Page 75 - Impact: Collected Essays on Expanding Access to Justice

The Civil Legal Aid movement:
15 Initiatives that are Increasing Access to Justice in the united states
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David udell1
Across the United States and around the world people seek civil access to justice to resolve problems that threaten their homes, jobs, savings, custody of their children, even their physical safety and lives . They seek it also to resolve pressing challenges in their communities that may concern the stability of neighborhoods, the availability of medical care, the reliability of public benefits and, sometimes, even the quality of the justice system, itself . They may encounter barriers that interfere with access to justice, including such inherently challenging features of the justice system as: a lack of understanding that problems are legal in nature; the complexity of law and procedure; the high cost of legal representation by private counsel, the absence of a civil right to counsel and the minimal availability of free civil legal aid counsel; barriers (such as mandatory arbitration) that effectively limit the jurisdiction and authority of the courts; language barriers; barriers that impede access for people with disabilities; and more .
What is access to justice? In the civil justice system, it means that a person can learn about her rights and then give voice to them through a neutral and nondiscriminatory, formal or informal, process that determines the facts, applies the rule of law, and enforces the result . www .ncforaj .org . Viewed through the lens of human rights, access to justice is the obligation of states to “construct a legal and institutional framework which facilitates access to independent and effective judicial and adjudicatory mechanisms and ensures a fair outcome for those seeking redress, without discrimination of any kind .” Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, ¶ 11, Human Rights Council (Aug . 9, 2012), http://www .ohchr .org/ Documents/Issues/Poverty/A-67-278 .pdf . Viewed through the lens of “legal empowerment,” it is about “strengthening the capacity of all people to exercise their rights, either as individuals or as members of a community . It’s about grassroots justice – about ensuring that law is not confined to books or courtrooms, but rather is available and meaningful to ordinary people .” https://www . opensocietyfoundations .org/projects/legal-empowerment .
In 2015, a year in which the crisis in access to civil justice in the United States was increasingly recognized by the media alongside headlines about the troubling failings of our criminal justice system, see Voices for Civil Justice, http://voicesforciviljustice .org/press-clips/ (gathering civil access to justice coverage), the civil legal aid reform movement for access to justice was strengthened by two meta-declarations widely expected to restructure the field and to change people’s lives . The United Nations adopted “Global Goal 16” calling on all countries – including the United States – to use data indexing to increase access to justice to help end extreme poverty by 2030 . http:// www .globalgoals .org/global-goals/peace-and-justice/; http://www .un .org/ga/search/view_doc . asp?symbol=A/RES/70/1&Lang=E . And, the Conference of Chief Justices and Conference of State Court Administrators of the American state courts issued a Resolution calling for “100 percent access to effective assistance for essential civil legal needs .” http://www .ncsc .org/~/media/ Microsites/Files/access/5%20Meaningful%20Access%20to%20Justice%20for%20All_final .ashx .
1 David udell is Executive Director of the National Center for Access to Justice at Cardozo Law School. The material in this outline, which has been updated through April 5, 2016, has also been published on the website for the National Center for Access to Justice, www.ncforaj.org. This outline includes website links in the text in lieu of footnotes for easy reference. Readers are encouraged to use the links to explore the resources available.
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