Law Commons^™

Praxis And Paradox: Inside The Black Box Of Eviction Court, Lauren Sudeall, Daniel Pasciuti

Vanderbilt Law Review

In the American legal system, we typically conceive of legal disputes as governed by specific rules and procedures, resolved in a formalized court setting, with lawyers shepherding both parties through an adversarial process involving the introduction of evidence and burdens of proof. The often-highlighted exception to this understanding is the mass, assembly-line processing of cases, whether civil or criminal, in large, urban, lower-level courts. The gap left unfilled by either of these two narratives is how “court” functions for the average unrepresented litigant in smaller and nonurban jurisdictions across the United States.

For many tenants facing eviction, elements of the …

Where Are We Now? Accessing The Current Ontario Family Justice System, Kaitlin A. Jagersky

Master of Laws Research Papers Repository

Is the current family justice system more accessible than ever before? This paper considers the significant changes that have been made to the Ontario family justice system in recent years, including those made as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, to determine if the “fundamental overhaul” and “bold innovation” called upon by the national Action Committee has occurred, bringing Ontario closer to a more accessible family justice system.

Several prominent legal scholars have identified access to family justice in Canada as a crisis and have made strongly worded recommendations on how the family justice system could be more accessible. As …

Singapore: National Report For The Global Access To Justice Project, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Global Access to Justice Project is gathering the very latest information on the impact of the world’s major justice systems, analyzing legal, economic, social, cultural and psychological barriers that prevent or inhibit many, and not only the poor, from entering and using the legal system. The country report for Singapore follows the common framework provided by the Global Access to Justice Project Questionnaire.

Modernizing Capacity Doctrine, Lisa V. Martin

Faculty Publications

Federal capacity doctrine—or the rules establishing whether and how children’s civil litigation proceeds—has largely remained the same for more than a century. It continues to presume that all children are incapable of directing their own cases, and that adults must litigate on children’s behalf. But since that time, our understanding of children, and of adolescents in particular, has significantly evolved. This Article contends that it is well beyond time to modernize the capacity doctrine to better account for the capabilities of adolescents and support their transition to adulthood.

Law, Lawyers And Sustainable Development: Reflections Of A Fellow Traveler, Muna B. Ndulo

Southern African Journal of Policy and Development

At the national level, the rule of law is necessary to create an environment for providing sustainable livelihoods and eradicating poverty. Poverty often stems from disempowerment, exclusion and discrimination. The rule of law fosters development through strengthening the voices of individuals and communities, by providing access to justice, ensuring due process and establishing remedies for the violation of rights. Security of livelihoods, shelter, tenure and contracts can enable and empower the poor to defend themselves against violations of their rights. Legal empowerment goes beyond the provision of legal remedies and supports better economic opportunities. In order for the rule of …

Benevolent Exclusion, Anna Offit

Washington Law Review

The American jury system holds the promise of bringing common sense ideas about justice to the enforcement of the law. But its democratizing effect cannot be realized if a segment of the population faces systematic exclusion based on income or wealth. The problem of unequal access to jury service based on socio-economic disparities is a longstanding yet under-studied problem—and one which the uneven fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic only exacerbated. Like race- and sex-based jury discrimination during the peremptory challenge phase of jury selection, the routine dismissal of citizens who face economic hardship excludes not only people but also the …

Talking Back In Court, M. Eve Hanan

Washington Law Review

People charged with crimes often speak directly to the judge presiding over their case. Yet, what can be seen in courtrooms across the U.S. is that defendants rarely “talk back” in court, meaning that they rarely challenge authority’s view of the law, the crime, the defendant, the court’s procedure, or the fairness of the proposed sentence.

With few exceptions, legal scholars have treated the occasions when defendants speak directly to the court as a problem to be solved by appointing more lawyers and better lawyers. While effective representation is crucial, this Article starts from the premise that defendants have important …

Access To Justice For Immigrants: A Lecture Presented In Memory Of Breana Boss, Ingrid Eagly

University of Colorado Law Review Forum

No abstract provided.

