Write any one issue that affects the common person’s access to justice.
Answers
Answer: Although billions of dollars of work is performed by millions of professionals in the legal industry every year, there remains an undeniable gap in access to justice across demographics in the United States.
At Relativity Fest, a panel of professionals from both sides of the bench convened to discuss this important issue and how legal experts of all kinds can help close that gap.
“This is the most important session you'll attend this week,” said Relativity’s David Horrigan as he opened the panel, which took place on the first full day of Relativity Fest. “The issue is access to justice, and it's a problem—but we don't want to focus on the doom and gloom. We want to discuss how we can all help improve this in our jurisdictions, and across the nation.”
It was a sentiment that set the stage for a productive, empowering discussion. What follows are four key barriers that panelists touched on, the solutions that could help address them, and how every legal professional can, right now, start contributing to a more just future.
Barrier #1: Funding for Legal Aid Services
James Sandman, president of Legal Services Corporation, kicked off the discussion with a hard statistic.
“Legal Services Corporation is the single largest funder of civil aid for low-income people in the United States,” he explained. “We get virtually all of our money—$410 million, currently—from Congress. That sounds like a lot, but the fact is that this is less than what Americans spend every year on Halloween costumes—for their pets.”
He explained the “huge variation” in state funding to supplement that federal money, from $100 million in New York to virtually nothing in many others.
“58 million people nationwide qualify for legal aid, and they need to make 125 percent of the federal poverty guideline at maximum—for a family of four, that's $31,374 dollars,” he said. “As you can imagine, many more people could use this help, but don't qualify.”
The lack of funding contributes to that maximum qualification—there’s only so much to go around. It’s a problem that stops many legal aid efforts in their tracks.
Solution #1: Prioritization of Funding and Greater Support from the Legal Community
Though more funding would, of course, be the biggest help, James also suggested cultural changes that need to happen for access to justice to become a greater priority—and a more effective campaign—in the broader legal community.
“Taking a step back, let’s look at what needs to precede greater access to justice,” he said. “There are four things: think big; focus on process improvement, because legal processes are way too complicated; broaden participation, including everyone from business schools and designers to social workers and engineers; and build evaluation into everything you do, because we want to know what works and why.”
These are the tactics that will help build a system in which increased attention to legal aid can become both more pervasive and practical.
James had a message of accountability for attendees to mull over: “Given the centrality of ‘justice for all’ as a value in our nation, I would expect to see far more consistency when it comes to legal aid funding across the U.S. than we have today.”
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