Divorce On a Budget with the Commons Law Center: Affordable On-Demand Family Law Coaching

In this podcast episode, we sit down with Family Law Program Director for Commons Law Center, Christine Zenthoefer, to discuss affordable options available to those who need family law assistance. In this interview, Christine discusses the following:

•    What is Commons Law Center?
•    Who Does Commons Law Center Serve?
•    What is a Sliding Scale Legal Service?
•    What Is Pay-As-You-Go Legal Coaching?
•    Does Commons Law Center Provide Full Representation?

If you would like to speak with one of our attorneys, please call our office at (503) 227-0200, or visit our website at https://www.pacificcascadelegal.com.

To learn more about how The Commons Law Center can help you, you can visit their website: https://thecommonslawcenter.org/

Disclaimer: Nothing in this communication is intended to provide legal advice nor does it constitute a client-attorney relationship, therefore you should not interpret the contents as such.

Transcript

Intro:
Welcome to Modern Family Matters, a podcast devoted to exploring family law topics that matter most to you. Covering a wide range of legal, personal, and family law matters, with expert analysis from skilled attorneys and professional guests, we hope that our podcast provides answers, clarity, and guidance towards a better tomorrow for you and your family. Here's your host, Steve Altishin.

Steve Altishin  
Hi, everyone. I'm Steve Altishin, Director of Client Partnerships here at Pacific Cascade Legal, and today I'm here with Common Law Centers, Family Law Program Director, Christine Zenthoefer, to talk about a divorce on a budget with the Common Law Center, and affordable online divorce coaching. So Christine, before we get started, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Christine Zenthoefer  
Yeah, absolutely. So like you said, my name is Christine, I'm the family law program director. And I've been at the commons since October 2022. So I'm pretty new here. I started out at Legal Aid, actually, before coming to the commons. And I was there for about six years. And while I was at Legal Aid, I realized just how huge the demand was for family law services and sort of started exploring creative ways to help people through different limited scope agreements. And so that kind of desire to continue to provide affordable options to people in the family law area is what led me to the commons, because that was something that they were also interested in doing and trying to use technology and stuff to make it possible to provide services more affordably. So that's kind of my backstory. That's what, that's what led me to the commons. I love it.

Steve Altishin  
I love it. And your introduction, brings up a point I kind of do want to hit. First of all, can you tell us, you know, like what the Commons law does, and tell people what they actually are and do and how it fills a void, because I know that a lot of institutions, like you were in, are pro bono. And there's, you know, it helps people at a certain level. But if you're still not able to afford hardly any kind of legal service, and you don't meet those, that's sort of where you guys fit in at Commons Law, isn't it?

Christine Zenthoefer  
Yeah. So you know, Legal Aid, they provide free legal help, and really specific areas to people that are at the lowest end of the poverty spectrum. But people that are above legally eligible eligibility, but who also can't afford a private attorney there, you know, there aren't a lot of providers that are trying to help those people. And so that's kind of where the commons came in. The Commons was started about six years ago. And the goal was to fill that gap of people who weren't qualified for legal aid, who also couldn't, couldn't hire an attorney at private, you know, market rates. And so the commons, currently, there's three, well, I guess, four kind of areas of law that we do. So we have a family law program, we have a tenant eviction defense program, probate, and then trusts and estates. And essentially, we provide our services on a sliding scale based on people's income. But another thing we do is we explore kind of more innovative models of providing legal help, because even at sliding scale rates, people can't afford, for example, in family law, they can't afford to hire an attorney to do everything for them. Because the reality is family law cases can be really complex, and it can take lots and lots of hours. And so our model is sort of based on using technology and using innovative representation models to provide services really efficiently and to provide targeted legal services, so that people can get help with like, just the most complex areas of their case. And then we try to teach them how to handle other parts of their case on their own, so they can save a lot of money.

Steve Altishin  
That's a service that is so innate. Now, you guys still have your law office in Portland, but it's not just Portland people you serve. Is that right? 

Christine Zenthoefer  
Yeah. So I mean, we have a small office in Portland and there's only I think two of our staff that work there. The whole office became remote in during the pandemic. You know, our executive director at the time, Amanda, I think she heard feedback from everyone that they really liked being remote, and it just provided a much better work life balance, and so we became remote and in doing that, we You know, realize that this also allows us to serve more people as we start using technologies in this remote working environment. And so that kind of led to us expanding services, specifically family law and trying to expand our programs statewide because there is such a huge need for affordable legal help. Once you cross the mountains, you know, there's just not there's just not enough providers out there. 

Steve Altishin  
Well, that's great. So you do full service, as well as, like you said, some limited service. But I really want to talk today about a program we had talked about that you guys have started, that I think is unique, and really gets to the heart of the matter and cost wise, and I think you call it the Pay As You Go legal coaching. So let's start to talk about that, you know, why did you start it? 

