We will have a witness follow me who had a perfect small claims case but she did not know much about the small claims court, did not know her rights, where it was, anything.

I would like to make some suggestions.

1. Why can't the Senate or Congress make tax sharing money or other Federal funds available to the States and the District of Columbia to build up the small claims courts. There should be more courts and more justices. There should be more clerks and assistant clerks who can help common citizens file complaints correctly-in some areas if you don't get the precise name for the company— you're thrown out.

I think a clerk could be given leeway to help the people at least file their claims. I know the Kornhers told me before hand that they were given no information and were given rather sassy answers in Virginia.

By more courts, I mean more courts around where people live and shop-easily accessible. Why couldn't there be a main small claims court in any given city or county and then a series of small "circuit" claims courts scattered around the shopping centers? A judge could "ride circuit" with stops at various shopping centers in the evening or on weekends. The shopping center courts could be in store front space where people would see them every day and be welcomed to file complaints or just sit and listen to what's going on. They might even have a stand with booklets on citizens law on rents, contracts and other peoples' law subjects.

When the judge was not presiding in these minicourts, the space could be used for consumer and legal education purposes. Lectures could be scheduled by local lawyers and professors and booklets on citizens' legal matters could be available. Also there would be a trained clerk on hand to help people decide whether they could file a complaint and how it should be done.

Perhaps some minimum criteria could be formulated for the Nation's small claims courts-if the States wanted to get the money. They could have uniform monetary jurisdictions of say $1 on up to $1,000 or even $2,000.

I think you have to have the monetary jurisdictions raised to $2,000 and even $3,000, because you saw that the Kornhers easily had several thousand dollars that they spent and should be able to get back.

The courts could be plugged into a national "clearinghouse" system through weekly or monthly bulletins so judges could read what important or interesting cases came up in other areas and how they were handled.

I understand a Nader group has started a clearinghouse but I have been unable to locate it.

I think there should be ground rules which would prohibit or make very difficult the practice of "instant appeals" that we heard in the Kornhers case made by big companies when they lose in small claims courts.

I also think lawyers should be kept out of these courts except, of course, for the judges who may or may not be lawyers. Or, maybe it might be wise-and this is what I was referring to before, Senator

it may be wise for corporate defendants to be required to have a lawyer but arrange it so that the judge tones the lawyer down to the complainant's size, makes them equal.

Senator Cook. How do you do that in general?

Mr. WEAVER. I read about an interesting case in California, where the judge is quite a character. It is not a court of record and the attorney was objecting to this and that. The judge said, will you please sit down and when I want to hear from you, I will hear from you. He just shuts them up.

Senator Cook. In other words, you are making a distinction" between a lawyer for a defendant being arbitrary in relation to the matter rather than trying to solve the matter?

Mr. WEAVER. Yes, I think you should allow the plaintiff, who is not a lawyer, to say his own story and prevent the lawyer, as a representative of the company, from giving tough cross-examination or buffeting the witness, I think it will make for a fair hearing.

Senator Cook. How do you stop a reporter from asking all those questions he always asks? How do you tone him down?

I really have to say to you in all fairness, a lawyer is an officer of the court. If he violates those rules, a judge ought to step all over him and I do not think there is any question about it. But I do not quite understand what you say by toning down to the complainant's size.

I read what you are saying, but I cannot quite get its import.

Mr. WEAVER. Well, if you were to look at the District of Columbia Small Claims Court, you would see on some occasions the judge explaining what the lawyer said. In a sense, the judge sort of acts as an interpreter for the plaintiff and says you can answer in your own way, or you really do not have to answer.

Senator Cook. That is his responsibility, I feel.

Mr. WEAVER. He sort of assumes the responsibility of explaining to the other person what is going on, and their rights, and often literally tones down the lawyer by saying, just disregard that, or just take it easy; in very folksy terms telling him, when I want to hear from you, I will let you know.

