Claudia Johnson blogs on “Legal Services Policy Research and the Elephant in the Room”

Posted on December 30, 2011 by richardzorza

In reading this blog and the American Bar Foundation in Access to Justice, recent report, and other literature, including health policy analysis, I think that as we call for more research about legal services, we need to be clear about what we mean by the term “research.”

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Posted in Medical System Comparision, Research and Evalation, Systematic Change | 1 Comment

Upside Down Legal Aid Politics in the UK

Posted on December 29, 2011 by richardzorza

The UK’s Lord Tebbit was one of Thatcher’s major allies.  Yet here he is reported in the Guardian under the headline: Lord Tebbit in fight to save legal aid for children’s medical cases.

He appears to be one of the leaders in the attempt in the House of Lords to derail major components of the massive cutbacks in UK’s legal aid system moving forward under the Tory-Liberal coalition.

The arch-Thatcherite Lord Tebbit is among a group of peers campaigning to save access to legal aid for children involved in medical negligence claims.

As the Guardian explains:  “The government is proposing removing legal aid from all clinical negligence cases as well as other areas such as debt, housing, welfare, employment and family disputes.”

More:

More than 200 amendments have been put down for the bill’s committee stage to change government proposals, including the one drafted by Tebbit and Newton.

Prominent lawyers who have tabled [translation: proposed] amendments include the former lord chief justice, Lord Woolf, the appeal court judge Lady Butler-Sloss, the former atttorney general, Lady Scotland, the former director of public prosecutions, Lord Macdonald, and leading barrister Lord Pannick.

Among Lib Dems, Lord Carlile, the government’s former reviewer of anti-terrorism legislation and Lord Phillips of Sudbury have put down amendments to the bill.

On Monday the joint parliamentary committee on human rights became the latest select committee to produce a critical report on the bill. It highlighted “the lack of independence of the proposed director of legal aid case work and called for an appeals system for those refused legal aid.

The committee also expressed concern about the introduction of means-testing for legal advice and assistance at police stations, warning that it would “hinder the effective exercise of the right of access to legal advice by an arrested and detained person”.

It’s as if Newt Gingrich were fighting against LSC restrictions.  Any theories for this difference?

Thanks to the Access to Justice Blog for this find.

Posted in Funding | Tagged | 1 Comment

Claudia Johnson on “The Year in Forms”

Posted on December 27, 2011 by richardzorza

The year in legal online forms for the most vulnerable in our society…2011 a recap of increasing access to justice.

I listen to the Beatles all the time, and there is this song that asks “what have you done?” that plays over the holiday season—and I always feel nagged by it—so I started to think about it, and concluded that I got by “with a little help from my friends”.

By the end of September 2011, LawHelp Interactive passed the 1.5 million mark of interviews served, since the project went national and became an ongoing project in 2005. In terms of documents assembled, we reached the 860,000+ mark.

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Posted in Document Assembly, LEP, Pro Bono | 2 Comments

RAND Randomized Study of Murder Representation Shows Much Better Outcomes for Salaried Defenders Than Assigned Counsel

Posted on December 27, 2011 by richardzorza

A newly released report from RAND, summarized in a NYT editorial, reports radically better outcomes for public defender represented murder defendants that those assigned to a private lawyer. The Philadelphia study was randomized, removing most of the likely methodological objections.  (However there are complications from “crossover” effects in which defendants moved from one pool to the other.  The researchers made serious attempts to correct for these possibilities.)  Here is the abstract, which summarizes the results:

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Posted in Access to Counsel, Criminal Law, Mixed Model, Research and Evalation | Comments Off on RAND Randomized Study of Murder Representation Shows Much Better Outcomes for Salaried Defenders Than Assigned Counsel

Rothberger Conference Videos — Clear Explanation of Research and Implications

Posted on December 26, 2011 by richardzorza

Thanks to the University of Colorado Law School for posting the videos from the Rothgerber Conference last November.

There’s lots of good stuff, but no one has time to watch hours and hours of video, so I would encourage you to browse the list of videos.

From memory, I’d particularly encourage consideration of looking at these, depending on your interests:

  • Karen Lash’s Keynote, deeply moving (the first video on the list)
  • Jim Greiner and Becky Sandefur discussing the new research avenues, with Alan Houseman and David Udell providing some context.  For those somewhat confused by the implictions of the research, I think the combination of Jim and Becky’s presentations is uniquely clarifying, and well worth the time. (Session Six)
  • Bonnie Hough, in the final session on Operationalizing Access, summarizing the strategy and progress in California.  (Session Eight)

Everything in the whole conference was very worthwhile, but those are particularly special.

Posted in Dept. of Justice, Research and Evalation | Tagged | Comments Off on Rothberger Conference Videos — Clear Explanation of Research and Implications

Making the Cost Effectiveness Case

Posted on December 22, 2011 by richardzorza

Pro Bono Net’s LawHelp Interactive project has out a nice example of what in business they call a “customer case study.”  Its a two pager describing the impact on the New York courts of their deployment of document assembly.

Key court quote:

“Every thousand court forms completed in LawHelp Interactive saves the Bronx County Family Court hundreds of staff hours. With the recent budget cuts, if we hadn’t built our DIY forms with LawHelp Interactive, we could not process the volume of petitions we receive.”
                                         ̶ Mike Williams, Clerk of Court, Bronx County Family Court

It is worth looking at not only for the listing of real world benefits of document assembly, but also for the ways we need to be promoting the value of our innovations.

