Legal History Commons^™

Poverty, The Great Unequalizer: Improving The Delivery System For Civil Legal Aid, Latonia Haney Keith

Latonia Haney Keith

Civil justice issues in the United States bring with them no guarantee of legal counsel, yet the civil legal system is still designed to require an attorney in almost all situations. Given the ever-growing costs of legal representation, how then are the legal needs of the poor met? The author calls this phenomenon the “justice gap” and addresses the issue of an access to justice gap and proposes a potential solution.

This article examines the existence of the “justice gap,” wherein the poor face substantial barriers that hinder them from receiving the same legal protections as wealthier Americans. It goes …

Poverty, The Great Unequalizer: Improving The Delivery System For Civil Legal Aid, Latonia Haney Keith

Catholic University Law Review

When individuals in the United States face civil justice issues, they are not entitled to legal counsel and therefore must secure paid counsel, proceed pro se or qualify for free legal assistance. As a result of the economic downturn, the number of Americans who are unable to afford legal counsel is now at an all-time high. In response to this ever-widening justice gap, the public interest community has launched multiple initiatives to supplement the underfunded legal aid system. Though valiant, this article argues that this approach has unfortunately created a complex, fragmented and overlapping delivery system for legal aid. This …

Collaborative Community-Based Natural Resource Management, Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

This article analyzes the importance of increasing civil society actor access to and influence in international legal and policy negotiations, drawing from academic scholarship on governance, conservation and environmental sustainability, natural resource management, observations of civil society actors, and the authors’ experiences as participants in international environmental negotiations.