Is The Constitutional Court Fanning The Flames Of Potential Unrest? A Review Of Recent Political Cases, O'Brien Kaaba, Felicity Kayumba Kalunga, Pamela Towela Sambo

SAIPAR Case Review

The cases we discuss in this article raise fundamental questions about access to justice. Inefficient delivery of judgments, issuance of unreasoned or thinly reasoned rulings, inordinate delay in hearing matters, and awarding of unwarranted costs in public interest matters all militate against access to justice. Access to justice is important in maintaining law and order and promoting the rule of law. As US Supreme Court Judge, Stevens, stated in Bush v Gore 531 US 98 (2000), ‘It is confidence in the men and women who administer the judicial system that is the true backbone of the rule of law.’ Where …

Judges And The Deregulation Of The Lawyer's Monopoly, Jessica Steinberg, Anna E. Carpenter, Colleen F. Shanahan, Alyx Mark

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

In a revolutionary moment for the legal profession, the deregulation of legal services is taking hold in many parts of the country. Utah and Arizona, for instance, are experimenting with new regulations that permit nonlawyer advocates to play an active role in assisting citizens who may not otherwise have access to legal services. In addition, amendments to the Rules of Professional Conduct in both states, as well as those being contemplated in California, now allow nonlawyers to have a partnership stake in law firms, which may dramatically change the way capital for the delivery of legal services is raised as …

When Accessing Justice Requires Absence From The Courthouse: Utah’S Online Dispute Resolution Program And The Impact It Will Have On Pro Se Litigants, Julianne Dardanes

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

According to the 2017 Justice Gap Report conducted by Congress’s non-profit Legal Services Corporation (LSC), eighty-six percent of civil legal issues involving low-income Americans received scant or no legal assistance. The number of unrepresented (“pro se”) litigants continues to rise, with low-income Americans constituting a significant portion of this population. Due to the inefficiency of socioeconomically challenged litigants appearing pro se, this article proposes implementing Utah’s court-mandated Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) program as a solution nation-wide. Utah’s ODR program for small claims is revolutionary because it is the first ODR system able to handle an entire dispute instead of only …

Using Random Assignment To Measure Court Accessibility For Low-Income Divorce Seekers, James D. Greiner, Ellen L. Degnan, Thomas Ferriss, Roseanna Sommers

Articles

We conducted a field experiment in which 311 low-income individuals seeking a divorce were randomly assigned to receive access to a pro bono lawyer (versus minimal help) to assist with filing for divorce. Examining court records, we found that assignment to an attorney made a large difference in whether participants filed for and obtained a divorce. Three years after randomization, 46% of the treated group had terminated their marriages in the proper legal venue, compared to 9% of the control group. Among “compliers”—participants who obtained representation only if assigned to receive it—those with lawyers were far more likely to file …

There Is No Justice When Low And Modest-Income D.C. Residents Are Forced To Represent Themselves In Civil Cases, Sheldon Krantz

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

After spending more than twenty years as a white-collar criminal defense lawyer at DLA Piper and prior to that serving as a federal prosecutor, law professor, and law school dean, I had the opportunity to help develop and then share responsibility for directing the non-profit D.C. Affordable Law Firm (“DCALF”). 135 I learned from this experience that lawyers are rarely available for most of the low- and modest income District of Columbia (“D.C.”) residents who find themselves embroiled in civil matters in D.C. Superior Court on matters greatly impacting their lives. They become, as a result, self-represented litigants (“SRLs”) who …

Getting Real About Procedure: Changing How We Think, Write And Teach About American Civil Procedure, Suzette M. Malveaux

Publications

No abstract provided.

Random Thoughts On Access To Justice In Idaho, Anne-Marie Fulfer

Articles

No abstract provided.

