Let's talk about court costs.

Everyone talks about the costs of hiring attorneys as a barrier to justice. And they're right! But we don't talk about court costs and filing fees.

Court costs are fees levied by the court for doing something.

The most common is an appearance fee. That's right - if you're being sued, you have to pay the court for the right to argue your case to a judge.

So let's say your landlord sues you for eviction. In most jurisdictions, you're not allowed to even PRESENT A DEFENSE

unless you first pay the court a fee. In Chicagoland, that fee is usually $239, but it can be higher depending on how much the landlord suing you for.

That's right - the more the creditor says you owe, the more you have to pay the court for the right to defend yourself.

And remember, if you don't defend yourself, you lose the case by default. So one way to easily abuse this system is for a creditor to sue for far more than is actually owed, making it impossible for the defendant to pay the appearance fee and winning a judgment by default.

But Sheryl! You ask. What about fee waivers? Yes, they exist - but in practice, only for pro se defendants or defendants represented by legal aid agencies. They also require a hearing in front of a packed courtroom regarding the intimate details of the defendant's finances.

And as if that isn't bad enough, it's based largely on income, so for example a client of mine who made $80,000 was denied a fee waiver even though he had spent $150,000 on medical bills in the previous calendar year and was flat broke.

But these fees have other impacts, too.

Because represented parties generally can't get fee waivers, consumer lawyers have to price them into our fees. So let's say that I want to represent a tenant being evicted. If I charge her $500 for the case, $239 of that is gone for the appearance fee off the top.

Then there's electronic filing fees, jury demand fees, arbitration fees, arbitration rejection fees, and all in all it's not uncommon for the court fees in an eviction case to reach almost a thousand dollars.

So unless you factor those into your retainer, you're doing these

cases at a loss EVEN IF YOU CHARGE FOR THEM. But if you factor those costs in, now you're charging $1500 or more, and if your client had that kind of money they wouldn't be getting evicted.

Great system, right?

Oh it gets better.

Let's say that you want to sue someone, for discrimination. The filing fees can reach up to a thousand dollars. That's one reason why so few cases are filed for sexual harassment and race discrimination - it's prohibitively expensive just to get in the door.

And yes, you can get those costs back if you win, but not many clients have that money to front at the beginning of a case.

So what happens if you just don't pay all these fees? Best case, your case gets thrown out. Worst case, you go to jail. Seriously.

That's a huge problem with traffic tickets. The court costs on traffic tickets are usually more than the ticket itself, must be paid by the defendant, and as with most court costs, accrue interest.

And if you don't pay, a body attachment order gets issued and

they throw you in jail until you do.

This is one reason that for-profit prisons, local municipalities, and court clerks all oppose a civil Gideon - that is, a law requiring the right to counsel in civil cases.

A civil Gideon, if passed, would essentially wipe out

a good portion of those fees. The result would be that the gravy train of court costs on the back of poor people would stop.

By the way, don't just take my word for it.

http://www.cookcountyclerkofcourt.org/Forms/pdf_files/CCG0603.pdf