Conclusion
Today’s civil justice crisis leaves hundreds of thousands of Americans without urgently needed legal knowledge or support during difficult moments concerning housing, healthcare, debt, veterans’ benefits, family violence, child custody, worker safety, and more. But that is just the beginning. The United States is currently roiled by social conflict and legal battles over such issues as access to healthcare, voter registration, immigration, gender identity, education, and the ability to protest. Social unrest faced without support hurts both the people most immediately affected and the broader community, including businesses and other individuals. Too many people confronting such issues, whether personal or social or some combination thereof, will do so without reliable legal information, guidance, or assistance in navigating legal systems. When left unaddressed, these problems can lead to illness, prison time, disenfranchisement, homelessness, and other serious consequences. While bar associations, state courts, and other professional groups may support strengthening the rule of law, Americans need legal support services in addition to bar-licensed attorneys. That need will only increase in the coming years, as both local and national studies attest.
Americans need practical help to claim their constitutional rights and protections. The good news is that, increasingly, data show that legal support programs benefit the individuals who use them and the communities that host them, lowering social costs and increasing life satisfaction, productivity, and well-being.
The ideas and projects recounted here reveal that the extraordinary power of dedicated justice innovators, technology, and expert analysis—working alongside lawyers and judges—can be harnessed to transform the legal landscape in small and large ways. That is, the many justice professionals who worry about this gap are not waiting for a complete and defining solution. Because the civil justice problem is nationwide in scope, local initiatives must be leveraged to find solutions that can scale and make a meaningful difference, not just for dozens or hundreds but for thousands and millions of Americans. While technology can often help these solutions scale, policy changes will also enable solutions to expand the usefulness of these efforts from localities to states to the nation as a whole.
The American civil justice ecosystem is not a single, monolithic system. No overriding strategic policy guides how every service and resource will get in the hands of those who need it. But a common vision drives those working to expand access to civil justice.
The vision: That all Americans will have the opportunity to meaningfully benefit from a justice system designed for them.
Efforts to end this crisis are already underway in our neighborhoods and towns. These include moments when court professionals and judges work with researchers, designers, and legal aid attorneys to understand why a court visitor is anxious about entering the building and too stressed to understand the forms and procedures needed to proceed with their case. It includes that team’s efforts to simplify those forms, translating them into plain information in multiple languages. It includes the expansion of justice that comes when people can understand and use those forms without needing to worry about childcare, transportation, traversing metal detectors, or passing police officers standing guard.
Or consider another example. It includes law students who sit in on civil court hearings to see firsthand the plight of a self-represented litigant and realize that that individual is just one among many tenants appearing in front of a judge without notes or evidence or an understanding of the judge’s questions. It includes law students returning to the classroom and creating an explainer video so that other tenants know what to expect and can be better prepared when their hearing date comes. And it includes those students going on, after they become attorneys, to help design other resources for people representing themselves in court.
What motivates people across the nation to grapple with all these civil justice challenges is that they know even incremental justice matters. When even one person gets the help they need, that helps deliver on the American promise of equal justice under law.