Project

Making Justice Accessible: Legal Services for the 21st Century

Democracy & Justice
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gavel and scales

This project is designed to advance a set of clear, national recommendations for closing the justice gap that currently exists between the demand for civil legal services and the supply.

Featured article

Making Justice Accessible Summit

As part of its Making Justice Accessible project, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences hosted a summit in March 2024 to bring together a diverse group of participants to address the civil justice gap.
Overview

Making Justice Accessible is a multi-year, multi-phase project designed to explore, better understand, and help address the civil justice gap that exists between the supply and demand for civil legal services in America.

The scholars, practitioners, champions, and policymakers working on the Making Justice Accessible project sought to assess the extent unmet needs, identify the primary causes of the problem, highlight innovative solutions, and recommend nationwide improvements. The data work was led by Mark Hansen and Rebecca Sandefur. Kenneth Frazier, John Levi, and Martha Minow led the design work.

The project produced an explainer video about the civil justice gap and three publications, which are online in their entirety:

  • An issue of Daedalus (the Academy’s quarterly journal), Access to Justice, includes 24 essays about the civil legal services crisis facing poor and low-income Americans: from the challenges of providing quality assistance to more people, to the social and economic costs of an often unresponsive legal system, to the opportunities for improvement offered by new technologies, professional innovations, and fresh approaches to the justice gap.
  • A paper, Measuring Civil Justice for All, provides a blueprint for the collection of data about civil justice activity in the United States. It also describes a range of data access standards that would help to guide the use of civil justice data for administrative and research purposes.
  • The report Civil Justice for All proposes nationwide recommendations to close the gap so that Americans, irrespective of income, have access to legal advice and assistance when they need it most. The recommendations and innovative approaches are rooted in four categories of civil legal problems: family, health care, housing, and veterans affairs.

Following the release of the three publications, the focus of the project is on sharing the research and recommendations to advance awareness of the civil justice gap; increase connectedness among leaders, institutions, and philanthropy to support collaboration on behalf of civil legal services; and fundamentally expand access to justice. 

People

People

Chairs for Design and Data Projects
Design Project Group

Karl W. Eikenberry

The Henry L. Stimson Center
Ambassador and Lieutenant General (retired)
Academy Member

Risa L. Goluboff

University of Virginia School of Law
Dean; Arnold H. Leon Professor of Law; Professor of History
Academy Member

John Mark Hansen

University of Chicago
Charles L. Hutchinson Distinguished Service Professor
Academy Member

David Frank Levi

Duke University School of Law
Levi Family Professor of Law And Director, Bolch Judicial Institute
Academy Member

Lance Malcolm Liebman

Columbia Law School
William S. Beinecke Professor of Law, Director, American Law Institute
Academy Member

Judith Resnik

Yale Law School
Arthur Liman Professor of Law
Academy Member

Diane P. Wood

American Law Institute
Chief Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit
Academy Member
Data Project Group
Staff

Betsy Super

Program Director for American Institutions, Society, and the Public Good
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Publications

Publications

Report |
FEB 2021

Measuring Civil Justice for All

A new Academy whitepaper that provides a blueprint for the collection of data about civil justice activity in the United States.
Project
Making Justice Accessible: Legal Services for the 21st Century
Democracy & Justice
Report |
SEP 2020

Civil Justice for All

A national overview of the crisis in legal services that advances a set of clear, national recommendations for closing the gap between the supply and the demand for civil legal assistance for low-income Americans.
Project
Making Justice Accessible: Legal Services for the 21st Century
Democracy & Justice
News & Updates

News & Updates

Bulletin
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Making Justice Accessible Summit

In a single year, 55 million Americans might face 260 million legal problems, such as fighting eviction threats from landlords, dealing with overwhelming medical bills from an unexpected illness that could lead to bankruptcy, or seeking assistance to escape abusive domestic situations. Yet only some Americans recognize that these problems are matters of civil justice. And even fewer have access to available, afford­able, and quality legal support needed to resolve these problems. This is the civil justice gap: the disparity between the legal needs of Americans and the resources available to meet those needs.
Academy Article
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Making Justice Accessible Summit

As part of its Making Justice Accessible project, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences hosted a summit in March 2024 to bring together a diverse group of participants to address the civil justice gap.
In the News
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We need a new civil right

There are many rights that Americans living in poverty can’t access simply because they can’t afford a lawyer. This includes rights in housing, veterans’ benefits, disability access and many other areas of our civil justice system. This is called the access to justice gap, and it’s one of the most urgent — and under-discussed — civil rights issues of our time.
Source
CNN Opinion
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Bulletin
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A Project to Advance Civil Justice Access in the 21st Century