Senator Cook. That is not confined to the District of Columbia Small Claims Court.

Mr. WEAVER. No; it is in California and others. But I think if you made the rules very open like that, it would give judges encouragement in the flexibility to be able to help the plaintiff understand, if need be, what the defendant is really saying.

Senator Cook. Do you not honestly find, for instance, in your small claims courts or in your magistrate courts, that very seldom do you really find any strict rule of evidence? I never have.

Mr. WEAVER. No; that is true. But you get some intimidation or abuse sometimes from attorneys.

Senator Cook. That is why I made that comparison between lawyers and reporters. You know.

Mr. WEAVER. That is true.

I have been told that when a small claims court requires a lawyer to be on the defendant's or the company's side, a number of companies will settle with the plaintiff ahead of time, because they do not

want to have to pay the lawyers' fees, which can be considerable if the lawyer has to interrupt his golf game on a Saturday morning.

I think funds ought to be made available to law schools to be able to provide students in court programs for third year law students. They have one here in Washington that is excellent. The students in court program in the District of Columbia has worked quite well. Local law students have been allowed to act as lawyers for indigent plaintiffs before small claims courts.

I think this program ought to be broadened to permit third year law students to act as advisors to anyone who wants to file a claim in small claims court, anyone, that is, who is a consumer. These students in court could act as assistant clerks in the shopping center minicourts and could advise citizens of their rights, their chances and "how to" information on the courts. For example, the Kornhers could have benefited very much from this advice on how to file. They said the local courts would not respond to some of the information that they asked.

I do not think bar associations should get steamed up about this because many lawyers do not want to take small claims cases anyway-unless they're on a retainer with a big company and even then they don't like it.

I don't know how much money it would cost to beef up the Nation's small claims courts, but I don't think it would cost much when you consider the great benefit that millions of alienated citizens would gain from it.

Finally, I don't think small claims courts should be slanted for or against business either. I do not think they should have just a consumer slant.

As a small businessman myself, I think there are many of us who could benefit from these courts and from advisory assistance given by the students in court programs.

As it stands now, these courts are usually restricted to suits of specific monetary amounts. There are no injunction powers. This should be studied to see if it might not be a bad idea to widen the minicourts jurisdiction.

Harassment cases come to mind where people are dunned for debts, sometimes illegally. Where people call you on the telephone at midnight or maybe 2 in the morning. The FCC says you cannot do this, but it is a ponderous long route trying to get from somewhere in Kansas City or Chicago to the FCC for help.

Most people do not know where the FCC is or what it is and they cannot afford to find out.

Part of the funds made available to the States and the District of Columbia should include education material. The minicourts whereabouts should be visible with radio, TV, and newspaper directions showing citizens where the courts are and how to use them.

Some local government consumer departments have already put out excellent booklets on how to use small claims courts-Montgomery County, Md., and New York City come to mind.

As for preventive law, I feel every family should have access to a family lawyer. This lawyer should be a G.P. or generalist who can advise on wills, tax matters, a homebuyer's contract and the like.

With a quick phone call or a short letter, many people could have avoided legal problems. I mention this family lawyer concept in my book "You, Inc." Perhaps lawyers could charge an annual fee of, say $50 to $100 or even less, and make themselves available for x number of phone calls or visits on an advisory basis.

Now, if the Kornhers had been able to have, instead of this settlement lawyer, whatever that is, if they could have had just a plain, good old feisty general practitioner lawyer who looked at that piece of paper the real estate people gave them before they even signed the first piece of paper, they may not be in the trouble they are in today.

This brings me to the prepaid legal fee concept which has taken hold in some communities. Consumers Group Legal Services was formed in the San Francisco area, providing members year-round legal advice plus subscriptions to legal education material. I'm a little suspicious of this on the grounds that it might tend to get lawyers too much involved in matters that could have been solved between consumers and sellers if only they'd been pushed into an arbitration situation such as the small claims court system.

