Access to Justice
1st Edition
Published on 23. September 2004
265 pages
978-0-19-534947-4 (ISBN)
Description
"Equal Justice Under Law" is one of America's most proudly proclaimed and widely violated legal principles. But it comes nowhere close to describing the legal system in practice. Millions of Americans lack any access to justice, let alone equal access. Worse, the increasing centrality of law in American life and its growing complexity has made access to legal assistance critical for all citizens. Yet according to most estimates about four-fifths of the legal needs of the poor, and two- to three-fifths of the needs of middle-income individuals remain unmet. This book reveals the inequities of legal assistance in America, from the lack of access to educational services and health benefits to gross injustices in the criminal defense system. It proposes a specific agenda for change, offering tangible reforms for coordinating comprehensive systems for the delivery of legal services, maximizing individual's opportunities to represent themselves, and making effective legal services more affordable for all Americans who need them.
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Deborah L. Rhode
Access to Justice
Book
01/2006
Oxford University Press Inc
€73.20
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Deborah L. Rhode
Access to Justice
Book
09/2004
Oxford University Press Inc
€150.00
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Person
Deborah L. Rhode is Ernest W. McFarland Professor of Law and Director of the Stanford Center on Ethics at Stanford University. She has served as president of the Association of American Law Schools, Chair of the American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Profession, and senior counsel for the House Judiciary Committee on impeachment issues. She has received the Keck Foundation Award for Distinguished Scholarship on Legal Ethics by the American Bar Foundation as well as the Pro Bono Publico Award from the American Bar Association. This is her twelfth book.
Content
- Intro
- Contents
- 1 Equal Justice Under Law: The Gap between Principle and Practice
- Defining the Goal: Access for Whom? For What? How Much? And Who Should Decide?
- The Increasing Role of Law and the Rationale for Legal Assistance
- The Inadequacy of Legal Assistance
- Self-Representation and Nonlawyer Assistance
- The Limitations of Lawyers' Pro Bono Service An Agenda for Reform
- 2 Litigation and Its Discontents: Too Much Law for Those Who Can Afford It, Too Little for Everyone Else
- Legal Hypochondria: Argument by Anecdote
- Redefining the Problem: Inefficiency, Inconsistency, and Inequity
- Reassessing Causes
- Rethinking Solutions
- 3 Historical Perspectives: Legal Rights and Social Wrongs
- Early Understandings of Access to Justice
- The Evolution of a Right to Counsel in Criminal Proceedings
- Civil Legal Services for the (Deserving) Poor
- From Clients to Causes: Pro Bono and Public Interest Representation
- Restraints on Competition: Advertising, Solicitation, Minimum Fees, and Group Legal Services
- Nonlawyer Services
- The Historical Legacy
- 4 Access to What? Law without Lawyers and New Models of Legal Assistance
- Law without Lawyers
- Policing the Professional Monopoly
- One Stop Shopping: Multidisciplinary Practice
- Making Lawyers' Services More Accessible
- 5 Locked In and Locked Out: The Legal Needs of Low-Income Communities
- The Challenges of Triage: Which Needs to Meet and Who Should Decide
- Critics from the Right
- Critics from the Left
- Expanding the Scope of Legal Assistance: More Funds, Fewer Restrictions
- Ensuring an Effective System
- 6 Presumed Guilty: Class Injustice in Criminal Justice
- Institutionalized Injustice: Defense Counsel for the Poor
- Inadequate Responses to Inadequate Representation
- When the Difference Is Death
- Making Rights a Reality
- 7 Pro Bono in Principle and in Practice
- The Rationale for Pro Bono Responsibilities
- The Extent of Pro Bono Responsibilities: Rules and Realities
- The Evolution of Law School Pro Bono Programs
- Workplace Influences on Pro Bono Service: An Empirical Analysis
- Law School Pro Bono Programs: An Empirical Analysis
- An Agenda for Reform: Connecting Principles to Practice
- 8 A Roadmap for Reform
- Government Funding and Bar Pro Bono Contributions
- Structural Changes in Dispute Resolution and the Delivery of Legal Services
- Accountability
- The Politics of Progress
- Notes
- Index
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- R
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- T
- U
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- W
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