Tomorrow's Law Libraries: Academic Law Librarians Forging The Way To The Future In The New World Of Legal Education, Jessie Wallace Burchfield

Faculty Scholarship

This article briefly discusses the historical development of academic law libraries and reviews observations, analyses, and predictions of leading law librarians, examining recent changes and continuing trends. It examines academic law libraries in light of two of the drivers of change identified by Susskind: the “more-for-less” challenge and information technology. It briefly discusses one academic law library's experience with these drivers of change and gives a few examples of academic law librarians who are technology leaders. It notes the initial effects of an ongoing global pandemic that changed the face of public school, undergraduate, and postgraduate education–including legal education–in a …

Judges And The Deregulation Of The Lawyer's Monopoly, Jessica Steinberg, Anna E. Carpenter, Colleen F. Shanahan, Alyx Mark

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

In a revolutionary moment for the legal profession, the deregulation of legal services is taking hold in many parts of the country. Utah and Arizona, for instance, are experimenting with new regulations that permit nonlawyer advocates to play an active role in assisting citizens who may not otherwise have access to legal services. In addition, amendments to the Rules of Professional Conduct in both states, as well as those being contemplated in California, now allow nonlawyers to have a partnership stake in law firms, which may dramatically change the way capital for the delivery of legal services is raised as …

Readability In The Canadian Tax System, Colin Jackson

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This paper reports the results of a readability analysis of various parts of the Canadian tax system, with a particular focus on Canada’s income tax. The results indicate that Canada’s Income Tax Act is significantly more difficult to read than the taxation statutes of several comparable jurisdictions and more difficult to read than other Canadian legislation governing economic relationships. The guidance published by the Canada Revenue Agency for the use of tax professionals and the public appears more accessible. While it may be hoped that the statutory provisions that apply to low- and middle-income individuals would be more readable than …

How Increased Legal Representation Can Close The Gap In Special Education Discrepancies, Todd Carney

Touro Law Review

This piece looks at how the existing education regime has led to disparities between white and minority students. The paper finds that the disparity gets even worse when special education is factored in. The reason so many low-income and minority students with disabilities receive such a poor education is that they do not have the proper legal representation to demand the rights that they are guaran- teed under US law. This paper looks at how low-income and minority families have been cheated out of proper legal representation in other areas and how receiving the necessary legal representation can lead to …

Why Do The Poor Not Have A Constitutional Right To File Civil Claims In Court Under Their First Amendment Right To Petition The Government For A Redress Of Grievances?, Henry Rose

Seattle University Law Review

Since 1963, the United States Supreme Court has recognized a constitutional right for American groups, organizations, and persons to pursue civil litigation under the First Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances. However, in three cases involving poor plaintiffs decided by the Supreme Court in the early 1970s—Boddie v. Connecticut,2 United States v. Kras,3 and Ortwein v. Schwab4—the Supreme Court rejected arguments that all persons have a constitutional right to access courts to pursue their civil legal claims.5 In the latter two cases, Kras and Ortwein, the Supreme Court concluded that poor persons were properly barred from …

Scorched Border Litigation, Briana Beltran, Beth Lyon, Nan Schivone

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Each year, employers bring hundreds of thousands of temporary foreign workers into the United States only to return them to their communities of origin when their visas end. During their short months working in the United States—whether in agricultural fields, hotels, traveling carnivals, or private homes—many of these workers experience violations of their rights: wages are stolen, injuries are ignored, and those who complain are punished on the spot or sent home.

