Page 48 - Impact: Collected Essays on Expanding Access to Justice

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According to the 2009 Access to Justice in New York State Report, “as a result of the vision of [the late] Chief Judge Judith S . Kaye, there has been a dramatic change in the court and legal culture regarding access to justice .”16 The Report emphasized five major initiatives of the DCAJ- JI, including, “(1) strengthening the delivery of civil legal services; (2) strengthening the delivery of criminal indigent defense services; (3) increasing the provision of pro bono services; (4) addressing the needs of self-represented litigants; and (5) expanding community education and outreach about the courts and how they operate .”17
More recently, the current evolution on Access to Justice Initiatives is in large part attributable to former Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, who established in 2010 the Task Force to Expand Access to Civil Legal Services in New York in order “to address a crisis of the unrepresented in [New York] State’s courts .”18
As of today, the Task Force has been converted into the Permanent Commission on Access to Justice, to “recognize[] the continuing need to undertake reforms to diminish the gap between the need for civil legal services for low-income New Yorkers and the availability of such services .”19
Clearly, the Permanent Commission’s mission is to provide “support for the preparation of the Chief Judge’s annual hearings to assess the unmet needs for legal representation in civil legal proceedings involving fundamental human needs, as well as providing assistance in developing the Chief Judge’s report and recommendations to the Legislature and the Executive about the level of public resources necessary to meet those needs .”20
Moreover, its mission concerns “the expansion of access to civil legal services and the improvement of access to justice generally .”21 As one can see, noticeable progress has been made to provide more legal resources to low-income individuals in New York State in order to ensure access to justice .22
Finally, it is worth mentioning that new developments could impact all of these fields very soon since the Advisory Council on Immigration Issues in Family Court was recently established .23 The Advisory Council “will work to enhance training programs to better prepare Family Court judges to manage proceedings involving immigration-related issues; foster communication and coordination among the justice system players and other stakeholders to streamline case processing and ensure the fair administration of justice . . . and advance public education and other programs targeting the needs of litigants in these cases .”24 Furthermore, “[m]embers of the advisory council will engage in a variety of outreach and education efforts, also proposing new court rules and legislative reforms to address relevant issues .”25
16 Id. at 36.
17 Id. at 2.
18 PermanenT comm’n on access To JusTice, rePorT To The chief Judge of The sTaTe of new york 1 (2015), available at http:// nylawyer.nylj.com/adgifs/decisions15/122915report.pdf.
19 Id.
20 Overview, PermanenT commission on access To JusT., https://www.nycourts.gov/accesstojusticecommission/index.
shtml (last visited Jan. 30, 2015).
21 Id.
22 Judge Lippman discusses this progress, as well as work to be done, in an article in this volume of IMPACT. See hon. Jonathan Lippman, Justice, Justice Shall Ye Pursue.
23 Media Advisory, New York State unified Court System, Members Named to New Advisory Council on Immigration Issues in Family Court (Oct. 5, 2015), http://nylawyer.nylj.com/adgifs/decisions15/100615members.pdf.
24 Id.
25 Id.
Impact: Collected Essays on Expanding Access to Justice