Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara, Assembly Chair of the Rural Resources Commission, announced a package of legislation designed to help those living in rural communities more easily access affordable court services.

“The unique challenges of rural New York communities are often overlooked or underappreciated,” said Assemblyman Santabarbara. “I’m putting forth this legislative package to help remove the barriers that prevent rural residents from accessing our courts and critical legal services. As Assembly Chair of the Commission on Rural Resources, I’m working to advance a comprehensive agenda that takes on the issues facing rural communities statewide and makes sure our communities are not left out of the state’s recovery plan.”

While New York has the largest concentration of attorneys in the United States, only around 5,550 of the state’s approximately 183,000 registered attorneys live and practice in rural areas.^[1] Additionally, many of these attorneys do not offer legal services to the general public, making the actual number of attorneys available to rural New Yorkers even smaller.

Santabarbara’s bills would: 

• Eliminate filing fees for wills filed for safekeeping in the surrogate’s court, allowing solo practitioners who handle large numbers of will filings to keep their rates down (A.6444/S.5292);
• Authorize the creation of an electronic filing program for commencement of civil actions and proceedings and filing and service of papers in town and village courts, which would provide remote New Yorkers easier access to the court system as well as allow attorneys who are not physically present in a rural community to serve remotely (A.6432/S.5293); and
• Raise the jurisdictional amount for small claims cases from $3,000 to $10,000, allowing rural New Yorkers to more optimally utilize the court system and avoid the costlier filing fees at Supreme Courts (A.6446/S.5294).

[1] nysba.org/lawyer-shortage-in-small-town-ny-nysba-takes-lead-to-address-growing-rural-justice-crisis