Someone I respect a lot asked me yesterday if there was any data on actual (rather than potential) impact on access to justice of budget cuts in the courts.  By that he meant delay in getting a protective order, failure to have a defense to eviction heard, etc.

I am not sure we have much such data, and indeed, I am not even sure that many states have reported drops in actual access to justice as a result even of legal aid cuts.  Rather the emphasis is on the staffing impact, which is surely less sympathetic.  Perfect Storm Hits Legal Aid, in the National Law Journal, is a typical article on increased demand and drops in income for legal aid.

The National Center for State Courts has this Budget Resource Center site that tracks court budget issues in the states.  One section is on economic impact on the courts, including reports from states such as Iowa on the scale and staff impact of the cutting process.

In what may be a sign of the times, in NH, a group of lawyers, including a former Supreme Court Justice, are suing, according to the Concorde Monitor “ask[ing] the court to reverse $6 million in cuts Douglas says the judicial branch sustained in the current two-year budget, cit[ing] four plaintiffs whose civil cases were delayed after the court system cut jury trials and staffing levels to meet reductions ordered by the state.”

I would very much appreciate hearing, by comment, or directly, of actual statistics on drops in access caused  by the budget cuts.  It would be great if NAIP collected data on the drop in cases serviced as a result of the interest drop, etc.  Maybe we need a national consortium of access to justice organizations collecting and integrating this data for different kinds of institutions.