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Reforming Service Of Process: An Access-To-Justice Framework, Andrew C. Budzinski

University of Colorado Law Review

Over the past few decades, the number of pro se litigants in state civil courts has risen exponentially-between 75 percent and 90 percent of litigants in family law cases, landlordtenant disputes, and small claims actions did not have a lawyer in 2015. Procedural rules governing those proceedings, however, often impose requirements that disproportionately burden unrepresented litigants, fail to optimally protect the due process rights of those parties, and thereby deny them access to justice. Rules governing service of process illustrate this problem by requiring litigants to find a third party to hand-deliver court papers to a defendant directly or to …