by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
Sarah Fowler needs your help. However, her pleas are not necessarily to chop into the mountain of probate cases on her desk. Rather, the 29-year Jacksonville Area Legal Aid paralegal needs the help for her clients.
“I have developed a huge backlog of probate cases,” said Fowler, who marked her 29th anniversary with JALA last week.
Fowler was a secretary for two years before becoming a paralegal. A variety of reasons combined to eliminate law school as a possibility. The lack of a law degree hasn’t diminished Fowler’s legal knowledge. Her office is lined with law books and there are files piled everywhere. What she needs, though, are more attorneys who can do the probate work that’s required by law for an attorney to perform.
“My backlog is at least 25 cases and some of them have been pending for 4-5 months,” she said.
Fowler said many of the attorneys that do work on the cases pro bono are taking more than one at a time. While that’s good, she also understands quite often those attorneys must put off the probate cases in order to finish cases at their paying jobs.
“I am trying to recruit from other sources,” said Fowler. “I am going crazy. We are turning away so many people.”
Probate cases involve what happens to someone’s property when they pass away and it either isn’t left to anyone or there isn’t anyone to claim it. In the case of a home, Fowler said there are often taxes that are owed or the home may be in some state of foreclosure. Often, the heirs may not know about either issue and need legal advice to help keep the home. However, they likely don’t have the ability to pay for private counsel and wind up in the JALA offices.
“It’s a vicious cycle,” said Fowler.
If you are interested in helping Fowler, you can call her at 356-8371, ext. 330 or you can log on to www.jaxlegalaid.org.