Project

Making Justice Accessible: Designing Legal Services for the 21st Century

Democracy & Justice
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gavel and scales

This project is designed to advance a set of clear, national recommendations for closing the justice gap that currently exists between the demand for legal services and the supply.

Featured publication

Civil Justice for All

A new report highlights the challenges that low-income Americans face in achieving civil justice and recommendations for addressing the problem.
Overview

Designing Legal Services for the 21st Century gathered information about the national need for improved legal access, and curated the innovations piloted around the country to fill this need, in order to advance a set of clear, national recommendations for closing the justice gap—between supply and demand for legal services. The work undertaken builds on the research and analysis developed in the Data Collection and Legal Services for Low-income Americans project.

The project provides a national overview of the crisis in legal services with a focus on four common categories of civil legal problems: family, health care, housing, and veterans affairs. By addressing these issues case studies within the larger context of legal services, the project identified practical recommendations and innovative approaches to address challenges specific to particular court systems as well solutions to problems that are common across the civil legal spectrum.

The related Winter 2019 issue of Dædalus, “Access to Justice,” explores what access to justice really means, enumerates the multiple parties and interests with a stake in equal access to civil justice, and educates the broader public about current efforts to deliver quality civil legal representation.

The project’s final report, Civil Justice for All, released in September 2020, highlights effective initiatives and recommends nationwide steps to close the civil justice gap.

People

People

Project Chairs
Project Group

Karl W. Eikenberry

U.S. Department of State
Ambassador and Lieutenant General (retired)
Academy Member

Risa L. Goluboff

University of Virginia School of Law
Dean; Arnold H. Leon Professor of Law; Professor of History
Academy Member

John Mark Hansen

University of Chicago
Charles L. Hutchinson Distinguished Service Professor
Academy Member

David Frank Levi

Duke University School of Law
Levi Family Professor of Law And Director, Bolch Judicial Institute
Academy Member

Lance Malcolm Liebman

Columbia Law School
William S. Beinecke Professor of Law, Director, American Law Institute
Academy Member

Judith Resnik

Yale Law School
Arthur Liman Professor of Law
Academy Member

Diane P. Wood

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
Chief Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit
Academy Member
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Publications

Publications

Report |
SEP 2020

Civil Justice for All

A new report highlights the challenges that low-income Americans face in achieving civil justice and recommendations for addressing the problem.
Project
Making Justice Accessible: Designing Legal Services for the 21st Century
Democracy & Justice
News & Updates

News & Updates
In the News
|

We need a new civil right

There are many rights that Americans living in poverty can’t access simply because they can’t afford a lawyer. This includes rights in housing, veterans’ benefits, disability access and many other areas of our civil justice system. This is called the access to justice gap, and it’s one of the most urgent — and under-discussed — civil rights issues of our time.
Source
CNN Opinion
Bulletin
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A Project to Advance Civil Justice Access in the 21st Century

An engraving above the western entrance to the U.S. Supreme Court proclaims a bold ideal for the American judicial system: “equal justice under law.” Unfortunately, the nation has not yet achieved the Court’s aspiration. While many Americans experience legal issues at some point in their lives, not everyone has access to the legal assistance that they need.
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In the News
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Martha Minow on Forgiveness in the US Legal System

Harvard Law School professor and cochair of Academy project on Making Justice Accessible Martha Minow discusses forgiveness in the American legal system with NPR host Michel Martin.
Source
PBS NewsHour
In the News
|

Lawyers: Who Needs ’Em?

Dahlia Lithwick discusses lack of legal representation and access to justice with Rebecca Sandefur, cochair of Academy project on Making Justice Accessible.
Source
Slate
Supreme Court
In the News
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Why civil courts’ larger problems can’t be simplified away

What if, by simplifying the courts — and expecting low-income people without representation to make productive use of the do-it-yourself tools available to them — the courts are inadvertently hindering access to justice? Lawyers Colleen Shanahan and Anna Carpenter make the argument in their Daedalus essay on why "Simplified Courts Can’t Solve Inequality."
Source
Thomson Reuters
Bulletin
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New Issue of Dædalus Takes on the Justice Gap Facing Poor and Low-Income Americans

On January 7, 2019, the Academy published the first open-access issue of Dædalus in the journal’s sixty-four-year history. “Access to Justice,” the Winter 2019 issue, is a multidisciplinary examination of the national crisis in legal services, from the challenges of providing quality legal assistance to more people, to the social and economic costs of an of- ten unresponsive legal system, to the opportunities for improvement offered by new technologies, professional innovations, and fresh ways of thinking about the crisis.
In the News
|

Famed Journal Lends Its Clout To Fighting Access Crisis

Access to justice is a “stunningly invisible issue given its importance in the country.” The latest issue of Daedalus, featuring two dozen articles from leading law professors, researchers and experts, shines a spotlight on a topic that often gets lost in the din of a nonstop news cycle.
Source
Law360
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Events

Events

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The Charles E. Simons Jr. Federal Court House, Aiken, South Carolina
May 21, 2019

The Hidden Crisis in Civil Legal Services

Featuring Robert H. Frank, Nathan L. Hecht, Joseph Kennedy III, John G. Levi, Andrew M. Perlman, Rebecca L. Sandefur, James Joseph Sandman, and Diane P. Wood
Washington, D.C.
May 11, 2019

Access to Justice Teach-In

Featuring Kenneth C. Frazier, Martha Louise Minow, David M. Rubenstein, and Rebecca L. Sandefur
Washington, D.C.
Nov 11, 2015

Making Justice Accessible

Featuring Diane P. Wood, Goodwin Liu, and David S. Tatel
Cambridge, MA
Transcript Copy Created with Sketch.
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Outreach

Outreach

The Winter 2019 issue of Dædalus, “Access to Justice,” was discussed in the media and distributed at legal conferences and to members of the judiciary and policymakers. The issue was discussed in The New York Times, Slate, PBS NewsHour, Thomson Reuters, Judicature, and Law360. Copies were distributed to the Conference of Chief Justices and at a meeting of the chief circuit judges and circuit executives from the federal courts of appeals. A panel of Dædalus authors participated in a Capitol Hill briefing sponsored by Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-MA) and attended by over 30 Congressional staff and Rebecca Sandefur, Kenneth Frazier, Martha Minow, and David Rubenstein spoke about the issue at a book event in Washington, DC.

Project Information

The Making Justice Accessible Initiative was made possible by the generous contribution of David M. Rubenstein.

Project Date
-
Contact Information
Peter Robinson
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