1. The Signaling Effect of Pro Se Status:
Unrepresented Claimants Encounter Biases In the Civil Justice System
Victor Quintanilla*, Rachel Allen†, Edward Hirt†
* IU Maurer School of Law, † IU Psychological and Brain Sciences
Background – The Pro Se Phenomenon
Each year, millions of indigent and middle-income Americans encounter the civil justice system pro se, without legal representation (Legal Servs. Corp.; 2009; Rhode, 2004, 2009). Troublingly, when individuals press their claims pro se, they fail at virtually every stage of civil litigation (Nielsen, Nelson, & Lancaster, 2010).  Unrepresented claimants are less likely to receive early settlement offers and much more likely to have their case dismissed.  By and large, pro se claimants fail to receive materially meaningful access to justice.
As of yet, psychological science has not been harnessed to investigate the consequences of proceeding pro se or to examine the schemas, stereotypes, and biases that lawyers and legal officials hold of pro se claimants who allege civil rights violations.   *
Figure 2. Law students - Settlement dollars awarded by participant gender, at each dispute stage. Across all three stages, male law students awarded the plaintiff significantly less than female law students. The estimated gender difference averaged across all stages was $8,003, 95% CI [-$13,040, -$2,967].
Settlement Dollars Awarded by Stage – Gender Differences
p ≤ .05
Settlement Dollars Awarded by Stage – Signaling Effect
Figure 1. Law students – Settlement dollars awarded by representation condition, at each dispute stage. Across dispute stages, law students awarded the claimant less when she was pro se than when counseled. The estimated difference operating against the pro se claimant averaged across stages was -$4,709, 95% CI [-$9,745, $327]. +
p = .08
Settlement Dollars Awarded – Law Students
Law students awarded the claimant less money when she was pro se than when she was counseled.
Male law students awarded the claimant less money than female law students.
Discussion
The Signaling Effect
Unlike the public, law-trained individuals steeply discounted the value of the pro se party’s claim at virtually every stage of dispute handling.  As suggested by the signaling effect hypothesis, pro se status affects the value ascribed to civil rights claims.     
Law-trained persons, on average, perceived the claimant as moderately competent.  However, when unrepresented, the claimant’s pro se status decreased expectations and beliefs about her competence and hireability.
2) Gender Differences
Males ascribed less value to the gender discrimination claim than females, and males were more likely to derogate the claimant as a complainer, less hirable, and to perceive her failure-to-promote claim as less meritorious.
3) Legal Socialization
Those socialized within the legal profession assigned less value to the plaintiff’s claim when she was pro se than when counseled.   * *
We hypothesized that, while holding case merit constant:
1.) Signaling Effect of Pro Se Status.  Pro se claimants will receive worse material outcomes (i.e., smaller settlement awards) than counseled claimants.  Legal actors will hold negative stereotypes about pro se claimants.  
2.) Legal Socialization.  Bias against pro se parties will emerge as a function of socialization into the legal profession and will intensify with professional socialization.   
3.) Gender Differences.  Gender differences would emerge in the evaluation of the claimant and her claim with male participants evaluating the claimant and her claim more harshly than female participants.
Conclusion
The findings illuminate a psychological explanation for the divergence in material outcomes between pro se and counseled parties, one that offers support for the signaling effect hypothesis.
Existing access-to-justice interventions may be insufficient to ensure materially meaningful outcomes.
One possible intervention that deals directly with the psychological nature of this phenomenon: education with legal audiences about pro se parties, which could raise awareness about the negative stereotypes held about pro se parties, the supply-side and demand-side difficulties in obtaining counsel in particular legal contexts, and the gender difference in perceptions of gender discrimination claimants and claims.
Future qualitative and quantitative research should interrogate the content of and sources of these schemas, expectations, and biases.
Socialization Across the Legal Profession
The public awarded the claimant more money when she was pro se than when she was counseled, whereas law-trained participants awarded the claimant less money when she was pro se.
There was not a significant interaction between population and gender. *
Settlement Dollars Awarded by Population – Socialization Hypothesis
Figure 3. Results revealed a significant effect between pro se status and population. Across dispute stages, the public awarded pro se claimants more settlement dollars than counseled claimants (estimated difference of $7,901, 95% CI [$1,024, $14,777]). EEO lawyers awarded pro se claimants markedly less settlement dollars than counseled claimants (estimated difference of -$13,386, 95% CI [-$26,792, $20]).
p ≤ .05
Settlement Dollars Awarded by Population – Gender Differences
Figure 4. Across dispute stages, males awarded the gender discrimination claimant less than females. Male members of the public awarded less settlement dollars than females (estimated difference of -$12,674, 95% CI [-$19,550, -$5,797], and male law students awarded less settlement dollars than female law students (estimated difference of -$8,038, 95% CI [-$14,022, -$2,054]).
Methods
Populations
General public (N=157), law students (N=198), employment discrimination (EEO) lawyers (N=39)
Design and Procedure
Participants were randomly assigned to either the pro se or counseled condition (between-subject factor)
Reviewed a Title VII gender discrimination law suit at three chronological stages, which acted as a within-subject factor: 1) pre-suit demand, 2) summary judgment, and 3) trial
Answered measures that examined their perceptions of the claim and claimant
Measures
Settlement dollars awarded, perceived merit of claim, schema and stereotypes of the claimant (e.g. warmth, competence, considerate person, complainer, would hire)
References
Legal Servs. Corp., (2009). Documenting the justice gap in America: The current unmet civil legal needs of low-
income Americans, 1-13.
Nielsen, L. B., Nelson, R. L., & Lancaster, R. (2010). Individual justice or collective legal mobilization? Employment
discrimination litigation in the post Civil Rights United States. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 7, 175–201.
Rhode, D. (2004). Access to Justice.
Rhode, D. (2009). Whatever Happened to Access to Justice? 42 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 869, 869–70.