Judicial Circuit of Missouri, Judge Kayla Jackson-Williams has taken a different approach to landlord-tenant cases with the help of local lawyers.
Mid-Missouri Legal Services approached Jackson-Williams near the start of her term with the idea of collaboration and the implementation of defendant-friendly pleading forms. They created the Justice in the Halls Clinic, inspired by Legal Aid of Western Missouri — a counterpart organization that has had a similar clinic for a few years now in rural counties.
The clinic places attorneys available from Mid-Missouri Legal Services in the Boone County Courthouse to offer available pamphlets as well as pleading assistance during Jackson-Williams' 9 a.m. landlord-tenant docket on Thursdays.
Senior Basic Needs Unit Attorney Roger Dyer was a part of this initiative on Mid-Missouri Legal Services' end. The initiative also includes funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
"We were a part of a statewide HUD grant and we were able to hire a new attorney with that. With those additional resources, one of the things that we did was reach out to the judge and talk a little bit about this program that Western had been doing, kind of what we envisioned it to be," Dyer said. "She was completely on board with that."
Following the conversation, Jackson-Williams received all the required permissions from fellow judges and court administrators to create and implement the forms.
"We thought that it was odd that there were so many plaintiff-friendly forms available on the court's website but there weren't defendant-friendly forms available," Jackson-Williams said.
Jackson-Williams would announce at the start of her docket that if the proper pleadings were not filed, the court may not be able to hear or see what the defendants may want them to.
"Although I was making those announcements for months, people still weren't filing pleadings," Jackson-Williams said. "Oftentimes, there would be valid claims or counterclaims that defendants wanted the court to hear, but the court could not hear them because the proper pleadings were not filed."
Jackson-Williams said she and Mid-Missouri Legal Services drafted "defendant-friendly" pleadings that were officially implemented over the summer. She said the purpose of these fill-in-the-blank style forms is to allow the defendant to file a pleading prior to the hearing or the trial for possession or damages so the court can legally hear it.
"My announcement is slightly different in that I still say the proper pleadings have to be made. The proper questions have to be asked. If you have any questions about what that means, Mid-Missouri Legal Services is in the hallway and they can assist you," Jackson-Williams said.
Mid-Missouri Legal Services and other state organizations also created a website — motenanthelp.org — that includes these forms among other resources. The home screen reads, "Are you a Missouri tenant facing eviction? If your landlord is evicting you for non-payment of rent, our free DIY form can help you create your own court documents to fight your eviction."
These forms also sit in the courtroom hallway along with a representative from Mid-Missouri Legal Services. Dyer said one of the purposes of the forms was to address the issue of only landlords being able to file before court.
"Tenants before they were filing those forms were losing no matter what, even if they did have a valid defense. Now if they're able to file these forms, then they've at least got a chance to assert their defense," Dyer said.
As a result, Jackson-Williams said she has seen a decrease in landlord-tenant trials and an increase in conversations between the two.
"We're seeing a huge influx of negotiations happening outside of the courtroom with the defendants and the plaintiffs and we're no longer having as many trials," she said. "There's just been a few changes that have allowed for there, in my opinion, to be more amicable discussions on the front end, therefore decreasing the number of trials on the back end."
