Use of Algorithms to Assess Accuracy of Tweets — Implications

Posted on December 15, 2012 by richardzorza

A very timely article in Slate discusses the use of algorithms to assess the accuracy of tweets.  The immediate use is with the idea of helping law enforcement filter out the false from the accurate in rapidly developing situations.  The take away:

A 2010 paper from Yahoo Research analyzed tweets from that year’s 8.8 Chile earthquake and found that legitimate news—such as word that the Santiago airport had closed, that a supermarket in Concepcion was being looted, and that a tsunami had hit the coastal town of Iloca—propagated on Twitter differently than falsehoods, like the rumor that singer Ricardo Arjona had died or that a tsunami warning had been issued for Valparaiso. One key difference might sound obvious but is still quite useful: The false rumors were far more likely to be tweeted along with a question mark or some other indication of doubt or denial.
Building on that work, the authors of the 2010 study developed a machine-learning classifier that uses 16 features to assess the credibility of newsworthy tweets. Among the features that make information more credible:
– Tweets about it tend to be longer and include URLs.
– People tweeting it have higher follower counts.
– Tweets about it are negative rather than positive in tone.
– Tweets about it do not include question marks, exclamation marks, or first- or third-person pronouns.
Several of those findings were echoed in another recent study from researchers at India’s Institute of Information Technology who also found that credible tweets are less likely to contain swear words and significantly more likely to contain frowny emoticons than smiley faces.
In a new paper, to be published in the journal Internet Research next month, the authors of the Chile earthquake study—Carlos Castillo, Marcelo Mendoza, and Barbara Poblete—test out their algorithm on fresh data sets and find that it works pretty well. According to Meier, their machine-learning classifier had an AUC, or “area under the curve,” of 0.86. That means that, when presented with a random false tweet and a random true tweet, it would assess the true tweet as more credible 86 percent of the time. (An AUC of 1 is perfect; an AUC of 0.5 is no better than random chance.)

One obvious implication is just the general value (and verifiability) of algorithms.

More specifically, this research suggests that it may be possible to gain more information than we realize from crowd-sourced tweets.

  • Do people tweet about their experiences in the court system, and might it be possible to extract information about accessibility of, and public trust and confidence in, different courts?
  • What about their experience with legal aid programs?
  • Could we develop data about rejection rates for public benefit programs?
  • Could we get information about who is applying for public benefit programs?
  • Could we figure out if some areas see higher eviction rates?

And so on.

 

 

Posted in Outcome Measures, Research and Evalation, SRL Statistics | 1 Comment

On Linking Practice and Innovation

Posted on December 14, 2012 by richardzorza

Today’s New York Times has an interesting article on the advantages of co-locating research and production:

[E]xperts say that in industries that produce complex, high-technology products — things like bioengineered tissues, not light bulbs — companies that keep their research and manufacturing employees close together might be more innovative than businesses that develop a schematic and send it overseas for low-wage workers to make. Moreover, clusters of manufacturers, where workers and ideas can naturally flow between companies, might prove more productive and innovative than the same businesses if they were spread across the country.

Why am I blogging about this?  Because I want to make the point that the same may apply in access to justice research.  For too long, the academy has separated itself from the real world.  Now we are starting to get real partnerships between academics and practitioners — as evidenced by the recent Chicago meeting, about which I plan to comment in the near future.

A person from GE adds:

The idea is to knit together manufacturing, design, prototyping and production, said Michael Idelchik, vice president for advanced technologies, who holds a dozen patents himself. “We believe that rather than a sequential process where you look at product design and then how to manufacture it, there is a simultaneous process,” Mr. Idelchik said. “We think it is key for sustaining our long-term competitive advantage.”  (Bold added.)

I think that it is the same in access innovation.  That’s why we need court innovation laboratories, and legal aid innovation laboratories, and we need them in real world institutions, linked to broader systems.  Some of the attributes of such laboratories:

  • Extensive data collection and research capacity built in
  • Innovative staff
  • Flexible management structures
  • Flexible funding with reserves to test new ideas
  • Advisory board from across the country to help identify innovations to be tested, and to legitimize and spread the results
  • Links to academics

The model, of course, is Midtown Community Court.

Disclosure: I led the design for the original technology there way back in 1993.

Posted in Court Management, Research and Evalation | Comments Off on On Linking Practice and Innovation

Identity Theft Tools Develeoped by Maryland Crime Victims Resource Center — Available for All States

Posted on December 10, 2012 by richardzorza

The Maryland Crime Victims Board has developed a toolkit in A2J Author to assist identity theft victims.

