By Havilah Steinman Bakken
Ramsey County Law Library [in Saint Paul, Minnesota] hosts both a criminal law and a criminal expungement clinic to further its mission of access to justice for the community. I had the opportunity to chat with Shannon Stoneking, Director of the Law Library, to learn about these important clinics.
As background, Stoneking explained that she enjoys being a member and volunteering with LISP-SIS because this group is small enough so that you can get to know almost all the other members. This provides a great opportunity to share ideas and experiences. She finds it motivating and encouraging to have a shared vision with others who are trying to provide greater access to justice.
Q: What’s one of the most rewarding aspects of your role as law library director at Ramsey County Law Library?
A: Simple answer: helping people. In each encounter, I am hopeful to connect people with information and resources that address their concerns. It is equally rewarding to work within a community of law librarians who are inspired daily to help others.
In my role as a law librarian, I do my best to balance assisting and listening to people. I try to provide materials that might help get the patron started in the right direction. I sometimes view the interaction like the beginning of an adventure. When they ask me something that is unfamiliar, I will say to them, I am not sure how to answer your question, let us see what we can find out together.
Q: What’s one of the more challenging parts of your role?
A: Trying to strike that balance between offering assistance and creating an environment of support. Often times, people just want to be heard, so being able to share their stories of what has happened to them and have someone listen is extremely important. I’d say managing these expectations of how we can help can be one of the most difficult parts of my job. However, engaging people in a supportive and compassionate way can help facilitate a foundation where better understanding occurs within this process.
Q: How do the criminal law and the criminal expungement clinics contribute to the Ramsey County Law Library’s mission of access to justice?
A: The criminal law and expungement clinics supplement and expand on the available Ramsey County Law Library services. Sometimes the patron is looking for more than the information we have provided them. These clinics connect patrons with attorneys who can offer them legal advice.
The expungement clinic has several organizations supporting it, and we are always looking for more volunteers. During my time in [neighboring] Dakota County, I worked with the Volunteer Lawyers Network (VLN). In Ramsey County, I am able to work with court staff, the Volunteer Lawyers Network (VLN), and the Neighborhood Justice Center (NJC). In fact, I had an attorney stop by recently who was excited to help with the clinic.
Covid temporarily interrupted the expungement clinic service, and we just restarted in February of 2023. In September, we saw a record number of people come in to attend this clinic. The clinic generally starts with an overview of the forms. Then it’s handed over to the volunteer lawyer who answers other questions about the process, offers legal advice and helps patrons through their forms. They might discuss details with them like: Here is what the court is looking for in this section, and here is how you want to present your case. In some instances, a patron will leave the clinic with their forms all printed out and ready to file. It can be a lot of paperwork, so that is unfortunately not always the case. On days when we have multiple volunteers, they are able to meet with people one on one. We also have library staff reach out to the patron afterward to hear how it went and get feedback on the process.
Q: Do many patrons come in needing this type [criminal law and expungement] of help? Do you think these clinics are filling that need?
A: Yes, these clinics fill a gap for people who cannot afford a lawyer and do not know where to begin. Clinic services help people get started in the process and feeling more comfortable about what they need to do. Library staff do their best to explain this to patrons and reach a balanced service resolution with them.
Q: How long have these clinics been held at the library? Were there any changes implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic?
A: During COVID, both these clinics were totally on hiatus. Library staff had tons of people asking about expungement, so that was frustrating to not be able to provide this service. Prior to COVID, the clinic was quite well-attended. We had the luxury of both clinics, the expungement and criminal clinics, happening at the same time. Today, the expungement clinic is held in-person at the library once a month, and the criminal clinic is held telephonically every other week.
Q: How does the library promote and market these clinics?
A: The library posts about the clinics on the county website. We also share details on LinkedIn, our blog, and Facebook. We communicate with the local public libraries so they can share details with their own patrons. We have small bulletin boards within the courthouse as well with brochures available. Sometimes we mix these up by doing a brochure on another specific legal issue.
We are always re-evaluating our social media posts. We were surprised to see that we still had a lot of traffic on Facebook, with other organizations reposting about our events. Some of these organizations include county law libraries and state law libraries. Most of the traffic on LinkedIn is from attorneys and not necessarily patrons, but we believe that still spreads the word about the clinics. We also take advantage of promoting our law library when we get tour groups coming through to experience the city’s “hidden gem” sightseeing attractions from our historical building’s great views.
Q: Think about these clinics in 5 years. What will the experience look like? How will they be facilitated?
A: We’ve discussed expanding the expungement clinic to twice a month when the weather gets warmer. If it was twice a month we might see the numbers are spread out a little, but we still see great attendance.
Our criminal clinic has some weeks where it is super-busy and others where it is less utilized. It is strange because we receive so many calls about this service on days when we don’t have volunteers available. But when we have an attorney scheduled, it seems people might have already resolved the issues and don’t call back. I think the clinic would be better attended in person, but our current set up for volunteer attorneys is doing it remotely.
LISP/SR Blog 