Christine Zenthoefer  
Yeah. I mean, this program kind of stemmed out of what I was doing already at Legal Aid, you know, we had so many people that needed help. And so previously, when I was at Legal Aid, I was actually in Bend in Central Oregon. And so that's kind of how I became aware of the huge resource gaps out there. But because there was so many, there were so many people that needed help, we kind of had to be very careful about the way we provided services. And a lot of what we did was kind of advice calls with people or coaching, we'd sit down, help them fill out forms, you know, we'd help them prepare for trial and hearings. And I kind of realized there aren't there weren't attorneys in the kind of private sector that were doing that, providing that service. And sometimes that coaching isn't, a lot of times, actually, that coaching can be so helpful to helping people navigate specific parts of their case, and understanding, you know, how to do things on their own. So that was kind of what led to us kind of rolling out this coaching program at the Commons was the idea with some really targeted one on one help from an attorney, people could probably do a lot of things on their own. And we have had some really positive like, early successes. I did trial coaching with one client, we had a couple of different appointments. And during those coaching appointments, you know, they were by video and you know, I helped her organize all her evidence, we talked about witnesses she would call helped her narrow down a list of witnesses. And then we sat down together and I kind of taught her how to question witnesses, what kind of questions you can ask what questions to avoid. And she went on to represent herself at trial. And she she called me later and said that, you know, the judge had told her there was an attorney on the other side, too. And the judge told her like she had done so well that she put a lot of attorneys to shame. And the judge was really impressed with how she had done it, she ended up getting everything that she wanted, even though the other side had an attorney. So it is really effective. And yeah, so I so I think we're already seeing really positive results coming from this program.

Steve Altishin  
Oh, again, it's not just the fill out the forms. I think that's what's so unique about it, what you just described is something that in Oregon, I, you know, I had never really seen in terms of, like I said, the coaching stuff. So if I, you know, just got a hold of you, before we talk about how I'm gonna get a hold of you, and said something like, you know, I'm gonna go to mediation. How do I prepare for mediation? And, you know, here's what I got. And you can talk with them, or someone at the firm could talk with them, through kind of getting ready to go to mediation. Right?

Christine Zenthoefer  
Yeah. So the the attorneys that are providing coaching, I provide coaching, and then we have another attorney. And both of us, you know, have been doing family law for six plus years. And so we have kind of seen the gamut of how cases look and issues that come up. So basically, you know, coaching is you can call with any any question about your case, and talk to an attorney and get feedback on it. So you know, whether that is oh, I need to go to mediation, what do I do to prepare for that? Or maybe it's the other attorney is sending me all these emails or sending me documents and I don't know how to respond. It's really anything that can come up in a case, that's something that we can help with through coaching.

Steve Altishin  
When the case is over, we get a lot down the line-- a month later, or a week later, a year later-- well, my ex is doing this and I'm going to hire you guys again. And you know, we do have to go to court and it's got to be a whole thing. So they could call you, not just like in a divorce case, I'm taking it, but follow up stuff?

Christine Zenthoefer  
Oh yeah, absolutely. And I mean a lot of times too, I think people just want to talk to an attorney to get some understanding about what their options are. And maybe they are not ready to do anything. So you know, in a situation you described where someone has finished their case, but now they're still having issues. Sometimes they just want to understand what their options are. And even just understanding their options, gives them a little more power to negotiate with, you know, their former partner and to figure out a workable solution. So, yeah, absolutely. Like we're through coaching, we're happy to just bounce ideas off people, let them know what their options are. And that's a great use of coaching too.

Steve Altishin  
Another thing I want to get out there so that people know, another sort of time of angst for people in divorce cases comes right when it's done. There is a decree it's been signed. But they don't know what to do next. You know, they've got banks, and they've got all kinds of different things that may need to have stuff done. Can you help with that?

Christine Zenthoefer  
Yeah. I mean, like, you know, really, like I said, it's any kind of legal issue that people need help with. So one of the coaching appointments that we offer is like a document review session. So maybe you already got your judgment, and you're like, Okay, Judge, like, what do I do with his legal document, like, what happens now? Because, you know, we get it, those documents are long, there's a lot of legalese in there. And it can be hard to understand what they mean. And so, absolutely, like, if people have questions about like, what do I do with this legal document? What, you know, what rights do I have? We're happy to answer those questions as well.

Steve Altishin  
That can strike, you know, settlements, a settlement document. If the other side is represented, here's okay, we're going to file this judgment, dissolution, and it includes all our stuff, and so don't worry about it. Well, they can go to you to look at that.

Christine Zenthoefer  
Yeah, yep. settlement offer review. Like, that's something we can help with. And we've done quite a few appointments, you know, and we just kind of talk through okay, here, you know, here's the proposal. Here's kind of what, how your situation might look. If you chose to go to trial. Here's kind of what the laws are. And we kind of help people understand whether the proposals fair what you know, things to think about. And sometimes people are coming to us with settlement proposals, and they don't have important information that they might need in order to know if the settlement proposal is fair. And so we can talk to people about how they might get that information, like maybe you don't know the full extent of your partner's assets or their income. So we talk to people about that and make sure that they are actually like, ready to start engaging in settlement talks. Because there's sometimes things that need to happen first, but yeah, that's a great way to use coaching too.

Steve Altishin  
Oh, my God. So how does someone who wants to do something like this, they say, hey, I need this. How do they get ahold of you? How do they schedule? What are the nuts and bolts of how how it gets done?

