MD Court of Special Appeals Creates Pro Se Online Guide

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals (Maryland's highest court)  has recently taken an important step towards making its court accessible to the public.  On its website, it has published A Guide for Self-Representation.  This step is an important recognition that for pro se litigants to have the access to the right to pursue their cases in courts, they must also have access to the appellate courts in order to challenge decisions of trial courts when necessary.

The importance of access to the appellate courts is a crucial right for litigants.  To explain why this is so important, an analogy may be drawn by considering fee-shifting cases. Fee shifting cases are those cases where statutory authority provides for prevailing plaintiffs to be able to obtain their attorney fees in recovery. Title VII and the Maryland Wage Payment Act are examples of statutes with fee shifting provisions.

In a Maryland Wage Payment case, the Maryland Court of Appeals wrote: "It is important to compensate counsel for ensuring that the trial court gets it right, even if to do so requires counsel to appeal, as it is to ensure that counsel is compensated for services rendered at trial. Indeed, it is a disincentive to the retention of competent counsel in these kinds of cases to deny recovery for successful appellate advocacy, including advocacy that demonstrates trial court error." Friolo v. Frankel 403 MD 443, 458 (Md. 2008).

This quote illustrates that access to the appellate courts is deemed by the Court of Appeals to be as or almost as important as access to trial courts.  Indeed historic cases like Gideon v. Wainwright illustrate that the needs of those without income are often only fully addressed when appellate courts are asked to intervene.