The toolkit lets victims generate letters to creditors, credit bureaus and credit collectors.  It is based on materials developed by the FTC.

Here the states that are already up with the system:

Idaho, Kansas, Maryland, Texas

A great tool, and nice to see something that can be used in multiple states.  Lets hope more follow this model.

Questions should go to Russell P. Butler, Executive Director,  Maryland Crime Victims’ Resource Center, Inc

Posted in Document Assembly, Technology | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Slate Article on Technology in Access to Justice

Posted on December 9, 2012 by richardzorza

Great article in Slate on technology and access to justice.

The article describes many of the things our programs are doing — for example:

Like everyone else, lawyers for the poor are trying to do more with less, as government grants and private funding have dried up. Increasingly, that means turning to tech, using new tools to deliver information to clients, support volunteer lawyers, and improve their own systems. They’re using text messaging, automated call-backs, Web chats, and computer-assisted mapping.
A crush of new clients is pushing the growing reliance on technology, as the old systems just can’t keep up. For years, people seeking help have called their local legal services offices, only to wait on hold for 20 minutes or more. If someone has a pay-by-the-minute cellphone, as many low-income people do, that gets expensive fast. Many callers just give up, says Elizabeth Frisch, the co-executive director of Legal Aid of Southeastern Pennsylvania. So Frisch and her team are piloting an automated call-back system, using voice over IP, to reduce hold time and save those precious minutes.

And:

Some things are best left to full-time legal aid lawyers. But since there are so few, groups are using data analysis and mapping to better focus their scarce resources. Prairie State Legal Services in Rockford, Ill., is using its “incredible mass of data” to develop a mapping project, plotting addresses and legal needs. Director Michael O’Connor says this will help them answer questions like, “Are there clusters in certain communities where lots of people are facing issues with access to public benefits, or substandard housing?” Armed with that information, his staff can do targeted outreach campaigns or ramp up for litigation.

The article is a good citation for LawHelp and LawHelp Interactive statistics:

The tools that are in use show great promise. Groups across the country have developed self-help websites, and they’ve been hugely popular. In 2012 so far, more than 3 million people downloaded resources from LawHelp.org, a nonprofit site that offers legal information and legal aid referrals. Through an affiliated site, people can answer simple questions and produce documents ready to file in court. More than 300,000 people have created documents this year, for things like wills, leases, and custody agreements.

The above are just examples, read the share whole article — which also quotes Glenn Rawdon of LSC, and others.

The article is by Kat Aaron.

Posted in Mobile Technology, Technology | 1 Comment

NewsMaker Interview: Kerry O’Brien of Equal Justice Works on the Emerging Need for Evidence-Based Data

Posted on December 6, 2012 by richardzorza

Recently, AmeriCorps changed the way they award grants that may be a sign of things to come from federal funding sources. Equal Justice Works has been an AmeriCorps grantee since the national service program’s birth in 1993. AmeriCorps has supported hundreds of fellowships for lawyers and summer stipends for law students providing access to justice.

AmeriCorps has changed the way they award grants with more emphasis on programs that are “evidence-based”, or backed up by research into their efficacy. AmeriCorps also expects Grantees to define specific client outcomes and to achieve those with the three year grant.

This blog has interviewed Kerry O’Brien, Director of Federal Programs and Strategic Initiatives at Equal Justice Works  about this development, and its lessons for the access community.

Blog:  Kerry, first of all let me thank both you personally and Equal Justice Works. Can you tell us in summary the changes AmeriCorps has made?

Kerry:
AmeriCorps, like many federal government programs, is seeking to fund programs which are “evidence-based.”  That is, the program is based on research or backed by statistically significant evaluation findings. We knew in our hearts and our experience that lawyers make a difference – we’ve been funding amazing lawyers for 25 years doing just that.  But when we went to look for the research and evaluation findings AmeriCorps was asking for, we didn’t find much.

This was noted in our last application for funding, which was denied.

We compete against nonprofit organizations in other fields, like education and health, where there is a robust body of research about what works and what doesn’t work, and an agreed-upon system of measuring success (i.e. test scores).  In legal services, we don’t have that same infrastructure.

Blog:  Have you identified any research or evaluation that you think might answer the questions they have?

