Expanding Access to Justice

The final phase of the Academy's Making Justice Accessible project engages the civil justice field to identify and advance concrete strategies and achieve meaningful access to justice. This effort seeks to provide critical stewardship to elevate and strengthen collaborative efforts across sectors to bridge the civil justice gap. 

This initiative advances research and recommendations developed in the project's previous phases, in particular National Coordination from the Civil Justice for All report. 

Recommendation: Create a national team, or even a new national organization, to coordinate the efforts listed above, collect much-needed data on the state of civil justice, and help identify and publicize effective innovations that improve access. 

Read the full text of the recommendation here.

The goals include:

• Building connections among leaders, institutions, community-based organizations, and philanthropy to unlock their potential as collaborative partners for justice, resulting in a coordinated network, or even a new organization. 
• Cultivating continued and subsequent engagement with civil justice initiatives and new audiences to strengthen momentum in the field. 
• Developing and providing a strategic vision to foster collaborative efforts within and across national, state, and local institutions and stakeholders and to underscore concrete, operational strategies for achieving civil justice for all. Areas of interest include reforming state court systems and financing legal services and civil justice advocates. 

The project pursues these goals through:

• Interviewing and meeting with experts and researchers,
• Educating and stewarding awareness about emerging and developing efforts in the field,
• Convening professionals across many fields, and
• Engaging with new and existing stakeholders to build a stronger network.

What is the civil justice gap?

The civil justice gap is the difference between the number of Americans who need civil legal assistance and the very few who receive help of any kind.

Learn more and watch a video about the civil justice gap.

To learn more about Making Justice Accessible, please contact Eduardo Gonzalez.