Law Commons^™

Life In The Law-Thick World: The Legal Resource Landscape For Ordinary Americans, Gillian K. Hadfield, Jamie Heine

Gillian K Hadfield

The Cost Of Law: Promoting Access To Justice Through The (Un)Corporate Practice Of Law, Gillian K. Hadfield

Gillian K Hadfield

The U.S. faces a mounting crisis in access to justice. Vast numbers of ordinary Americans represent themselves in routine legal matters daily in our over-burdened courts. Obtaining ex ante legal advice is effectively impossible for almost everyone except larger corporate entities, organizations and governments. In this paper, I explain why, as a matter of economic policy, it is essential that the legal profession abandon the prohibition on the corporate practice of law in order to remedy the access problem. The prohibitions on the corporate practice of law rule out the use of essential organizational and contracting tools widely used in …

Innovating To Improve Access: Changing The Way Courts Regulate Legal Markets, Gillian K. Hadfield

Gillian K Hadfield

The vast majority of ordinary Americans lack any real access to courts as they struggle to navigate a world that is increasingly shaped by legal rules and obligations. Often this means simply forgoing legal rights and entitlements or giving up in the face of claims of wrongdoing. Among those who cannot avoid courts–such as those facing eviction, collection, or foreclosure and those seeking child support, custodial access, or protection from violence or harassment–the vast majority–as many as 99 percent in some cases–find themselves in court without any legal assistance at all. There are many reasons for this lack of meaningful …

Democracy, Courts And The Information Order, Gillian K. Hadfield, Dan Ryan Jr.

Gillian K Hadfield

Conventional wisdom about civil litigation, both among scholars and political actors, holds that abuse of the legal process is common, that there is too much litigation, that it is “all about the money,” and that “a bad settlement is better than a good trial.” This constellation of attitudes that emphasize the economic function of law suggests that courts are an expensive conflict resolution mechanism of last resort and that their use would be minimized in a healthy market-based democracy. In this paper we apply a new sociological framework to understand the meaning and function of civil litigation in a democratic …

The Cost Of Law: Promoting Access To Justice Through The (Un)Corporate Practice Of Law, Gillian K. Hadfield

Gillian K Hadfield

The U.S. faces a mounting crisis in access to justice. Vast numbers of ordinary Americans represent themselves in routine legal matters daily in our over-burdened courts. Obtaining ex ante legal advice is effectively impossible for almost everyone except larger corporate entities, organizations and governments. In this paper, I explain why, as a matter of economic policy, it is essential that the legal profession abandon the prohibition on the corporate practice of law in order to remedy the access problem. The prohibitions on the corporate practice of law rule out the use of essential organizational and contracting tools widely used in …

Higher Demand, Lower Supply? A Comparative Assessment Of The Legal Landscape For Ordinary Americans, Gillian K. Hadfield

Gillian K Hadfield

In this paper I review the small amount of available data on the extent to which ordinary individuals in the U.S. have access to legal resources to navigate the law-thick world that Robert Kagan has famously called ‘adversarial legalism—the American way of law.’ I present this data in comparative context, relating what (little) we know about the availability of law in the U.S. to what (little) we know about the availability of law in other advanced societies and in countries transitioning to legally-mediated market democracy. I review first a set of ‘legal needs’ surveys that ask households about their experiences …