Self-represented litigants—people who handle a case without an attorney—appear across nearly every major court setting. The available figures range from 27% of U.S. district-court civil cases to 91.1% of California small-claims proceedings, while family-law and housing courts show especially high demand for self-help services.
Table of contents
- Federal civil and appellate courts
- State case types
- Family-law prevalence and court demand
- Who self-represents and why
- Timing and case outcomes
- Representation gaps in debt and eviction cases
Federal civil and appellate courts
The federal district-court figures cover civil cases filed from 2000 through 2019. During that period, U.S. district-court civil pro se filings were generally stable, with one notable exception: filings increased 20% in 2016. At least one plaintiff or defendant was self-represented in 27% of all federal district-court civil cases filed during the period. These figures describe filings over a long historical window, not a current annual rate. U.S. Courts, “Just the Facts: Trends in Pro Se Civil Litigation from 2000 to 2019”
The federal district-court caseload was heavily shaped by prisoner litigation. Prisoner petitions made up 69% of the federal civil pro se caseload from 2000 through 2019, and plaintiffs were self-represented in 91% of those prisoner-petition filings. Civil-rights actions accounted for another 14% of the federal civil pro se caseload. By contrast, only 11% of non-prisoner federal civil filings involved a self-represented plaintiff or defendant.
Within selected federal case categories, self-represented defendants appeared in 76% of pro se forfeiture or penalty cases, 58% of pro se contract-action cases, and 66% of pro se intellectual-property cases. Those percentages describe the specified categories in the federal pro se caseload; they should not be read as the share of all forfeiture, contract, or intellectual-property cases in federal court.
Federal appellate data provide a more recent snapshot. In fiscal year 2025, the 12 U.S. regional courts of appeals received 41,824 filings. Pro se litigants filed 20,878 appeals, equal to 50% of new filings, and the number of pro se appeals rose 9% compared with fiscal year 2024. U.S. Courts, “U.S. Courts of Appeals — Judicial Business 2025”
Prisoner matters again represented a substantial part of the appellate total. Prisoner petitions were 35% of all pro se filings in the regional courts of appeals. Of 8,430 prisoner petitions received in fiscal year 2025, 88% were filed pro se. Of 3,544 original proceedings and miscellaneous applications, 85% were filed pro se.
State case types
State-court self-representation rates vary sharply by case type. A National Center for State Courts compilation of a California judicial time study, conducted in the early 2000s, reported the following share of proceedings in which at least one party was self-represented:
| California proceeding type | At least one self-represented party |
|---|---|
| Small claims | 91.1% |
| Infractions | 83.1% |
| Unlawful detainer | 81.1% |
| Lower misdemeanors | 58.2% |
| Appeals from lower courts | 44.4% |
| Other civil petitions | 41.2% |
| Family proceedings | 35.3% |
| Habeas corpus | 26.7% |
| Higher misdemeanors | 23.8% |
| Other civil complaints | 13.5% |
| Civil proceedings under $25,000 | 11.5% |
| Probate | 6.5% |
The comparison shows why a single “self-representation rate” can be misleading. Small claims, infractions, and unlawful-detainer proceedings in this early-2000s California study had rates above 80%, while probate and lower-value civil proceedings had much lower reported rates. The study’s dates and California setting matter: these are not nationwide current estimates. National Center for State Courts, “Self-Represented Litigants: What We Know”
The same source reported that self-represented litigants in a five-jurisdiction study were primarily ages 25 to 44. In the study’s college-town site, 45.5% had a college degree and 18.2% had a postgraduate degree. Those education figures apply to that site, not to all self-represented litigants.
Family-law prevalence and court demand
Family law is one of the settings in which self-representation is especially visible. Justice Canada estimated that 40% to 57% of parties appearing in Canadian family-law court were self-represented, using provincial and territorial statistics reported in 2012. Court estimates in the same material placed the share of Canadian family-law parties who were unrepresented when cases opened at 64% to 74%. Justice Canada, “Self-Represented Litigants in Family Law - JustFacts”
These Canadian figures include ranges rather than one national point estimate. Canadian judges, lawyers, and family-justice professionals estimated that 50% to 80% of parties in civil or family actions were self-represented in a survey reported by Justice Canada and published in 2013. Canadian court staff reported dealing with 2 to 3 self-represented litigants per day and spending 2 to 3 hours per case dealing with them. Family-law cases represented 50% of civil court events in the Justice Canada summary.
