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Full-Text Articles in Legal Profession
A2j Summit Collection Contributors, David Udell
A2j Summit Collection Contributors, David Udell
Fordham Law Review Online
A compilation of biographies for the authors and participants in this Collection.
All Rise For Civil Justice, Martha Bergmark
All Rise For Civil Justice, Martha Bergmark
Fordham Law Review Online
Equal justice under law is an American ideal. But every year, millions of people lose their cases in civil courts, not because they have done something wrong, but because they do not have the information or legal help they need to make their case. The United States civil justice system must be reformed so that it works for everyone, not just for the wealthy and the represented. For guidance, advocates of civil justice reform should look to the movement for criminal justice reform, which has successfully raised awareness and galvanized coalitions to effect policy change. I eagerly await the case …
The Role Of Data In Organizing An Access To Justice Movement, James Gamble, Amy Widman
The Role Of Data In Organizing An Access To Justice Movement, James Gamble, Amy Widman
Fordham Law Review Online
reminds us that civil justice reform has to start with compelling human stories. She’s right. Building a movement requires drawing in the care and effort of those who previously had not seen the problem. A story of a mother and her family unjustly evicted from their home, of an older gentleman whose life savings are unjustly taken, or of a father fighting for visitation rights unjustly denied: each of these personal stories is an outrage and will often generate anger in the listener. Stories lead those who do not live the injustices of our civil justice system every day to …
A Few Interventions And Offerings From Five Movement Lawyers To The Access To Justice Movement, Jennifer Ching, Thomas B. Harvey, Meena Jagannath, Purvi Shah, Blake Strode
A Few Interventions And Offerings From Five Movement Lawyers To The Access To Justice Movement, Jennifer Ching, Thomas B. Harvey, Meena Jagannath, Purvi Shah, Blake Strode
Fordham Law Review Online
We are five lawyers who occupy very different corners of justice work. We are civil rights, human rights, and criminal defense lawyers, and we have worked at and managed legal services programs. We have taught law at law schools and universities and have built our own organizations. We currently work in interdisciplinary spaces with community organizers, funders, and other stakeholders in the justice system. As diverse as our perspectives are, we share a common belief that any mobilization around access to justice fails if it does not center the vision and strategies of larger social justice movements. We share here …
The Legal Empowerment Movement And Its Implications, Peter Chapman
The Legal Empowerment Movement And Its Implications, Peter Chapman
Fordham Law Review Online
Around the world, a global legal empowerment movement is transforming the way in which people access justice. The concept of legal empowerment is rooted in strengthening the ability of communities to: “understand, use and shape the law.” The movement relies on people helping one another to stand up to authority and challenge injustice. At its center are paralegals, barefoot lawyers, and community advocates. Backed up by lawyers, these advocates are having significant impacts.
A National Movement For Access To Justice Must Be Holistic, Justine Olderman, Runa Rajagopal
A National Movement For Access To Justice Must Be Holistic, Justine Olderman, Runa Rajagopal
Fordham Law Review Online
Jazmine Headley is one of many parents across New York City who depends on childcare benefits in order to work and to be the best single parent she can be to her one-year-old son. When her son’s daycare reported that it was no longer receiving payment from the city-issued childcare voucher, Jazmine’s only option was to take a day off of work to go to her local benefits center and figure out what was wrong. Making the trip to the benefits center meant that Jazmine had to miss a full day’s wage, and navigate the bureaucratic public assistance system, all …
Building A Movement: The Lessons Of Fines And Fees, Lisa Foster
Building A Movement: The Lessons Of Fines And Fees, Lisa Foster
Fordham Law Review Online
I doubt we will ever experience something we (or others) would call an Access to Justice Movement in the United States. The goal is too amorphous, lacks immediacy, and doesn’t resonate: If people don’t perceive that many of their problems have a legal solution, why would they rally to support “100 percent access to effective assistance for essential civil legal needs”? The legal system is too big, too complicated, and too removed from people’s everyday experiences. And especially in low-income communities of color, distrust of the justice system runs deep. People don’t want access to a system they believe is …
Integrating The Access To Justice Movement, Lauren Sudeall
Integrating The Access To Justice Movement, Lauren Sudeall
Fordham Law Review Online
Last fall, advocates of social change came together at the A2J Summit at Fordham University School of Law and discussed how to galvanize a national access to justice movement—who would it include, and what would or should it attempt to achieve? One important preliminary question we tackled was how such a movement would define “justice,” and whether it would apply only to the civil justice system. Although the phrase “access to justice” is not exclusively civil in nature, more often than not it is taken to have that connotation. Lost in that interpretation is an opportunity to engage in a …
Self-Representation Is Becoming The Norm And Driving Reform, Katherine Alteneder
Self-Representation Is Becoming The Norm And Driving Reform, Katherine Alteneder
Fordham Law Review Online
The impact of civil legal entanglement on individuals and communities in matters involving essential basic needs—such as housing, safety, food security, health, education, wages, and family matters—is profound, and, unlike criminal proceedings, there is no right to counsel. Thus, people are, for the most part, their own champions. The outcomes of these entanglements shape the culture, well-being, and capacity of our communities and ought to be of fundamental concern for those engaged in social justice, anti-poverty, and civil rights work.