Christine Zenthoefer  
Yeah, so you know, our goal was to make getting coaching help as easy as possible. And to reduce phone tag, you know, that's something I've seen a lot as people are trying to get help, they maybe have deadlines coming up, and you can get stuck in this endless round of phone tag. So to avoid all of that, we've made it really easy to reach out. So you can if you want coaching help, you can go to our website and apply through the website, you fill out a form with some information. And then once people submit that form, you know, because we're attorneys, we have to run conflict checks, just to make sure that we didn't actually represent the other party in your case. But once we do that initial screening, people are pretty much good to go and we send them an agreement that talks about what coaching is, there's no cost to sign that agreement. And then once people sign that, they get a link to a website that they can go to and you you can self schedule and pay for appointments. So we kind of borrowed from the like hairdresser model, you know, a lot of hairdressers, they have Self Scheduling websites and you just go on you pick the appointment you want you schedule you get on their calendar is super easy. And so that was the model that we kind of wanted to use just to make it as easy as possible for people to get help. So when people sign up for the program, they can just go to the website and schedule on their own when they need help and we're able to provide appointments pretty timely, like usually within a couple of weeks. You can get an appointment and meet with an attorney. That's a pretty quick process.

Steve Altishin  
Are there restrictions on who can get this? I know that on your full service, because of your nonprofit status, you have some restrictions on income levels and what you charge. And if they're too muchor  if it's too little, does that all still figure into the coaching part of this?

Christine Zenthoefer  
Yeah, so our entire program, you know, we're a nonprofit, and like you said, that nonprofit is based on doing, you know, offering services based on people's income. So all of our services, you know, people have to be under 400% of the federal poverty level. But in reality, that's about half of all Oregonians, so most, you know, most single parents working sort of a typical job, they're probably going to be eligible for our program. So but yeah, so it's a lot of people that can get help from us.

Steve Altishin  
So people shouldn't be afraid to call because they don't know if they would qualify? 

Christine Zenthoefer  
Yeah, absolutely. 

Steve Altishin  
I love it. I love it. Well, I know we're getting close to the end. But is there something else you would like to kind of add or put in or encourage someone listening about this program?

Christine Zenthoefer  
I mean, the other thing, I would just mention, too, that in addition to our pay, as you go sort of coaching program, we also are kind of pioneering another way of providing legal help. And we're calling it like targeted representation. So the idea is that if people need a little more help from an attorney, they can come to us and we'll talk with them about their case, we'll talk to them about you know, what their budget is, and then we will help them identify, Okay, what part of your case do you really need help with from an attorney, and then we will provide limited scope services related to that issue. So for some people that might be negotiating a settlement and finalizing that settlement by getting a judgment that lays out all the terms. And so for some people, that's like the best way to spend their money, because that process can be a little complicated. For other people, if it's pretty clear that you're not going to reach a settlement with the other party, then sometimes the best way to use an attorney is to go to court with you. Because that can also be a very complex thing to do on your own. You know, not that you can't do it on your own, a lot of people do. But there's a lot to keep track of, and a lot to kind of learn to go to court on your own. And so we also provide targeted, like hearing representation or or court representation when we go to court with you and do a few tasks, kind of related to going to court. But because we limit what we do, we really can keep the cost much more affordable than hiring an attorney to do everything for you in the case.

Steve Altishin  
This isn't a pick this or this or this necessarily, someone could come to you for coaching and get a session or a couple of sessions and then decide maybe they need more.

Christine Zenthoefer  
Right. And that's kind of the idea that we might be able to coach people through similar parts of their case. And then there might be certain parts that are complex, and they might want to switch and hire us to do that one aspect of their case.

Steve Altishin  
I love it. I love it. Well, we have run out of time. But before we leave, if you would like,could you let people listening know how they can get a hold of Commons Law, and maybe start the process with you guys?

Christine Zenthoefer  
Yeah, I mean, the easiest way to get a hold of the Common Law Center and to apply for services is just to go to our website, thecommonslawcenter.org. And you can apply for services there and read about our programs on our website as well.

Steve Altishin  
I love it. I love it. Like I said, unfortunately, we're out of time. But Christine, thank you so much. We really appreciate you talking about this. I mean, this is an issue that doesn't get talked about because there's not a lot of those services around. So kind of presenting it to people in a way that's really understandable and kind of approachable is really, really helpful for folks. So thank you, Christine, for being with us today.

Christine Zenthoefer  
Yeah, thank you. 

Steve Altishin  
And everyone, thank you for joining us today. Until next time, stay safe, stay happy and be well.

Outro:
This has been Modern Family Matters, a legal podcast focusing on providing real answers and direction for individuals and families. Our podcast is sponsored by Pacific Cascade Legal, serving families in Oregon and Washington. If you are in need of legal counsel or have additional questions about a family law matter important to you, please visit our websites at pacificcascadelegal.com or pacificcascadefamilylaw.com. You can also call our headquarters at (503) 227-0200 to schedule a case evaluation with one of our seasoned attorneys. Modern Family Matters, advocating for your better tomorrow and offering legal solutions important to the modern family.