Kerry:
Rebecca Sandefur’s work is very helpful.  She looked at multiple studies of civil legal cases and drew some broad conclusions about them.  One conclusion is that the more procedurally complex the case, the bigger difference the lawyer makes.

Blog:  Do you have any specific research plans?

Kerry:
We hired John Tull to conduct an evaluation of our veterans work from 2010 to 2012.  We are applying for another three-year grant – the application is due February 6, 2013 – and for that we are being helped by an evaluation expert and are interviewing evaluation firms.

Blog:  Do you think that the AmeriCorps changes might be a warning signal to the access to justice world?

Kerry:
Yes.  The federal government is moving quickly to requiring an evidence-basis for its programs.  In my opinion, it’s only a matter of time before the performance results and evidence movement comes to the Legal Services Corporation.  I’m fearful that our sector is not ready and the result will simply be that the government chooses to fund other sectors.

Blog: To put it another way, what should we have in place so that you would have had what you needed to avoid this result?

Kerry:
Legal service organizations should track case outcomes and not just the fact that the case closed, what level of service was provided and the issue area.  When we went to our sites to ask what happened to their clients, many were unable to answer the questions without going back by hand through case files.

Legal service organizations should also have an internal system of follow-up to find out what happens after the legal matter is resolved.  Vermont has an interesting system where paralegals routinely call clients at specified intervals after the case closes.

Funders are not going to be OK with just saying the legal case was closed – they want to know what impact the legal case had.  So, you had a client who asked for a criminal record to be expunged because it was keeping her from getting a living wage job.  You got the criminal record expunged.  Did she get a living wage job?  Sure, it’s not the job of a legal service provider to help someone get a job, but shouldn’t we know whether the client’s ultimate objective was achieved?  If it wasn’t, maybe there is more we can do.

Blog:  Do you think that this is going to become a bigger problem over time?

Kerry:
Undoubtedly.

Blog:  Do you have any broader thoughts on what our community needs to do in this area, and how we can get it started?

Kerry:
We need to take a hard look at other sectors, especially where other professionals are involved like health (doctors, nurses) and education (teachers, counselors) and see the standards that they are being held to and the body of research they are sitting on to inform, inspire, promote and change their work.  I believe this is an existential threat for legal services – that government doesn’t need to fund legal services as an anti-poverty intervention or as a solution to government problems.  I believe in my heart and from my experience that legal services are an effective anti-poverty intervention and that legal services can be a very effective solution to government problems.  But if the funder asks for proof, as is their right to do, what do we have?  The other sectors aren’t perfect and have their challenges, but they are quite a bit farther along than our sector.

Blog:  Anything else you would like to say on this?

Kerry: Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

Blog: Thanks again, and lets see what develops.

Posted in Funding, Research and Evalation | Comments Off on NewsMaker Interview: Kerry O’Brien of Equal Justice Works on the Emerging Need for Evidence-Based Data

New York Court Task Force to Expand Access to Civil Legal Services Recommends Establishing Pilot Program in Non-Lawyer Practice

Posted on December 5, 2012 by richardzorza

As presaged by testimony at one of its hearings, the New York Task Force has made, in its 2012 Report a direct recommendation to move forward on non-lawyer practice.

Key Para:

[T] he Task Force recommends the implementation of a pilot program to permit appropriately trained non-lawyer advocates to provide out-of-court assistance in a discrete substantive area.

I include the full text of the discussion in the Report, bolding the most important points (also some reformatting):

Continue reading →

Posted in Access to Justice Boards, Non-Lawyer Practice | 2 Comments

NLADA Launches Legal Research Website

Posted on December 2, 2012 by richardzorza

This is the week that the NSF-supported session on an access to justice agenda takes place in Chicago, so it is particularly appropriate that NLADA is now launching its Research Site.  They describe their goal as follows:

NLADA is deeply committed to advancing evidence based practices and research on civil legal assistance and, in so doing, asserts the value of innovation and calculated risk-taking are essential to develop new modes of service. In addition to supporting the development of additional evidence based practices and research, we also see the need to research  the less tangible and not-so-easily measured value imparted by civil legal aid, such as client empowerment and self-determination.

Its already a nice collection of documents not always as easy to find as they might be — including the 1994 ABA needs study.

Each of the papers listed and linked is also summarized, which will be very helpful in spreading an appreciation of the breadth of research among our community.  I recommend a visit.

Having NLADA join the research gang is a very important step.  Having the providers committed to an evidence-based model is really critical to progress, and a great sign for the future.  It great to see Chuck Greenfield having an impact.

