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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Need For A National Civil Justice Survey Of Incidence And Claiming Behavior, Theodore Eisenberg
The Need For A National Civil Justice Survey Of Incidence And Claiming Behavior, Theodore Eisenberg
Fordham Urban Law Journal
Civil justice issues – family law issues such as divorce and child custody, consumer victimization issues raised by questionable trade practices, and tort issues raised by surprisingly high estimated rates of medical malpractice, questionable prescription drug practices, and other behaviors – are part of the fabric of daily life. Yet we lack systematic quantitative knowledge about the primary events in daily life that generate civil justice issues. This paper explores the desirability of, and issues related to, creating a national civil justice survey (NCJS) analogous to the National Crime Victimization Survey. The need for information about civil justice issues and …
Connecting Self-Representation To Civil Gideon: What Existing Data Reveal About When Counsel Is Most Needed, Russell Engler
Connecting Self-Representation To Civil Gideon: What Existing Data Reveal About When Counsel Is Most Needed, Russell Engler
Fordham Urban Law Journal
Over the past decade, the phenomenon of self-representation in civil cases has led to the development of programs designed to facilitate self-representation. A revitalized movement seeking to establish a civil right to counsel has emerged (civil Gideon, a civil right to counsel based on Gideon v. Wainwright), pressing for the expansion of the availability of counsel for the poor. What are the scenarios in which full representation by counsel is most needed? Part of this question involves policy choices as to the importance of what is at stake in the proceeding. Part of this question, however, is a research question: …
Lawyering In Juvenile Court: Lessons From A Civil Gideon Experiment, Katherine Hunt Federle
Lawyering In Juvenile Court: Lessons From A Civil Gideon Experiment, Katherine Hunt Federle
Fordham Urban Law Journal
To understand how a good lawyering paradigm may nevertheless undermine client empowerment and perpetuate disability, it is necessary to appreciate the larger ethical debate about client autonomy. This Article will examine two dominant models of good lawyering and explore their implications for client choice and lawyer autonomy, with an emphasis on poverty lawyering. The Article then turns to a discussion of the lawyering experience in juvenile court to illustrate the ways in which dominant visions of the client as dependent, incompetent, and disabled affect not only the role and responsibilities of the attorney for the child but the extension of …
Higher Demand, Lower Supply? A Comparative Assessment Of The Legal Resource Landscape For Ordinary Americans, Gillian K. Hadfield
Higher Demand, Lower Supply? A Comparative Assessment Of The Legal Resource Landscape For Ordinary Americans, Gillian K. Hadfield
Fordham Urban Law Journal
Systematic efforts to assess the legal landscape for the ordinary citizen - what legal services cost and what fraction of that cost is for real value - have been few and far between. Most studies focus instead on the performance of the legal system for corporate clients or on the delivery of legal services to the poor as a form of charity or welfare assistance. This article reviews and compares the few existing legal needs studies and looks for the macro indicators of the extent to which resources across the economy as a whole are devoted to providing legal inputs …
Nothing For Something? Denying Legal Assistance To Those Compelled To Participate In Adr Proceedings, Stephan Landsman
Nothing For Something? Denying Legal Assistance To Those Compelled To Participate In Adr Proceedings, Stephan Landsman
Fordham Urban Law Journal
The traditional view of the courts in their handling of unrepresented litigants has been that those who proceed pro se must look out for themselves and that there is no constitutional right to receive personal instruction from the trial judge on courtroom procedure. The opposing view, which has received increasing support, is that courts have a duty to ensure that pro se litigants do not lose their right to a hearing on the merits of their claim due to ignorance of technical procedural requirements. This Article explores the treatment of unrepresented litigants in ADR (alternative dispute resolution) settings, contends that …
The Challenges Of Calculating The Benefits Of Providing Access To Legal Services, J.J. Prescott
The Challenges Of Calculating The Benefits Of Providing Access To Legal Services, J.J. Prescott
Fordham Urban Law Journal
This essay explores how policymakers and other public-interested actors have empirically calculated the benefits of providing low-income access to legal services in the past, and how they might improve upon existing methods going forward. The author reviews, criticizes, and tries to build on two major civil justice needs studies, one published by the Legal Services Corporation in 2005 and the other by the American Bar Association in 1994. The author also briefly criticizes assertions that the public provision f services is necessarily counterproductive.
If We Don't Get Civil Gideon: Trying To Make The Best Of The Civil-Justice Market, Thomas D. Rowe Jr.
If We Don't Get Civil Gideon: Trying To Make The Best Of The Civil-Justice Market, Thomas D. Rowe Jr.
Fordham Urban Law Journal
This article considers what market-oriented or market-regulation approaches might be most practical and helpful in trying to satisfy unmet civil legal-service needs and how much it appears that such approaches may be able to succeed in doing so.
Lawyerless Dispute Resolution: Rethinking A Paradigm, Jean R. Sternlight
Lawyerless Dispute Resolution: Rethinking A Paradigm, Jean R. Sternlight
Fordham Urban Law Journal
This Article suggests that our failure to focus on the possible need for representation in mediation and arbitration is fundamentally misguided. Although legal representation is no doubt more important in some contexts than others, it is wrong to make the binary assumption that legal representation is always more important in litigation than in ADR processes; legal representation may often be critically important in ADR processes. Because many disputes will be finally resolved in ADR and because legal representation can be equally or even more important in ADR than in litigation, we need to focus simultaneously on improving representation in both …
Between Access To Counsel And Access To Justice: A Psychological Perspective, Nourit Zimmerman, Tom R. Tyler
Between Access To Counsel And Access To Justice: A Psychological Perspective, Nourit Zimmerman, Tom R. Tyler
Fordham Urban Law Journal
Looking into the pro se phenomenon, this paper will explore the lessons that can be learned from the experiences of the many individuals representing themselves in the American legal system today. Our interest in this paper will try to understand better the procedural values that matter to people and how they are related to having or not having professional legal representation. Does having a lawyer or not having a lawyer influence the experiences of lay people operating within the legal system, their evaluations of the process and the system, and of the outcomes obtained by them, and in what ways? …
Examining The Real Demand For Legal Services, Herbert M. Kritzer
Examining The Real Demand For Legal Services, Herbert M. Kritzer
Fordham Urban Law Journal
Legal needs are real, but can also be virtually open-ended. Studies tell us that 85% of the civil legal needs of low income persons are currently not being met but we have no idea as to what portion of that 85% legal assistance would meaningfully help to resolve those needs, or how the cost of providing that assistance compares to the benefit that would be generated. This article examines extant studies of legal needs, and concludes that there is a need for baseline data to enable us to assess the degree of legal need that takes into account the range …