In 2003, Tara Veazey, then a staff attorney for Montana Legal Services Association (MLSA), launched the Eastern Montana Self-Help Law Project (SHLP) with seed money from the Echoing Green Foundation and the Initiative for Public Interest Law at Yale. Having completed a two year pilot stage, the Project now will begin expanding statewide.

During its first two years, the Project has brought much needed legal resources to the most under-served regions of Montana. The geographic and demographic profile of eastern Montana makes the delivery of legal services to the area a unique challenge. Eighteen percent of the population is living below poverty. MLSA currently has only one part-time attorney providing direct representation to residents in a region roughly the size of Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont combined. The result is that poor people are being systematically denied even the most basic access to our legal system - and the rights and remedies it promises. From the domestic violence survivor trying to keep herself and her children safe, to the low-income tenant trying to recover his safety deposit, to the disabled veteran trying to get access to public benefits, our justice system is failing Montana's most vulnerable.

The Eastern Montana Self-Help Law Project, with its innovative delivery of legal education, advice, and self-help materials, is providing valuable resources to empower this population with the option of handling their own legal problems and, in some cases, representing themselves in court. The project is more than just a cost-effective way to serve a population without other legal options; it is premised on the powerful idea that with meaningful education, assistance, and advice, people can be empowered to solve their own legal problems.

In addition, the SHLP has significantly increased the self-help legal resources available statewide. The Project has created self-help forms for divorces, parenting plans, modifications of parenting plans, name changes, guardianships, and emancipations. It also has created dozens of community education articles to inform low-income Montanans about their legal rights and responsibilities in areas ranging from housing to consumer law. The SHLP has been such a success in eastern Montana that courts and organizations in western Montana are now requesting its services as well.

This fall self-help workstations will be started in Helena and Lewistown. As increased funding becomes available, the SHLP will be expanding to rural locations statewide. Ms. Veazey says, "I and many others are working to ensure that the legendary beauty of Montana is more than skin deep- that all of the residents in the state have access to justice as well as 'big skies.'" With the expansion of the SHLP, Montana will be one step closer to that dream.