 

Posted in Legal Aid, Research and Evalation | Comments Off on NLADA Launches Legal Research Website

ABA Access Commission Grants Announced — Broad Range of Innovations Supported

Posted on December 1, 2012 by richardzorza

The latest ABA Access Commissions grants have been announced.

These focus on the expansion of mission of the Commissions.

Here is the full list and description from the above linked webpage — I have bolded the key words, to help give a sense of the range of these grants:

•    Alabama Access to Justice Commission. Web-based delivery of pro bono services for self-represented litigants. Adapt the innovative Online Tennessee Justice program, through which volunteer attorneys provide pro bono advice online, for use in Alabama; integrate into new Alabama Access to Justice Commission web site.

•    Colorado Access to Justice Commission. Limited scope representation; models for affordable services. Develop standards, rules, forms, and training events for limited scope, low fee, mentored-new-lawyer, and other fee-based delivery models for people of limited income; develop referral lists for self-help-centers, libraries, pro bono coordinators, referral services, advocates.

•    Hawaii Access to Justice Commission. Language access; implicit cultural bias. Integrate language services for Limited English Proficient self-represented litigants at Self-Help Centers in each judicial circuit; conduct training for attorneys on needs of Limited English Proficient clients; conduct conference for judges, court staff, and attorneys on implicit bias issues.

•    Maine Justice Action Group. Public libraries as point of access for legal aid. Develop a statewide network of libraries, pro bono attorneys and providers to make law-related programming and resources available through local libraries; develop print and web-based materials; format “workshop in a box” presentations for use in libraries and online; develop web-based process to facilitate coordination.

•    Massachusetts Access to Justice Commission. Fundraising outside the legal community. Develop prototype statewide fundraising campaign for legal aid aimed outside legal community, such as corporations, business leaders and wealthy individuals.

•    Mississippi Access to Justice Commission. Delivery partnerships with health care, social services, and other new partners. Convene Access to Justice Summit to catalyze plans for coordination among legal services providers and new partners, to include social services providers, healthcare providers, government agencies, and nonprofits; launch work groups leading to final work plan with recommendations.

•    Washington Access to Justice Board. E-filing. Develop state best practices on e-filing, based on review of necessary technical consideration and outreach to local court staff, with goal of ensuring that all county systems provide minimum functionality and accessibility.

These grants will, in my opinion, achieve a number of important goals:

  • They will encourage the grantee Commissions to play a broader leadership role in access to justice, rather than just as cheerleaders/fundraisers
  • Together they are promoting progress in most of the access innovations areas
  • They are developing resources and tools that will be replicable and adaptable throughout the country
  • They will serve to remind states that have been reluctant to establish their own commissions of the benefits of doing so
  • They will strengthen networking among the Commissions, by showing the value of working together to take advantage of each others’ innovations

In short, a huge potential impact.  The Advisory Group for the Project is be lauded for its vision and actions, as are all the Commissions that applied for, and received awards.

I await the products and their impact with enthusiasm, and remain convinced that strengthening the capacity and will to lead of the Commissions is critical to fulfilling the access vision.

Other Commissions should remember that there remain two future grant rounds:

•    2013 Grants to Promote the Creation of New Access to Justice Commissions:
Applications due February 15, 2013

•    2013 Innovation Grants: Applications due May 1 2013

Posted in Access to Justice Boards | 1 Comment

What We Need Now at DOJ

Posted on November 28, 2012 by richardzorza

With the election over, its time to reflect on what kind of person we need to take on the crucial mantle of Larry Tribe and Mark Childress at the DOJ Access Initiative.  Its a very important job, and needs a strong leader.

There seem to be three areas of needed skill:

1.  Knowing the DC Levers

Mark Childress brought to the role a knowledge not just of how to get a change or policy through, but ultimately more importantly how to embed a change deeply into the system so that it would be reflected in years or decades of future decisions.  That is critically important, and is often unseen, even by access advocates.  Of course what you hope for is such embedding that goes beyond money to systems that will generate ideas and will develop staff and structures in a wide variety of institutions that will be sympathetic to access concerns.

2.   Ability to Draw Public Attention to the Issue

Professor Tribe, because of visibility, as well as the fact that his relationship to the President was well known, brought a unique and surely irreplaceable ability to draw public attention to the importance of access to justice.  He was particularly helpful within the court community.  See here, for example, his 2010 speech to the Conference of Chief Justices.  Since that speech, there has been lots of activity in expanding access commissions, and my own view is that much of that activity was spurred by the speech.  Whoever is chosen needs at least some of that crediblity.

