LearnTheLaw :: Legal Aid of Western Ohio, Inc.

Sample Form Answer Packet for SRLN Contest

This class is to share a sample Form Answer Packet for the Self Represented Litigation Network's Forms Contest. This class and form is intended to only demonstrate the Form Answer Packet and is not intended for actual use in court at this time.

For complex documents like Answers, with many different potential defenses, form documents can become overwhelming and consist of many pages of checkboxes.  In addition, these type of form answers are sufficient to meet notice pleading requirements, but may not assert the facts that the self-represented client will have to establish in court.  The Form Answer Packet attempts to solve this problem by allowing a user to build an Answer with only the Affirmative Defenses relevant to their case by placing each Affirmative Defense on a separate page.

Another benefit of the process to create the Multi-page Answer is that it can be easier and less time-consuming to create additional forms and instructions because the template uses a process and a spreadsheet with the substantive content.  The QR codes on the forms will allow OCR to recognize the Affirmative Defenses raised if/when legal aid starts collecting and analyzing bulk data from courts.