URBANA – After a Champaign County judge ruled in her favor in a small claims case against the man who had done poor work installing a floor in her home, Tara Allen said she just looked at the judge and asked 'What next?'

"I feel like I'm 6 because I'm looking up at this man on a bench in a robe and he's giving me this look like, 'How can you not know this?'" the 33-year-old Champaign woman said.

Ultimately, the judge directed her to the self-help desk on the first floor of the courthouse, where retired Champaign attorney Bob Spencer has been working 15 hours a week for the past year helping folks just like Allen.

"He was so nice. Having to go to court was such an odd experience. It was so nice to have somebody you could talk to and didn't have to pay $200 an hour," said Allen.

But come Dec. 1, if the county board agrees with the recommendation of Court Administrator Roger Holland, there won't be a person to help legal novices navigate the court system.

Last month, in a budget-trimming move, Holland informed Valerie McWilliams, managing attorney of the Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation, that the county will no longer pay the $12,000 a year that has kept the program, launched in 2005, going.

Through the end of July, 948 people had been served in 2010. Projecting that 2,000 people will use the help desk this year, that means Spencer is doling out help to the tune of about $6 a person.

"It's not about how valuable the program is," Holland said. "The problem is that the law library fund, which is the fund that provides support for that operation, is going to be depleted if we make that kind of expenditure. We're spending more than we're taking in. We cannot continue to do that and make it viable."

Although a sliver of the county's approximately $32 million general fund, the cut is yet another in a long line of services that the county can no longer afford for courthouse users. For example, employees in the state's attorney's office who assist victims and witnesses have had their hours cut, and there are fewer jurors being called in monthly.

"It is important when people go to court they have a sense that they can tell their story to a judge and that he or she is going to listen and make a decision," said Joe Dailing, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Equal Justice, a group committed to helping citizens with access to the courts.

"The frustration comes when they go into a structured system, don't understand, and often come out frustrated. And so are the judges because they can't tell them what to say. The court has to preserve a position of neutrality. It's frustrating for everybody. It erodes respect for the judicial system."

Allen can attest to the frustration part. Although the judge ruled in her favor, she later learned the man she was suing filed for bankruptcy. She went to Spencer for guidance on what to do with a form she received.

"I'm faced with all this legal mumbo-jumbo and I have no idea what it means. I had a deadline where I had to file an objection against him getting relief. Well, I'm not against him getting relief, but I am against him not having to pay me," she said.

Spencer helped her fill out the form and she now realizes the chances of her getting money from him are slim, but she is glad she went through the process.

"Without him (Spencer), I probably would not have done anything and it would have eaten away at me. It's not the money. He gets away with shoddy work," she said of the contractor.

Outgoing county board member and long-time defense attorney Steve Beckett of Urbana, called the decision to eliminate the help desk disappointing.

"This is a big problem for citizens who come to court and have no one to turn to. The amount of money is relatively small and comes from a fund that seems ideally suited for helping the public find what they need to wind their way through the court system," he said.

County Administrator Deb Busey confirmed that revenue for the library fund comes from filing fees in civil cases. For the fiscal year ending Nov. 30, revenue is projected at $68,000. From that, the part-time law librarian's salary is paid as is the subscription to an online legal research service for the public defender's office. Next year, it will also pay for the judges' access to that service. If library funds weren't used for those items, the money would have to come out of the chronically strapped general corporate fund, Holland said.

Busey confirmed that in November 2009 there was a balance of $127,561 in the library fund. But with spending for the self-help desk and other expenses attributed to that line item, it's projected to be at just under $63,000 by November 2011.

"They were appropriating (for the help desk) from fund reserves and you can't do that forever," Busey said.

Dailing and McWilliams both noted that because of the recession there are more people – Dailing calls them the "recently poor" – who cannot afford the services of lawyers but really need them.

McWilliams pointed to an American Bar Association survey of state judges released in July that indicated fewer parties in civil cases are being represented by lawyers, and in the opinion of most of the judges, the outcomes of those cases are worse for it.

Judge Chase Leonhard deals with litigants in small claims cases, many of whom come in with little knowledge of the legal system and no lawyer. While lamenting the shut down of the help desk, Leonhard said he knows the decision was "considered at length, made in good faith and virtually compelled by current budgetary constraints."

Spencer, the current self-help rep, said he deals with a "fair number" being foreclosed on.

"I can give them answer forms. Generally, there's nothing that can be done (to stave off foreclosure) but at least they've filed an answer and don't feel they've been totally shut out by the system," he said.

Spencer said he also helps a lot of people seeking to evict roommates and people needing a divorce.

"I had a woman who hadn't seen her husband since 2006. There's a procedure where you can get the divorce part by publication," he said.

In addition to knowing how to navigate the legal system, Spencer acts as a part-time counselor.

"Generally they come in frustrated and even if I can't do anything for them, I usually have enough time to listen to them. They tell me what they've been through. That seems to be helpful to people. Walking into a courthouse when you've never been there is a pretty frightening experience. People will just kind of wander around or go to the clerk's desk. I think three-fourths of the people I get have been referred to me by the circuit clerk because they need more help than the clerk can provide. I occasionally get people sent down by the judges," he said.

Circuit Clerk Linda Frank said some days "all the benches on the first floor are filled because people are waiting to talk to the self-help office."

Frank said her office tries to make forms as accessible as possible both on her web site and at the front counter in the courthouse lobby but her employees are not authorized to give people advice.

"We give them options but they have to choose for themselves. They want us to tell them what to do and we can't do that," she said. "With the economic condition of the county we can only offer what we're legally obligated to provide. In going over a form with someone, we can't tell them what to say. We don't have the time for that."

In addition to the obvious negative effect of losing a valuable service, Frank said people going into court ill-prepared could result in a "bottleneck" in the legal process because judges will have to ask litigants to return when they have the forms filled out correctly.

Beckett's sympathies for the help desk notwithstanding, he concedes that county board members are loathe to second guess department heads about their spending cuts. Nonetheless, the county board has the ultimate authority over the final budget.

"If this is a victim of what's happening in the economy, it's truly sad," said Beckett.