3.  Ability to See the Big Picture and Advance Transformative Agendas

It is important that this not get forgotten.

In the long term, we are only going to achieve 100% access with some real changes in how we think about all our institutions.  And, leadership in thinking about such changes remains desperately needed.  While each one of us may have our own list of “big ideas,” and while the most important may well still be awaiting articulation, the more general point is that we need voices in support of at least dialog on possibilities such as non-lawyer practice, court simplification, triage, a research agenda, middle income access, private bar contracting, and the like.

Since no one individual can bring all these skills, the question becomes who can build and lead an office that carries out all three tasks with maximum impact.

Lets hope that by the time of the next election it will go without saying that an office such as this is needed regardless of the party in power.  Indeed, part of the job of the next head of the program will be to institutionalize it in just this way.

Posted in Access to Justice Generally, Dept. of Justice | Comments Off on What We Need Now at DOJ

After the Elections — Institutional Implications

Posted on November 27, 2012 by richardzorza

I promised some discussion of post-election access to justice institutional implications.  Here, somewhat later than I had hoped, it is.

Institutional Stability

The first point is obvious.  The LSC and SJI Boards stay the same, as a practical matter for at least five years, and they can continue to build on their directions.  This is good news for self-represented innovation, for outcome measures, for technology, and, of course for access in general, with LSC able to move forward with its Strategic Plan and its Technology Summit.  Both have major transformative potential.

DOJ gets to keep its Access Initiative, and we will reap the ongoing benefits of both public and behind the scenes leadership.  I will be writing soon in a different post about the leadership issue at DOJ.

Budgets

The consensus seems to be that budgets remain uncertain, with sequester still a risk, but there is a general sense that broader disruptions are not so likely given the leadership configuration.  So programs should be able to plan with far more certainly than had there been a different election result, but with a caution that there might need to be sequester-driven additional retrenchment, particularly by those programs with a heavy reliance on LSC money.

Impacts on courts remain similarly uncertain, but not major in the short term, except for those that receive major federal funding.

Stay tuned.

Posted in Court Management, Funding, Legal Aid | Comments Off on After the Elections — Institutional Implications

Pattern Recognition Software Advances — Implications for Outcomes Research and Triage

Posted on November 26, 2012 by richardzorza

Yesterday’s New York Times has a potentially significant article on advances in neural network pattern recognition software:

Using an artificial intelligence technique inspired by theories about how the brain recognizes patterns, technology companies are reporting startling gains in fields as diverse as computer vision, speech recognition and the identification of promising new molecules for designing drugs.

While the article largely focuses on the above areas, the technique, that involves recognition of underlying patterns, could have hug potential for moving forward our outcome research and triage functions, since it could be used to identify not only likely outcomes of court cases, but also the impact of different interventions upon those outcomes.

The interesting news in the article is that the technology is such that every advance in speed and power of the machines moves forward the quality of the outcomes.  It is not necessarily dependent upon new breakthroughs in the algorithms — although they will surely come and surely help.

Posted in Outcome Measures, Research and Evalation, Science | Comments Off on Pattern Recognition Software Advances — Implications for Outcomes Research and Triage

Non-Lawyer Practice Idea Featured on CNN Website

Posted on November 23, 2012 by richardzorza

Professor Gillian Hadfield, who recently testified at one of the New York Access Hearings about non-lawer practice, has an important opinion piece on the CNN Website.  She proves the total inadequacy of current access approaches, concluding that we simply have to permit such practice.

What we need are more efficient ways of delivering legal help and less expensive nonlawyers who can provide legal assistance. Supreme court judges in every state have the authority to accomplish this with the stroke of a pen.
The root of the crisis of access to justice is the scale of the problem. Here’s a little back-of-the-envelope arithmetic. Using data from surveys conducted by the ABA and state bar associations, I estimate that, at any given time, roughly half of all American households are dealing with about two legal problems each– evictions, divorces, bankruptcies, denials of health care benefits, and so on.
Giving these American households just one hour of help from a lawyer to manage a maze of legal documents and court procedures would cost close to $20 billion.

She discusses the UK non-lawyer experience:

The use of non-JD legal assistants and nonlawyer dominated businesses is not a venture into uncharted waters. The United Kingdom has a long history of allowing a wide variety of differently trained individuals and organizations provide legal assistance, and studies show that the practice works very well. In many cases, people are better served by a nonlawyer organization that specializes in a particular type of legal help—navigating housing or bankruptcy matters, for example—than they are by a solo practitioner with a general practice.