Don't Go It Alone, Ariel Simon, Sandra Ambrozy
Don't Go It Alone, Ariel Simon, Sandra Ambrozy
Fordham Law Review Online
Civil legal challenges cut across an astonishing range of headline-making social issues. And so, while it is possible to make a compelling case for “access to justice” without tying it to issues of inequality, mobility, race, and equity, that is no way to build or ally with a movement. Access to justice should not just be about “justice” in a narrow legalistic sense, but in the way that the broader world understands it and people feel it, driven by imperatives such as: expanding opportunities for underserved populations; creating legal systems that protect the most vulnerable; and building institutions and structures …
Access To Legal Help Is A Human Service, Jo-Ann Wallace
Access To Legal Help Is A Human Service, Jo-Ann Wallace
Fordham Law Review Online
We are in a pivotal, transformational moment for justice reform in the United States. One of the key strategies undergirding the transformation is a redefinition of interrelated systems that can work together to improve lives. This includes defining access to legal help as an integral part of human services systems.
Striking A Match, Not A Pose, For Access To Justice, Gillian K. Hadfield
Striking A Match, Not A Pose, For Access To Justice, Gillian K. Hadfield
Fordham Law Review Online
One of the things that persistently puzzles and frustrates me in my work on access to justice is just how hard it is to light a fire under anyone about this issue. And I do not think that we are going to make progress on access to justice—to start a movement—until that fire is lit.
"What Do We Want!"?, Rebecca L. Sandefur
"What Do We Want!"?, Rebecca L. Sandefur
Fordham Law Review Online
If asked, most Americans would very likely say that they would rather have “justice” than something like “injustice.” And if asked what “justice” means, many would have an answer. Some responses would name abstract ideals from one religious or cultural tradition or another. One of this type that is particularly dear to me speaks of letting the oppressed go free and breaking every yoke. But other answers about the meaning of justice would be more concrete: “my son wouldn’t be in jail”; “I could pay my hospital bills”; “somebody would help me with this problem.” These definitions of justice reflect …
A Perspective From The Judiciary On Access To Justice, Jonathan Lippman
A Perspective From The Judiciary On Access To Justice, Jonathan Lippman
Fordham Law Review Online
I decided early in 2009, upon becoming Chief Judge and the steward of the justice system in New York, to focus my energy on ensuring that everyone gets their day in court. Regardless of how a person looks or where he or she was born, and regardless of whether or not a person has resources or power, justice cannot be about the color of your skin or the amount of money in your pocket. Justice must mean that when people are fighting for the necessities of life, for the roof over their heads, they must get the legal assistance that …
Building The Access To Justice Movement, David Udell
Building The Access To Justice Movement, David Udell
Fordham Law Review Online
There are innumerable individual problems of access to civil justice. Civil justice, or its absence, will often determine whether people can keep their homes, their family relationships, their health and well-being, their actual safety, their jobs, and their opportunity for a fair resolution of so many more of the challenges that life presents. There are presently many important efforts that enable people to obtain justice, both through the direct provision of legal services and through the broader pursuit of systemic reforms, such as securing and expanding civil rights to counsel, expanding roles for non-lawyers to empower individuals and communities, making …
The Evolution Of Private Equity And The Change In General Partner Compensation Terms In The 1980s, Stephen Fraidin, Meredith Foster
The Evolution Of Private Equity And The Change In General Partner Compensation Terms In The 1980s, Stephen Fraidin, Meredith Foster
Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law
While the business model of private equity has remained largely unchanged since the 1980s, private equity as an industry has undergone a dramatic transformation. In the early 1980s, private equity was both highly profitable and highly controversial. Today, on the other hand, it is an important asset class and its returns are modest. This paper will document both of these changes and identify the several factors that contributed simultaneously to private equity’s declining profitability and to its increasing public acceptance. This paper will also identify another change that private equity underwent in the 1980s, which has been largely ignored: the …