Walking Free-Clinic Clients Down the Aisle to Divorce

The word “volunteerism” usually conjures up images of children visiting convalescent homes, adults delivering food to shut-ins and civic-minded residents teaching at-risk children to read.

But with just a few hours of his time, attorney Scott Klopert can change women’s and men’s lives in ways few others can. He helps low-income people stuck in abusive or loveless marriages get out and move on with their lives.

Twice a month, Klopert drops his $150 hourly rate to nothing, drives from his Burbank office to the Westside and sets up a divorce shop at the Los Angeles Free Clinic near the Beverly Center.

“Many of the women that come here haven’t seen their husbands in a long, long time,” Klopert said.

He starts his divorce classes by passing out an intimidating stack of legal papers. And because a simple mistake can spit the papers back from court, he takes clients through each document page by page, line by line, showing which boxes to check and which to skip, what papers to file and which to copy.

“I deal with this every day,” he says to his attentive students. “And you don’t.”

Klopert, who graduated from Pepperdine Law School in 1997, is also good for some practical advice to ease his clients’ stress, such as which lines to avoid at the busy Los Angeles Superior Court downtown, how to best win over surly clerks and where to find all-day parking for $6.

During class, details emerge of soured marriages, regrettable quickie nuptials and physical or emotional abuse. The sessions can be depressing and exhilarating, sometimes at once. Most folks seem to just want to get it over with.

Klopert started a recent Monday night session decidedly upbeat.

“At the end of this, you’ll all be divorced!” he said, clapping his hands.

Nervous tension filled the room. A pretty 27-year-old woman stared at the paperwork. A man with a mane of dreadlocks swung his feet back and forth under a table.

“It’s tough for people to tell a total stranger the intimate details of their life,” Klopert said, “even though others are going through the same thing.”

Each year, more than 1,200 clients resolve uncontested divorces, bankruptcies and immigration snafus with help from 50 volunteer attorneys and paralegals at the Los Angeles Free Clinic, which also receives some 10,000 callers a year on its legal hotline.

With attorney rates skyrocketing to $300 or more an hour, legal advice in Los Angeles is out of reach for many.

As a result, many stay in bad marriages simply because they do not know how to get out, said Mary Rainwater, executive director of the Los Angeles Free Clinic.

“Others are forced to pay high attorney’s fees, and perpetuate their financial distress,” she said.

Klopert said he sees little difference between clients from his regular family law practice and those from the clinic.

“They all have the same fears and anxieties,” he said.

But instead of just signing on the dotted line, Klopert teaches his Free Clinic clients the cathartic experience of empowerment--of filing for divorce in pro per--on their own.

“A lot of people really grow from this, and that’s a good thing.”

For more information on services or volunteer opportunities, call the Los Angeles Free Clinic at (323) 653-8622 or the legal hotline at (323) 655-2697 from noon to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.

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