She concludes directly and to the point:

Solving the problem requires lawyers—especially those on the bench who bear the ultimate responsibility for regulating the profession—to share the field with other, less-expensive, non-JD professionals and nonlawyer dominated organizations who can provide perfectly adequate legal help in many cases. America’s legal profession is in dire need of reform; it’s time for those in leadership positions to step up.

Moving this debate into the public arena and beyond the legal arena may be uncomfortable for some in the profession, but represents a critical sea change and a major opportunity for access to justice.  For more information on the UK example, see this blog post from a year ago.

The inter-relationship between simplification and non-lawyer practice should also be noted.  The simpler the system is, the more appropriate non-lawyer practice will be.  That should be seen as good news for the profession, which can then focus its work and market share on those cases in which advanced skills are needed.  (If anyone can figure out a way to put numbers on this division of need, that might alleviate some of the profession’s potential anxiety — that is where the triage piece fits in.)

Posted in Legal Ethics, Non-Lawyer Practice, Systematic Change | 1 Comment

Colorado Appellate Unbundling Rule

Posted on November 20, 2012 by richardzorza

For appeals cases, Colorado adopts the simple obvious rule allowing a right of termination of representation at the end of what has been agreed to.  Here is the full text.

This is another great step in routinizing unbundling, and is particularity worthwhile, given a somewhat mixed history about unbundling in that state, at least in the Federal Courts.

Posted in Unbundling | Comments Off on Colorado Appellate Unbundling Rule

Canadian Court Rules Subcommittee Report Advocates Review of Rules from Point of View of the Self-Represented

Posted on November 18, 2012 by richardzorza

The Canadian Federal Court Rules Committee Subcommittee on Global Review of the Federal Courts Rules makes an interesting recommendation:

The Rules Committee should assess all existing rules from the standpoint of access to justice, particularly by self-represented parties, with a view to seeing if any simplification or clarification is warranted. In future, proposed rules should be assessed from that standpoint as well.  (at page 46)

Here is the complete section on Access to Justice — which has hallmarks of a committee product, with some apparent inconsistencies, particularly withe above para.  I have bolded one interesting idea on the use of court-drafted orders.

Continue reading →

Posted in Simplification, Systematic Change | Tagged | Comments Off on Canadian Court Rules Subcommittee Report Advocates Review of Rules from Point of View of the Self-Represented

Victory in Texas

Posted on November 15, 2012 by richardzorza

This says is all (from the Texas Supreme Court Media Advisory):

 COURT SUBMITS PRO SE DIVORCE FORMS FOR COMMENT



 The Texas Supreme Court has approved for comment self-directed forms intended for uncontested divorces for couples without children or real property.

The forms are subject to public comment through February 1 after their publication in the Texas Bar Journal. 

In a per curiam statement explaining the divorce forms, the Court reiterated its intent to assist indigent parties. “While it is clear that forms will not work in every circumstance,” the statement said, “the Court firmly believes that forms are an integral part of any effort to aid indigent litigants.”

The Court noted that 48 states have implemented standardized family-law forms and that the Texas forms should help alleviate problems posed by nearly 58,000 family-law cases filed without an attorney’s assistance in the state in the 2011 fiscal year. “While the Court recognizes that obtaining legal representation, pro bono or otherwise, for every pro se litigant would be ideal, the resources needed to meet the demand are simply not available.”

Justice Johnson, joined by Justice Willett, dissented in part from the Court’s per curiam statement. Justice Lehrmann, joined in part by Justice Johnson, also dissented.  (Bold added).

So, while the forms may well be modified as a result of this process, that seems to be that on the underlying merits.

Congratulations to the Texas access advocacy community.  You have worked long and hard, with great skill and intelligence, against opposition that has been, for whatever reasons, intensely determined.  In so doing you have finally established the primacy of access principles, and also provided valuable data that will advance the access agenda in states that have already enjoyed a broader consensus.  You — and your opponents — have also brought a broader media attention to the access issue, and that can only be good.

Thanks, on all our behalf, and on behalf of so many that will now have access to justice.

Important Update (Later in the day, Nov 15.)

I have been informed that the forms are now legally in effect.

Posted in Access to Justice Boards, Forms | Tagged | 2 Comments