{"id":30998,"date":"2023-10-24T23:25:37","date_gmt":"2023-10-25T05:25:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mancos-and-dolores-county-public-libraries-host-free-legal-clinics-once-a-month\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:32:32","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:32:32","slug":"mancos-and-dolores-county-public-libraries-host-free-legal-clinics-once-a-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mancos-and-dolores-county-public-libraries-host-free-legal-clinics-once-a-month\/","title":{"rendered":"Mancos and Dolores County Public Libraries host free legal clinics once a month"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Mancos
Mancos Public Library will host a free legal clinic beginning May 14.<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Volunteer attorneys continue to offer their assistance throughout Colorado, including Montezuma and Dolores counties, laying the foundations for people without lawyers to accurately represent themselves in court hearings.<\/p>\n

The free legal clinics are held at the Mancos and Dolores County public libraries once a month.<\/p>\n

Ric Morgan, a volunteer attorney who has his own practice in Southeast Elbert County in Colorado\u2019s Eastern Plains, has coordinated the clinics across the state for the past 20 years for anyone who is dealing with a legal issue.<\/p>\n

The clinics give guidance, not advise, to people who have no attorney. They answer questions and explain legal processes and procedures on probate law, landlord-tenant law, civil protection orders, collections, veterans issues, appeals, property law, small claims and family law. Morgan said the one-on-one sessions usually take approximately 20 minutes in regards to any legal issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cTalking to a lawyer is enormously helpful for those who go by themselves,\u201d Morgan said. \u201cThe six to eight volunteers statewide make sure the parties understand what their options are so they can make the best choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Dolores
Dolores County Public Library will host their next free legal clinic on Nov. 8, from 2-5 p.m. (Courtesy of VPC Clinics.)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
How it works<\/div>\n

Since court processes always involve stakes that are extremely high \u2013 children, jobs, home \u2013 and they can be incredibly confusing for people who are not that familiar with the law, they guide people on how to present evidence and make decisions.<\/p>\n

Oftentimes, individual and civil cases take time and Morgan said that they usually work with people in three steps, where each step is typically one month from the next which allows people to follow up with a volunteer attorney before the next step.<\/p>\n

The first step that usually motivates people to go to the workshop is filing paperwork, whether that\u2019s for divorce, eviction or another reason.<\/p>\n

Next, the court accepts the information to understand what it\u2019s about, another example could be the return date for landlord and tenant issues.<\/p>\n

Last, the judge rules the decision of the matter of the argument between both sides.<\/p>\n

\"Mancos
Mancos Public Library will host their next free legal clinic on Nov. 14 from 2-5 p.m. (Courtesy of VPC Clinics)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cI had a young man who came back into the clinic and told me how it went,\u201d Morgan said. \u201cHe chose one option (that seemed best for him) and he said, \u2018this morning I held my son for the first time.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The clinics are expanding<\/div>\n

Since 2018, Morgan said that several chief judges of different districts requested most of the new clinics because it saves a lot of time in the court process, in addition to them being beneficial to the parties. They found that it saves about an hour of the clerk\u2019s time trying to explain to people what\u2019s going on, which makes a big impact for the court\u2019s resources, if they\u2019re even available.<\/p>\n

He said that the clinics were privately funded through Denver\u2019s Freemasons. The grant they awarded was approximately $20,000 and the total cost per year for the entire Virtual Pro Se Clinic program is close to $2,000\/ year. They serve around 2100 people each year at just under 500 clinics.<\/p>\n

Since 2013, the volunteer attorneys have incrementally added four to five counties each year to their list of legal clinics. Currently they support 46 Colorado counties at 87 public libraries and next year in 2024, he said they\u2019ll add six more counties at 96 local public libraries.<\/p>\n

About 80% of the clinics are based in rural Colorado, with 37 clinics and nine in urban areas, according to Morgan.<\/p>\n

Before 2013, the volunteer attorneys traveled in person to the clinics. By doing this virtually they are able to reach a substantial amount of people with only six to eight volunteers.<\/p>\n

Morgan said they talk to about 175 people each month throughout the state. Since 2013, they assisted 471 self-represented parties in the Mancos and the Dolores County Public Libraries with 144 monthly free legal clinics.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Ignacio, Silverton and Pagosa Springs collectively assisted 656 self-represented parties at 200 monthly free legal clinics since 2013.<\/p>\n

Morgan said that they capitalize on existing public infrastructure where the people utilizing the legal services have access to the libraries\u2019 computers in small study rooms to seek aid on whatever issue they hope to solve.<\/p>\n

Each day is different, but typically four to six people utilize these services per scheduled clinic.<\/p>\n

Morgan said they have four volunteers in training and that usually the volunteers who support the clinic are the kind of people who get their dream jobs \u2013 district judges, magistrates and one past volunteer is in the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really like doing this program,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s wonderful working with people and helping them through the legal process. I think we\u2019re very successful at doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

November\u2019s clinics \u2013 Call in advance to request a session<\/h4>\n

Dolores County Public Library in Dove CreekNov. 8 from 2-5 p.m.(970) 677-2389Mancos Public LibraryNov. 14 from 2-5 p.m.(970) 533-7600<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Volunteer attorneys assist people with finding the best options for them as they prepare to represent themselves<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30999,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-30998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30998"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81280,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30998\/revisions\/81280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30998"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=30998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}