Maryland provides a U.S. example of service demand. At least one party was unrepresented in 80% of Maryland circuit-court family-law cases in fiscal year 2017. Maryland District Court self-help resource centers assisted 13,383 unrepresented people that year, while Maryland Family Law Self-Help Centers served 53,163 unrepresented people. The Maryland Courts’ remote self-help center assisted more than 55,000 unrepresented people. Maryland Courts, “New report highlights services for people who come to Maryland’s courts without an attorney”
Demand for Maryland’s remote self-help center increased 77% from fiscal year 2016 to fiscal year 2017. More than 76% of visitors to the Maryland Family Law Self-Help Centers reported annual income below $50,000 in fiscal year 2017. These service counts measure contacts or people assisted, not necessarily unique court cases or the total number of unrepresented parties.
Who self-represents and why
The available research does not support a single profile. The five-jurisdiction study found that self-represented litigants were primarily ages 25 to 44. At the college-town site, substantial shares had college or postgraduate degrees, indicating that self-representation is not limited to people without higher education. Across the study sites, 23% to 41% reported receiving help from a lawyer or legal clinic.
Court information is another part of the support picture. Reported use of court-staff information was 36% at one study site and 15%, 15%, and 17% at three other sites. The differing percentages suggest that access to, awareness of, or reliance on court assistance varied by location.
Cost and access were the most frequently cited reasons in a self-help program evaluation. Sixty-two percent cited the cost or unavailability of a lawyer, 49% cited the simple nature of the case, 7% cited lawyer-caused delay, and 5% cited lack of trust in lawyers. Because respondents could report reasons in an evaluation, these percentages should not be treated as mutually exclusive categories.
An Idaho court-assistance program evaluation found that 59% of users were women. That result describes users of the Idaho program in the early 2000s, not the gender composition of all self-represented litigants.
Small-claims results in the five-jurisdiction study illustrate the range of possible case endings. Forty-three percent of cases ended in a plaintiff judgment, 22% settled, 22% were dismissed, and 9% ended in a defendant judgment. Only 12% of small-claims judgments had record documentation showing satisfaction of the judgment. The outcome percentages are specific to that small-claims court and study period.
The study also reported a representation-related difference in one domestic-relations court: motions were dismissed two times as often when both parties were self-represented as when both parties had lawyers. That finding is a comparison within one court, not a general probability for every self-represented motion.
Timing and case outcomes
Self-representation can affect the amount of court time required, but the direction differs by proceeding. In the early-2000s California judicial time study, probate proceedings averaged 3.4 minutes without a self-represented party and 17.2 minutes with one, a reported 400% difference. Habeas-corpus proceedings averaged 11.8 minutes without and 35.1 minutes with a self-represented party, a reported 282% difference.
Other personal-injury tort proceedings averaged 23.6 minutes without a self-represented party and 63.9 minutes with one, a reported 185% difference. Family proceedings showed the opposite pattern in that study: 15.8 minutes without a self-represented party compared with 12.2 minutes with one, described as 30% shorter with self-representation. These are average hearing or proceeding times from one California study, not a rule that self-represented cases always take longer.
Washington dissolution data from 1995 through 2001 also show different patterns by case event. In dissolutions with children and two self-represented parties, non-jury trials occurred in 2.1% of cases, compared with 41.9% when two represented parties were involved. Motion hearings occurred in 37.3% of cases with two self-represented parties and 74.7% of cases with two represented parties. Continuances occurred in 1.5% and 35.6% of those groups, respectively. The comparison concerns dissolutions with children and should not be generalized to all family cases.
Representation gaps in debt and eviction cases
Recent Virginia data show a pronounced imbalance between opposing sides in consumer cases. In debt-collection cases from 2018 through 2023, debt collectors had attorneys in 79% of cases while consumers had attorneys in 2%. Virginia consumers with legal representation were 11 times more likely to win a debt-collection judgment than unrepresented consumers. Legal Services Corporation, “Legal Representation in Virginia: Debt Collection and Eviction Cases”
Eviction cases showed a similar representation gap. Virginia landlords filed more than 675,000 eviction cases from 2018 through 2023. Tenants had legal representation in 1% of eviction cases, compared with 68% for landlords. Virginia tenants were more than seven times more likely to win eviction cases when represented than when unrepresented.
The Virginia figures describe representation and reported win-rate comparisons over 2018–2023; they do not establish that representation alone caused every difference in outcome. They do show why access to legal information, self-help centers, and limited-scope assistance can matter in high-volume proceedings where one side commonly has counsel and the other usually does not.