A tenant finds a notice on the door saying they have to leave, and learns that an eviction case was filed, went past them, and ended in a judgment. Here is what a good system for reopening it does, in order, with a question for you at each step.
This list comes from a prototype packet drafter and procedural coach, from the attorneys who reviewed it, and from what its own testing found, including where it failed. The parts covering filing and the hearing are the least tested, and no tenant facing an eviction has used it yet.
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.
Working out whether this is the right motion and how long is left
The tenant is often in crisis and has hours or days. What the system can do here is explain the route and the clock. Whether the motion is worth filing, and whether it will succeed, is not for a tool to say.
What a good system does
Say in plain words what a motion to set aside does and does not do, and leave the decision to file with the tenant.
Ask for the dates that drive everything, which are when the papers were served, when the default was entered, when judgment was entered, and whether a lockout is scheduled.
Say how much time is left and put the urgent steps first, because delay weakens the motion and relief after a lockout is harder to get.
Stay inside eviction cases, and say so, rather than taking a case the rest of the system does not fit.
Keep the emergency route for a scheduled lockout separate, and show it only to the tenants who face one, because many do not.
What it must never do
Tell a tenant that they qualify, that their case is strong, or that the motion will be granted.
How much time does a tenant in your county really have at this point?
Answer this
Part 2
Finding the case and getting the details right
A misspelled name or a wrong digit in a case number is enough for a clerk to reject the filing, and the tenant often has nothing to copy from except the notice that was posted on the door.
What a good system does
Take the case number, the parties, and the addresses once, and carry them into every document without asking again.
Check what is entered and warn on a name, a date, or a case number that cannot be right.
Say where to find the case number when all the tenant has is the notice to vacate.
Warn when the court’s online record will not show the case, such as where eviction records are withheld for a period, and say to call the clerk.
Read the proof of service when the tenant can upload it, and point out the date, the time, the method, and who the server says received the papers.
What makes a case lookup fail in your county?
Answer this
Part 3
Gathering the records and labeling them
What the tenant brings is a bag of receipts, screenshots, and letters. Turning that into a labeled set the declaration can point to is the part practitioners who reviewed the prototype valued most.
What a good system does
Take photographs, screenshots, and scans, because that is the form these records arrive in.
Label each upload as an exhibit, keep a short description in the tenant’s own words, and compile an index.
Keep the records that support the motion apart from the records that support a defense to the eviction itself, since they do different jobs.
Name court documents the way the court names them, because what a tenant was handed is not always titled the way a checklist calls it.
Say when a copy has to be bought from the court, and when a fee waiver covers that cost.
What do you always have to send people back for?
Answer this
Part 4
Drawing out why the response window was missed
This interview is the hardest part of the work and the part that decides the motion. It has to get a specific account out of somebody who is frightened, and it has to keep pressing when the first answer is a denial.
What a good system does
Ask what happened during the response window in the tenant’s own words, and keep asking until the account is specific.
Press past a denial, because a statement that the tenant was never served does not by itself answer a server’s sworn proof of service.
Carry prompts for the reasons that actually come up, including a stay in hospital, a disability, papers left with somebody who does not live there, papers posted on the wrong door, mail that never arrived, a summons in a language the tenant cannot read, and a belief that paying the rent ended the case.
Hold the facts and the human account together, so the declaration carries what happened and why the tenant could not act.
Refuse to draft until enough has been collected, and say what is still missing.
What it must never do
Follow the tenant off the subject, or let unrelated conversation reach the document.
Carry an accusation nobody can support toward a statement sworn under penalty of perjury.
What do you ask a tenant to get past “I never got the papers”?
Answer this
Part 5
Drafting the declaration
The declaration is sworn, so a polished paragraph the tenant did not say is worse than a rough one they did. Testing showed stressed people accept a good-looking draft without reading it.
What a good system does
Draft only from what the tenant said and uploaded, with every factual sentence traceable back to the answer it came from.
Title the declaration so it names the motion it supports.
Refer to the records by their exhibit labels, in the form a court expects, rather than saying a receipt could be produced later.
Give the tenant the draft to read and change, and say plainly that they are signing it under penalty of perjury.
Put a verification step between reading the draft and downloading it, so nobody takes it on trust.
What it must never do
Produce a declaration from an interview that ended early, with blanks left in it.
