Court Observation Onboarding
Don’t Evict Portland is a collective of community members to prevent, delay, and reduce the harm evictions, and to build tenant power. We view any attempt to displace someone by force, by threat, or by dishonesty as an eviction. These include self-help evictions, and street encampment evictions or sweeps. Many evictions are funneled through the county circuit court, which are operating despite the patchwork of ‘eviction moratoriums.’ As such, a major part of our work is to observe the court proceedings, take notes, pick-up on themes and trends, and report that information to the community broadly.
Information gathered through court observation is also used to build resources for tenants who are facing current or upcoming court cases. These proceedings are purposefully daunting and complicated. Many tenants don’t show up at all or show up without support. Our goal is to arm tenants with an understanding of the proceedings and their options. The more we see what happens in the court and how cases are won/lost, the more our resources will evolve. We have also noticed that by observing court we affect how judges act. Judges indeed act differently when they realize they are being watched.
How Court Observation Works:
Currently, Eviction Court is happening Mon-Fri from starting at 9:00am at the county circuit courthouse in downtown Portland. Proceeding participants and observers are able to attend court in-person (there is a 15 person limit per courtroom, and observers have the lowest priority) or virtually via Webex video conference or by phone.
As a volunteer, you get to pick which of the methods of observation works best for you – but please be aware that the training we will provide will vary depending which method(s) you chose. Your introduction email should have provided you with instructions for the training for observation method(s) you chose. If you need that information again or if you want to change method(s) of observation you are interested in contact us at dontevictpdx@gmail.com
Each week, we pull the docket for the week (this is the list of all of the court cases that are scheduled to appear that week) and make it available to observers HERE < Weekly Court Docket. For each day that you are observing, this will give you a good reference point for names, case number, and type of hearing - which will be important pieces of info in your notes. It will also give you a sense of how long the day will be, based on how many cases are scheduled.
Observer Roles: Note Takers & Back-Up Observers
Note Takers are expected to observe the assigned courtroom for the duration of the dockets and take notes to be submitted to the collective for data analysis. No matter how you plan on observing court proceedings it is important that you have a system to take notes quickly and effectively. It does not matter how you take during the proceedings (written, typed, or other) what matters is that you are able to take down the relevant information in a way that makes sense to you and can be submitted to the collective for our database. (More on how to submit notes below).
Plan on practicing a few different methods of note taking, to find the style and system that works best for you..
Back-Up Observers can observe for the whole proceeding or portions thereof and are welcome to take notes to supplement the primary notes, but it is not expected. Being a Back-Up Observer is a great way to deepen your understanding of the court proceedings and support each other. It can be nice to have back channel communications with other people who are observing court on the same day, but is not required.
For each day the court is in session we need one Note Taker per courtroom. In addition, there can be as many or as few Support Observers per courtroom as are available on a given day.
Schedule Yourself for a Shift:
At the beginning of each month, we will email all active volunteers that month’s Observation Shift Schedule. Shifts are available on a first come basis. Please prioritize taking open Note Taker shifts, so that we have at least one person in each courtroom each day. If someone has already signed up as the Note Taker on a day you are interested in observing, sign-up as a Back-Up Observer.
For Reference, take a look at our EXAMPLE OBSERVATION SHIFT SCHEDULE HERE
Why Do We Take Notes in Tenant/Landlord Court?
In addition to the goals listed above, we gather vital information by observing court matters. We are beginning to build an actual database with the intent to find tenants or housing complexes we can do outreach to in order to preemptively fight against evictions before they happen. If we can track vulture landlords and their lawyers, we can apply pressure in strategic ways that may significantly impact their abilities to run their eviction machines. We are also accumulating data for journalists, community legal aid and researchers.
How to Submit your Notes for the Database:
In any given day, you may observe and take notes on anywhere between 3 and 20 cases. Some of them will be short - first appearances and ex parte matters and will require simple notes. Others will be long and require more detailed notes - trials or motion hearings for non-compliance. Notes from each case will need to be submitted to the collective individually. We have made an online webform for these submissions. You can access it online at bit.ly/submitcourtnotes
Familiarize yourself with this form, it will begin to make more sense, the more court sessions you watch. Please review it to see which information is required and which information is optional (info that may not be relevant to every case). Within 24 hours of your Note Taker shift, please transfer your notes into the webform and submit them. Remember - you need to submit one form PER case called that day.
Refer to the docket while taking notes: We will supply the information that the court is listing for the cases each day (you can also access this yourself on the court’s website but we make it easy for you). The weekly docket will always be available at this link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AqKSs6IKap7JpXHuRv5CR4kzpI7bmXzySVP4EdbhAQ4/edit?usp=sharing
We have selected this format because it is the simplest way to input a lot of data into our database. If for any reason you are unable or have difficulty re-typing your notes into a webform, contact us at dontevictpdx@gmail.com and we will work with you to find an alternative option. We aim to make all of the roles within Don’t Evict PDX accessible to all volunteers.