Richard Posner.

When retired Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner in March of 2018 launched The Posner Center of Justice for Pro Se's, it was a bold move to help a huge group of underserved litigants—non-lawyers trying (and usually failing) to navigate the legal system.

"We are just touching the surface, for there are reliably believed to be at least a million pro se's in the United States," Posner said in a news release at the time. "Many of those pro se's, however, don't realize they can obtain legal assistance. Therefore, I will continue to work to get the message out that our organization exists, and then try to assist as many deserving pro se's as possible."

In the end, it was apparently too much. 

The center quietly shut its doors when its board of directors dissolved the nonprofit corporation in late July. 

"The stated reason for the Posner Center's dissolution is that the center was receiving many more requests for assistance from pro se litigants than it could handle," a newly-posted announcement on the center's website states. "The mismatch was something on the order of 100 requests for assistance for every center staff member."

"Since the lawyers and non-lawyers of the Posner Center were assisting the pro se litigants free of charge, perhaps it was inevitable that the demand would greatly exceed the supply," the board continued. "Thus, this experiment in assisting pro se litigants with their ongoing court cases has sadly come to an end."

Posner did not respond to requests for comment via telephone and email. 

However, Brian Vukadinovich, who served as the center's executive director, called the board's statement "self-serving" and "nonsense." 

"Unfortunately there were lawyers involved in the Posner Center who were really not very interested in helping pro se's but were more interested in having their names connected to the Posner Center for selfish reasons," he said in an email. "[T]he problem was that most of the lawyers who signed up to be part of the Posner Center weren't willing to actually help the pro se's. As executive director I reached out to lawyers on a daily basis and asked them to help pro se's with their requests for help and almost every one of them would come up with a ridiculous excuse to not provide help." 

Still, I don't doubt the need for assistance was vast. 

I wrote a short piece last year when the Posner Center first launched—nothing special, just a straightforward account.

Since then, I've gotten at least one email a month from people who scaled Lit Daily's subscription wall to ask if I can help them reach Judge Posner. 

"I am a pro se litigant and desperately need help and guidance from Judge Posner," wrote one pro se in a typical message. "If you could shed light on how I can reach him, I would appreciate it." Others wanted me to tell Posner that the FBI is spying on him or talk about how judges "are unaccountable and engage risklessly in abuse of power for their own convenience and gain."

For me, it's been a peek into what I imagine the center faced as hordes of pro se litigants with cases that might—or might not—have had merit clamored for assistance. 

According to the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts, more than 78,000 federal civil cases filed in fiscal year 2017 were pro se—or about 30%. In state courts, the number is far higher. 

In September of 2017, Posner abruptly resigned from the Seventh Circuit. His reason? "I had come to realize albeit belatedly that my court was systematically unjust to pro se's," he wrote in a forward to a book by Vukadinovich, 

The center was a tangible way to strike back, to try to balance the scales of justice. 

Posner's first big case was on behalf of William Bond, who had filed a convoluted civil complaint against three federal judges, an FBI agent and a U.S. marshal. The district court judge curtly dismissed the case, rejecting Bond's efforts to amend his complaint without explanation. 

In his first post-retirement foray as an appellate advocate, Posner agreed to represent Bond.

It fell flat. 

Posner is without doubt an intellectual giant—the most-cited legal scholar of all time—but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit practically thumbed its nose at his appeal. In August of 2018, the court issued seven-page decision that didn't address the underlying point—that pro se litigants deserve better. The opinion didn't even contain the phrase "pro se."

Posner didn't give up. David Boies joined the team, filing a cert petition. It was denied.

Bond declined to comment about the Posner Center's closure, but said, "It was a delight, an honor, and also a lot of fun working with Dick in the Fourth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court. I am forever grateful to him for his interest in me and help with my case. And I hope that one day the Posner Center can be repositioned as a federal court appellate law clinic and advocacy group focusing on pro se litigation issues."

In the meantime, Posner in June signed on to serve as an adviser to Legalist, a San Francisco-based litigation funding start-up that says that it focuses exclusively on "David versus Goliath" cases that require less than $1 million in funding.

"The principal motive for my retirement was the failure of the court to treat litigants without financial resources fairly," Posner said in a statement issued by Legalist. "Litigation finance patches an important hole for businesses with valid claims who lack the funds to hire an attorney."