Four members of Harvard's Small Claims Advisory Service (SCAS) joined State Senator Cheryl A. Jacques in a Massachusetts Senate-House committee meeting Thursday to testify in favor of reforms to the state's small claims courts.

SCAS, a Phillips Brooks House Association member with offices in both Phillips Brooks House and downtown Boston, advises about 1,500 people each year in settling their small claims cases. Occasionally it also sponsors legislation, as it did last week.

The two bills introduced to the Mass. Legislature call for stronger measures for collecting judgments after settlement, an increase in the dollar limit for small claims cases and limits on how many cases a corporation may file in a year.

"The current small claims collections system is time-consuming, costly and powerless up to a point," SCAS Executive Director Michael A. Blaustein `02 told the Mass. Joint Senate-House Committee on the Judiciary.

Blaustein said the new bills would smooth the small claims system by giving more power to private citizens to make their claims heard.

Some companies, particularly utility companies, file hundreds of cases each year that typically involve customer bills for less than $100. Blaustein said these cases often clog the system.

"We don't mind if corporations use the small claims system," he said. But he said they currently overuse it.

"If a judgment's important enough, they can take it to civil courts," he said.