An engraving above the western entrance to the U.S. Supreme Court proclaims a bold ideal for the American judicial system: “equal justice under law.” Unfortunately, the nation has not yet achieved the Court’s aspiration. While many Americans experience legal issues at some point in their lives, not everyone has access to the legal assistance that they need.
In the News
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Martha Minow on Forgiveness in the US Legal System

Harvard Law School professor and cochair of Academy project on Making Justice Accessible Martha Minow discusses forgiveness in the American legal system with NPR host Michel Martin.
Source
PBS NewsHour
In the News
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Lawyers: Who Needs ’Em?

Dahlia Lithwick discusses lack of legal representation and access to justice with Rebecca Sandefur, cochair of Academy project on Making Justice Accessible.
Source
Slate
Supreme Court
In the News
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Why civil courts’ larger problems can’t be simplified away

What if, by simplifying the courts — and expecting low-income people without representation to make productive use of the do-it-yourself tools available to them — the courts are inadvertently hindering access to justice? Lawyers Colleen Shanahan and Anna Carpenter make the argument in their Daedalus essay on why "Simplified Courts Can’t Solve Inequality."
Source
Thomson Reuters
Bulletin
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New Issue of Dædalus Takes on the Justice Gap Facing Poor and Low-Income Americans

On January 7, 2019, the Academy published the first open-access issue of Dædalus in the journal’s sixty-four-year history. “Access to Justice,” the Winter 2019 issue, is a multidisciplinary examination of the national crisis in legal services, from the challenges of providing quality legal assistance to more people, to the social and economic costs of an of- ten unresponsive legal system, to the opportunities for improvement offered by new technologies, professional innovations, and fresh ways of thinking about the crisis.
In the News
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Famed Journal Lends Its Clout To Fighting Access Crisis

Access to justice is a “stunningly invisible issue given its importance in the country.” The latest issue of Daedalus, featuring two dozen articles from leading law professors, researchers and experts, shines a spotlight on a topic that often gets lost in the din of a nonstop news cycle.
Source
Law360
Bulletin
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Legal Services for Low-Income Americans

On November 11 and 12, 2015, over 50 Judges and Justices, Chief Justices, legal scholars, and lawyers gathered at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Brought together by John Levi, Chairman of the Legal Services Corporation; Martha Minow, Dean of the Harvard Law School; and Lance Liebman, former Dean of the Columbia Law School, the group discussed the nation’s failure to provide legal services for low-income Americans.
Bulletin
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Making Justice Accessible

On November 11, 2015, Diane P. Wood, Goodwin Liu, and David S. Tatel discussed issues of access to the justice system. The program, which served as the 2027th Stated Meeting and the Inaugural Distinguished Morton L. Mandel Annual Public Lecture, was streamed to gatherings of members in four cities around the country: New York, Washington, Chicago, and Berkeley. The program concluded the first day of a two-day Academy symposium on the state of legal services for low-income Americans, which brought together federal and state judges, lawyers, legal scholars, and legal aid providers concerned about the state of legal services for Americans.
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Events

Events

The relief sculptures on the pediment of Supreme Court Building on a sunny day. Beneath the states are the words “Equal Justice Under Law.”
Dec 4, 2024 Public

Achieving Civil Justice

Featuring John G. Levi, Martha Louise Minow, Daniel B. Rodriguez, Rebecca L. Sandefur, and Diane P. Wood
Zoom Webinar
Show More Events
The Charles E. Simons Jr. Federal Court House, Aiken, South Carolina
May 21, 2019

The Hidden Crisis in Civil Legal Services

Featuring Robert H. Frank, Nathan L. Hecht, Joseph Kennedy III, John G. Levi, Andrew M. Perlman, Rebecca L. Sandefur, James Joseph Sandman, and Diane P. Wood
Washington, D.C.
May 11, 2019

Access to Justice Teach-In

Featuring Kenneth C. Frazier, Martha Louise Minow, David M. Rubenstein, and Rebecca L. Sandefur
Washington, D.C.
Nov 11, 2015

Making Justice Accessible

Featuring Diane P. Wood, Goodwin Liu, and David S. Tatel
Cambridge, MA
Transcript Copy Created with Sketch.
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Project Information

The Making Justice Accessible Initiative was made possible by the generous contribution of David M. Rubenstein.

Project Date
-
Contact Information
Eduardo Gonzalez
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