A tenant is handed an agreement in the hallway minutes before an eviction hearing, with a lawyer on the other side and nobody on theirs. Here is what a good system does, in order, with a question for you at each step.
This list comes from what the groups at a recent design workshop the Commons team ran said the work needs. Answer the questions on the parts you know from your own practice. The Commons team reads every answer, fixes what the list gets wrong, and takes the harder questions to the cohort working on this area.
The summons reaches every tenant, and right now it tells them almost nothing about where help is. Tenants who cannot read it, or who do not know they can appear, often do not come to court at all.
What a good system does
Say on the summons itself where the help is, including how to reach rental assistance.
Say what the court date is and what happens if the tenant does not come.
Reach a tenant who does not read English, in the languages people in that county speak.
Who decides what goes on the summons in your court?
Answer this
Part 2
Reaching the tenant before the court date
Everything that could change the outcome, including rental assistance and a conversation with the landlord, has to happen before the hearing. The point of this part is to get to the tenant while there is still time.
What a good system does
Let the tenant start from the notice, through a code, a link, or a phone number.
Work on a phone, and work for somebody with no internet access at home.
Walk the person through step by step rather than handing them a form.
Work in the languages people in that county speak.
Keep taking part voluntary.
How do tenants in your county get information before a hearing today?
Answer this
Part 3
Working out what the case is actually about
Tenants who come to court often do not know what rights they have, and cases turn on things nobody has looked at, including late fees and the condition of the home.
What a good system does
Take in what the lease says and what the conditions in the home are.
Tell the tenant what those mean for this case, including where a late fee is driving the eviction.
Tell the tenant what rights they have in their own situation, in words they can act on.
What it must never do
Tell a tenant they have no case because the tool could not find one.
What do tenants in your court not know that changes the outcome?
Answer this
Part 4
Checking the payment schedule against what the tenant can pay
Nothing in the process today checks whether the schedule in the agreement is one the tenant can actually meet, and a schedule they cannot meet brings them back to the same courtroom.
What a good system does
Ask what the tenant can pay, and check the schedule in the offer against it.
Say plainly when a schedule is one the tenant cannot meet.
Show what rental assistance could cover and what it would leave.
What it must never do
Put what the tenant entered into the public record.
What does a payment schedule a tenant can meet look like in your court?
Answer this
Part 5
Putting a person beside the tenant at the courthouse
The hallway is where the agreement gets signed, so the help has to be standing there rather than waiting to be found.
What a good system does
Make a community justice worker reachable before the court date and present on the day.
Give that person the same information the tenant has, so they are not starting cold.
Hand the tenant to a person whenever the situation needs judgment.
How does a tenant at your courthouse find help on the day?
Answer this
Part 6
Giving the tenant time to read before signing
The agreement is handed over minutes before the hearing, and a tenant signs something they have not read and nobody has explained.
What a good system does
Give the tenant the agreement in a form they can read, in their language, before anything is signed.
Explain what each term commits them to, including what happens when a payment is missed.
Say what help is still available at that moment.
What it must never do
Push a tenant toward signing.
What happens in the hallway at your courthouse before a hearing?
Answer this
Part 7
Leaving the tenant with a record afterwards
A tenant walks out with a piece of paper and no account of what was agreed or what they were told, and the next person who helps them starts from nothing.
What a good system does
Keep an account for the tenant that holds the agreement, what they were told, and the help they were given.
Let the tenant get back into it later, including from a different phone.
Keep what is in it out of the public record.
What do tenants need after the hearing that nobody gives them today?
Answer this
Part 8
Showing that it works
The groups were specific about how to judge a system here, and the measures below are what they asked for.
What a good system does
Test with real people and real cases before launch.
Measure where people stop partway through.
Follow outcomes over a long enough period to see whether tenancies were kept.
Keep taking part voluntary, and report how many people chose not to.
What would you need measured before you would send a tenant to this?
Answer this
What happens to what you write
Every note comes to the Commons team. We read it, correct what this list gets wrong, and publish a new version saying what changed. The questions that need practitioners to argue them out go to the cohort for this area, which writes the functional agenda and the standards from what comes back.
A note about one line is as useful as a note that adds a whole step. If what you know is what happens in the hallway at your courthouse, write about that.
The two agendas for this workflow
You are reading this one
Step-by-step agenda
This is the first round, and it collects what the people who do this work say a tool has to do, in the order the work happens and in plain words. Read it to argue with it, to correct it, and to say what your jurisdiction needs.
Not written yet
Functional agenda
The cohort writes the detailed specification after this round, using the answers that come back from this page. It numbers every capability, states the standard each one has to meet, and sorts them by the scope of the system being built, so a builder can build against it and an evaluator can test against it.
