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Symposium – 2023 – Access to Justice


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Symposium – 2023 – Access to Justice

The Making of the A2J Crisis

by  Nora Freeman Engstrom & David Freeman Engstrom  

Access to justice has become a defining legal and political issue. In this Essay, Nora Freeman Engstrom and David Freeman Engstrom work to identify the cause of the Access to Justice Crisis.

Volume 75 (2022-2023)

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Symposium – 2023 – Access to Justice

Lawyers Aren’t Rent

by  Juliet M. Brodie and Larisa G. Bowman  

In this Essay, part of Stanford Law Review's 2023 Access to Justice Symposium, Juliet M. Brodie and Larisa G. Bowman argue that most low-income tenants facing eviction do not need a lawyer—they need money to pay rent. They suggest investing in rental assistance programs and non-attorney advocates to save legal resources for cases with factual or legal disputes.

Volume 75 (2022-2023)

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Symposium – 2023 – Access to Justice

Delegalization

by  Lauren Sudeall  

In this Essay, part of Stanford Law Review's 2023 Access to Justice Symposium, Lauren Sudeall argues that many aspects of the civil legal system systematically disfavor poor litigants. She suggests removing certain types of cases from the legal system altogether, following the logic of decriminalization in the civil sphere.

Volume 75 (2022-2023)

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Symposium – 2023 – Access to Justice

Civil Justice at the Crossroads

Should Courts Authorize Nonlawyers to Practice Law?
by  Bruce A. Green  

In this Essay, Bruce A. Green describes how a 1917 misdemeanor case charted the course of civil justice in America for over a century and urges state judiciaries to change course. Instead of impeding nonlawyers from helping unrepresented people with their legal problems, as courts have done for more than a century, he argues that courts should use their regulatory authority to let certified paralegals, social workers, and other nonlawyers train to do legal work that they can capably do.

Volume 75 (2022-2023)

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Symposium – 2023 – Access to Justice

Monetary Sanctions Thwart Access to Justice

by  Karin D. Martin  

Part of Stanford Law Review's symposium on access to justice, Karin Martin argues that monetary sanctions are an important contributing factor to the problem of access to justice. The sanctions simultaneously generate unmade legal needs and deprive people of just solutions.

Volume 75 (2022-2023)

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Symposium – 2023 – Access to Justice

Medical-Legal Partnership as a Model for Access to Justice

by  Yael Zakai Cannon  

As part of Stanford Law Review's 2023 Symposium on Access to Justice, this Essay explains how medical-legal partnerships--community-based programs that embed lawyers within healthcare teams--offer a promising model to address our country's justice gap. By using trusted institutions to connect people to the resources they need and embracing a bottom-up "patients-to-policy" approach, medical legal partnerships demonstrate how interdisciplinary collaborations can effect transformative change and advance substantive justice.

Volume 75 (2022-2023)

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Symposium – 2023 – Access to Justice

Lawyerless Law Development

by  Colleen F. Shanahan, Jessica K. Steinberg, Alyx Mark & Anna E. Carpenter  

Part of Stanford Law Review's 2023 Symposium on Access to Justice, this Essay explores how lawyerless state civil courts operate in unique ways, countering conventional understandings of how law is developed in a court system. The Essay highlights how patterns of law development within state trial courts can either counter or reinforce inequality, and how important it is for scholars and policymakers to first understand how these courts, which are integral to our system, work.

Volume 75 (2022-2023)