Temporary foreign workers who choose to file a lawsuit to vindicate their rights typically do so once they are no longer in the United States, often litigating from …

Tele-Lawyering And The Virtual Learning Experience: Finding The Silver Lining For Remote Hybrid Externships & Law Clinics After The Pandemic, Lucy J. Johnston-Walsh, Alison Lintal

Faculty Scholarly Works

The COVID-19 pandemic has rocked the world in innumerable ways. This Article argues that the COVID-19 pandemic has a silver lining for law students in experiential learning programs. The pandemic has forced law schools across the country to fully utilize remote learning technology. The pandemic similarly forced courts to accept virtual tools in an environment that had previously relied primarily on in-person appearances. The lessons that law faculty and judges have learned from the pandemic will be permanent and may change the methods of operation going forward. Law schools that embrace the lessons they learned can help their law students …

Missing Decisions, Merritt E. Mcalister

UF Law Faculty Publications

Significant numbers of federal appellate merits terminations—those decisions resolving appeals and other proceedings on the merits—are missing from Westlaw and Lexis, the leading commercial legal databases. Bloomberg Law has similar, and similarly incomplete, coverage. Across most of the circuits huge percentages—at least 25% or more—of the courts’ self-reported merits terminations, which predominately include unpublished adjudications, never make their way to navigable databases.

Although scholars have long considered how publication practices shapes access to court decisions—especially at the district court level—this is the first work to analyze commercial database access to unpublished federal appellate decisions. Since at least 2007, when a …

Judges In Lawyerless Courts, Anna E. Carpenter, Colleen F. Shanahan, Jessica Steinberg, Alyx Mark

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

The typical American civil trial court is lawyerless. In response to the challenge of pro se litigation, scholars, advocates, judges, and courts have embraced a key solution: reforming the judge’s traditional role. The prevailing vision calls on trial judges to set aside traditional judicial passivity, simplify court procedures, and offer a range of assistance and accommodation to people without counsel.

Despite widespread support for judicial role reform, we know little of whether and how judges are implementing pro se assistance recommendations. Our lack of knowledge stands in stark contrast to the responsibility civil trial judges bear – and the power …

What The Access To Justice Crisis Means For Legal Education, Kathryne M. Young

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Despite enormous social, legal, and technological shifts in the last century, the structure of legal education has remained largely unchanged. Part of the reason so little change has occurred is that the current model mostly “works”; it produces a professional class of lawyers to populate the ranks of law firms and government entities. At the same time, for decades, legal education researchers have considered it practically axiomatic that law school has room for improvement.

In this Article, I argue that the access to justice crisis—a deficit of just resolutions to justiciable civil justice problems for everyday people—compels an overdue examination …

Access To Justice For Migrant Workers: Evaluating Legislative Effectiveness In Canada, Bethany Hastie

All Faculty Publications

This report analyzes, compares and contrasts the growing number of provincial legislative schemes aimed at addressing known recruitment and employment abuses of temporary foreign workers through registration and licensing schemes, with a view to identifying best practices and recommendations for further improvement that will enable the effective operationalization of these statutes and the realization of their core goals to protect temporary foreign workers in Canada.

Judges And The Deregulation Of The Lawyer's Monopoly, Jessica K. Steinberg, Anna E. Carpenter, Colleen F. Shanahan, Alyx Mark

Faculty Scholarship

In a revolutionary moment for the legal profession, the deregulation of legal services is taking hold in many parts of the country. Utah and Arizona, for instance, are experimenting with new regulations that permit nonlawyer advocates to play an active role in assisting citizens who may not otherwise have access to legal services. In addition, amendments to the Rules of Professional Conduct in both states, as well as those being contemplated in California, now allow nonlawyers to have a partnership stake in law firms, which may dramatically change the way capital for the delivery of legal services is raised as …

Closing The Health Justice Gap: Access To Justice In Furtherance Of Health Equity, Yael Cannon

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

A massive civil “justice gap” plagues the United States. Every day, low-income Americans—and disproportionately people of color—go without the legal information and representation they need to enforce their rights. This can cost them their homes, jobs, food security, or children. But unmet civil legal needs in housing, employment, and public benefits, for example, are not simply injustices—they are well-documented drivers of poor health, or social determinants of health. Those marginalized by virtue of both race and socioeconomic status are particularly harmed by inaccessibility to justice and also by chronic health conditions and lower life expectancy. When a tenant walks into …