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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Democratic (Il)Legitimacy Of Assembly-Line Litigation, Jessica Steinberg, Colleen F. Shanahan, Anna E. Carpenter, Alyx Mark
The Democratic (Il)Legitimacy Of Assembly-Line Litigation, Jessica Steinberg, Colleen F. Shanahan, Anna E. Carpenter, Alyx Mark
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
In response to Daniel Wilf-Townsend’s Assembly-Line Plaintiffs we take a panoramic picture of state civil courts, and debt cases in particular, and name specific features of the courts that must be taken into account in crafting reform prescriptions. In doing so, we question both the democratic legitimacy of debt collection courts and the adequacy of incremental reform that targets the structure of litigation. Part I contributes two critical components to Wilf-Townsend’s rich description of consumer debt cases: pervasive intersectional inequality among pro se defendants and a record of fraud among top filers. We add a sharper focus on the racial, …
The Institutional Mismatch Of State Civil Courts, Colleen F. Shanahan, Jessica Steinberg, Alyx Mark, Anna E. Carpenter
The Institutional Mismatch Of State Civil Courts, Colleen F. Shanahan, Jessica Steinberg, Alyx Mark, Anna E. Carpenter
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
State civil courts are central institutions in American democracy. Though designed for dispute resolution, these courts function as emergency rooms for social needs in the face of the failure of the legislative and executive branches to disrupt or mitigate inequality. We reconsider national case data to analyze the presence of social needs in state civil cases. We then use original data from courtroom observation and interviews to theorize how state civil courts grapple with the mismatch between the social needs people bring to these courts and their institutional design. This institutional mismatch leads to two roles of state civil courts …
Judges In Lawyerless Courts, Anna E. Carpenter, Colleen F. Shanahan, Jessica Steinberg, Alyx Mark
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 …
Demand Side Reform In The Poor People’S Court, Jessica K. Steinberg
Demand Side Reform In The Poor People’S Court, Jessica K. Steinberg
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
A crisis in civil justice has seized the lowest rungs of state court where the great majority of American justice is meted out. Nineteen million civil cases are filed each year in the so-called “poor people’s court,” and seventy to ninety-eight percent of those matters involve an unrepresented litigant who is typically low-income and often a member of a vulnerable population. This Article challenges the predominant scholarly view in favor of “supply side” remedies for improving access to justice—that is, remedies focused exclusively on supplying counsel to litigants, either through adoption of “civil Gideon,” a universal civil right to counsel, …