What makes a declaration work in front of your judges?
Answer this
Part 6
Building the rest of the packet
The rest of the packet is formulaic, which is why it is assembled rather than written. The legal argument is the one part a model has no business generating, because an invented citation is fatal and nobody in the room can catch it.
What a good system does
Produce the documents together, which are the notice of motion, the written legal argument, the declaration, the proposed order, a proposed answer where one is needed, and the fee waiver request with the order that goes with it.
Take the legal argument from templates a lawyer has approved and locked, with the grounds selected rather than composed.
Title every document the way the court titles it, so a clerk and a judge can see what each one is.
Follow the court’s formatting, including the numbered pleading lines, the caption, and where the hearing details belong.
Leave out a document this case does not need, such as a proposed answer when an answer was already filed.
Mark what is local, since the forms, the case lookup, and the filing steps change from county to county.
What it must never do
Write case law or legal argument of its own.
What gets a packet rejected at the window in your court?
Answer this
Part 7
Reserving the hearing, serving, and filing
A tenant who walks away with a finished packet and no hearing date has nothing. The paperwork is one barrier among several, and the procedural steps are where self-represented people lose.
What a good system does
Walk the tenant through reserving the hearing, since the rest of the filing depends on having that date.
Count the filing deadline in court days and show the date it falls on.
Say who has to be served, by when, in what way, and how service is proved.
Hold the packet back until the hearing is reserved, rather than letting a tenant leave with documents and no date.
End with one page that lists what is done, what is left, and when each remaining step is due.
What it must never do
File or serve anything itself.
What are the steps in your county between a finished packet and a filed motion?
Answer this
Part 8
Getting ready for the hearing
A tenant can know which courtroom to walk into and still have no idea what to say in it. This is also the part of the prototype that was never tested, so the cohort should treat everything here as unproven.
What a good system does
Tell the tenant where to go, when, and what to bring.
Go through what the judge is likely to ask, and let the tenant practice saying why they did not respond in time.
Remind the tenant before the date and check that they are going.
Make it possible for an attorney or a trained worker to read the case beforehand and stand with the tenant on the day.
What would a tenant need to know to get through one of these hearings?
Answer this
Part 9
Keeping a person responsible for what leaves
Adversarial testing of the prototype found it would accept off-topic input as fact and carry unsupported allegations toward a sworn declaration. A tenant days from a lockout cannot catch those mistakes, because they do not know what to look for.
What a good system does
Require a trained reviewer to approve the packet before a tenant relies on it, and block the download until that happens.
Give the reviewer one screen holding the packet, the interview, the uploads, and whatever the tenant changed.
Keep a record of what the reviewer approved and what they altered.
Keep the tenant in the room, so the system supports the conversation between a worker and a tenant rather than standing in for it.
Name the organization that owns the legal review, the hosting, and the maintenance before any of this runs on a real case.
What would somebody in your office need in front of them to sign off on a packet?
Answer this
Part 10
Handling what the tenant hands over
The uploads include health records, disability documentation, bank statements, and court papers naming where the tenant lives.
What a good system does
Collect only what the packet needs.
Keep the data inside the hosting organization’s own environment, with storage, retention, and deletion written down.
Ask for consent in words the tenant understands, and say what happens to what they upload.
Control who can open a case and keep a log of who did.
What would your organization require before a tenant’s records went through a system like this?
Answer this
Part 11
Knowing whether it works
A packet can look finished and still be rejected at the window, and a tenant can follow every screen and still miss the filing date.
What a good system does
Run a set of cases whose facts are known, covering defective service, papers left with somebody who does not live there, papers posted on the wrong door, a stay in hospital through the whole response window, a tenant who answered but missed the trial date, and two tenants on one case with different grounds.
Score the packet against a checklist an attorney confirmed, rather than against whether it looks complete.
Measure the reviewer’s time against the 4 to 5 hours this work takes by hand.
Ask the tenant to say what happens next in their own words, because following a screen does not mean they will act on it.
Watch where people stop partway through, and how long the whole process takes somebody who has hours rather than days.
Write the evaluation, including the condition that stops the pilot, before the pilot starts.
What would you need to see before you let a tenant file a packet built this way?
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 detailed specification 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 how hearings are reserved in your county, 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.