If you've paid for legal advice, you tend to use it as a crutch instead of trying to work out your problem with your opponent.

Just a qualm I have about prepaid legal services. As for lawyer's referral services the idea is good but consumers too often tell me they are given names of lawyers who don't know the field in question (say patents) or are really not interested. I'd rather see the "students in court" program built up more to satisfy this advisory function. When a lawyer was really needed, a student could aim the citizen in the right direction.

That's it. I think if we open up the small claims courts and student programs, we can bring the law to the people.

As it stands now, most citizens are alienated and turned off by the law. It's one of our major inequities.

Thank you for listening.

Senator TUNNEY. Thank you. Mr. Weaver.

One of the personal experiences I have had was being made Judge Advocate in the Air Force and part of our responsibilities, as it turned out perhaps our major responsibility, was to give advice to members of the Armed Services regarding a whole panoply of civil problems that they might have. These included the drafting of wills, advising them on contracts that they might have for the purchase of a home, the purchase of Encyclopedia Brittanicas, and others. I recall when I was in the service, in our particular legal office on the base, with 4,000 personnel, we might see 50 men and women a day to give them legal advice.

Much of the advice that we gave was preventive law advice to help them stay out of trouble and to give them advice once they had gotten in trouble to help them get out of it. I became convinced that if citizens had greater access to lawyers, they would be much better off. I recall innumerable occasions when a serviceman was being harassed by a party with whom he had entered into a contract and the writing of one letter in legal phraseology was enough to end the harassment once and for all.

So I certainly agree with you that it is critical that we make this kind of legal service available to the average citizen, and of course, the question is what mechanism should be used.

You have made some very interesting suggestions-the use of law students, the use of citizen courts in shopping centers, and so on.

I was wondering if you ever had the opportunity to use the "revolver-blatt" in your own personal affairs. I am informed, for example, that you had your own consumer problem with an interstate moving company.

Mr. WEAVER. This was before I became a consumer writer and I was with Forbes Magazine as the Washington Bureau Chief. We live in McLean, Va., and we moved to Bethesda, Md., which seemed to me, if you moved from Virginia to Maryland, that it was an interstate move. Oh, no, we found out later that that is a local move because it is in the Greater Washington area. For example, you could live in New York or in New Jersey and move to Connecticut and it would still not be an interstate move because you are in a metropolitan area. So we just fell under the local rules, which were no rules at all.

I had been covering the Interstate Commerce Commission. I thought we had certain protections. We did not.

The estimate for our move was $325, including insurance and everything, and when the move was over, we were presented a bill of $740, which I thought was a bit much. I refused to pay it.

I was sued and I conferred with our family lawyer, whom I had just met. Had I talked to our family lawyer before I even signed up with the moving company, I do not think I would have had a problem. I did not get him until afterwards. Lawyers say, all too often, people come to them when the fire is going and when there are very few options left except court action.

They could steer them clear of these problems ahead of time.

Our lawyer assigned-he happens to believe in using new, young members in consumer cases a young man, a New York City law graduate. He took our case and we went to the People's Court in Rockville, Md., which provides quite an education.

Our young attorney was all set to make a whole series of legal points. He just threw that all out after he heard the Judge try his first case. The attorney said, "this is a country judge and I am just not going to bug him by bringing up all this legal stuff; I am just going to let you say it like it is and keep out of it."

We won our case. We did not have to pay. The Judge was very folksy. He said, "I don't see anything wrong here, I moved just the other day and a friend of mine moved down the street." The judge was talking to a nice audience of local citizens. He just told the company, "I don't see what you are talking about, you charged these people too much."

The company attorney said the law says so and so.

The judge said, "I don't care about the law in Virginia; this is Maryland. I don't think you have to pay." That was that.

They appealed it, because you can do that. We went on and had to go to court again. We insisted on a jury. They wanted just a judge. We showed up. They never showed up. The Judge was furious and