Update:  Here is the Study.

 

Posted in Document Assembly, Technology | Tagged | Comments Off on Making the Cost Effectiveness Case

Larry Tribe Nails it on Layers and Judicial Supremacy

Posted on December 20, 2011 by richardzorza

Larry Tribe lays it out simply, as reported in the New York Times..

“I think part of the advantage I have is I’m not a lawyer,” Mr. Gingrich said Sunday on “Face the Nation” on CBS. “And so as a historian I look at the context of the judiciary and the Constitution in terms of American history.”

Laurence H. Tribe, a law professor at Harvard, said a lack of legal training was helpful only up to a point.

“The advantage of not being a lawyer is the ability to look outside the box,” Professor Tribe said. “The disadvantage is to be so woefully ignorant of what’s inside the box.”

“There are times, especially times of national panic,” Professor Tribe said, “when both of the elected branches are prepared to defy core constitutional protections of human rights and only a truly independent branch, one that has no need to worry about the election returns, can be counted on to hold the line and preserve our basic constitutional commitments.”

Judge Kevin Burke, head of the American Judges Association, has also been on this issue with detailed historical analysis, in the Minneapolis Post, with follow up here.

Posted in Access to Justice Generally, Supreme Court | Tagged , | Comments Off on Larry Tribe Nails it on Layers and Judicial Supremacy

Some Analysis of the New Language Access Standards

Posted on December 19, 2011 by richardzorza

As previously blogged, the agreement between CCJ/COSCA and the Language Access Group of SCLAID is a major milestone for access (Revised Standards here; CCJ/COSCA Resolution here).  Having the courts on the same page as language access advocates changes the whole game, given that implementation really is a court matter, and that enforcement by the DOJ takes a long time, and is subject to legal uncertainties.  (Of course federal law remains independently enforceable by DOJ, regardless of the content or legal force of these ABA Standards or the systems put in place by the states.)

So what is really key about these Standards, and how has the negotiation process changed them?  Does this provide any hints as to how this is going to play out in the future?

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Posted in Dept. of Justice, LEP | Tagged | Comments Off on Some Analysis of the New Language Access Standards

Democratization of Decision-Making — Implications for Access to Justice Institutions

Posted on December 19, 2011 by richardzorza

Tom Friedman in the NY Times, argues that both both companies and counties, the old top down decision-making and leadership systems are obsolete.

The main driver, I believe, is the merger of globalization and the Information Technology revolution. Both of them achieved a critical mass in the first decade of the 21st century that has resulted in the democratization — all at once — of so many things that neither weak states nor weak companies can stand up against. We’ve seen the democratization of information, where everyone is now a publisher; the democratization of war-fighting, where individuals became superempowered (enough so, in the case of Al Qaeda, to take on a superpower); the democratization of innovation, wherein start-ups using free open-source software and “the cloud” can challenge global companies.

He goes on to urge a different kind of leadership, one that leads by vision rather than by command:

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Posted in Access to Justice Boards, Court Management, Dept. of Justice, Technology, Transparency | Comments Off on Democratization of Decision-Making — Implications for Access to Justice Institutions

ABA Language Access Project and Conferences of Chiefs and Court Administrators Agree on Proposed Langauge Access Standards

Posted on December 15, 2011 by richardzorza

This is great news.  The ABA Language Access Project of SCLAID and the Conference of Chief Justices, and the Conference of State Court Administrators have agreed on Language Access Standards. (Or, to be more precise, the Standards go before the House of Delegates at the next meeting, and the Boards of CCJ and COSCA have agreed to support passage.)

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Posted in Court Management, LEP | 2 Comments

Lawyers at the Mall — and Indeed Why Not

Posted on December 15, 2011 by richardzorza

The Palm Beach Post reports on the foreclosure laywer booth at the Mall in Palm Beach County Florida..

Through the end of the year, The Law Booth is offering free 15-minute consultations. Normal pricing includes $25 for a general consultation, $50 for a half hour, and about $100 for a specific consultation.

Another holiday discount running until Jan. 1 is $300 for work on estate planning, trusts and wills. Burkhart said that kind of work can normally cost about $750.

“We wanted to take away some of the fear people have that if they pick up the phone to speak with an attorney that it will automatically cost them $500,” he added.

It was also good timing with the economic slump, the attorneys said, which has left more people trying to puzzle out real estate issues such as foreclosures, short sales, loan modifications and deeds in lieu of foreclosure. Attorneys at the booth will also review rental leases.

The Boynton Beach Mall was chosen for the debut of The Law Booth because it’s between the Delray Beach, Belle Glade and West Palm Beach offices of the Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County.

Note that final para on location.  It suggests that the private bar is starting to fill the delivery gap caused by inadequate funding.  If people can pay something, that also impacts how we think about co-payments and the best role of the private bar.

Here is their website.

Posted in Middle Income, Mixed Model | Tagged | 1 Comment

Lovely Video on New Health Care Rights Initiative Developed With Help From CUNY’s Community Legal Resource Network’s Incubator

Posted on December 14, 2011 by richardzorza

The CUNY Legal Resource Network is the group pioneering law school incubators, and this is in the same spirit.

Here is the description of the Health Care Rights Initative.

Here is the video:

More on the Network:

The Community Legal Resource Network (CLRN), started in 1998, is a collaborative that supports CUNY Law School graduates as they work to set up and run solo or small-group practices devoted to serving pressing needs of the poor and disadvantaged in communities that are underserved by lawyers.
The personal and professional rewards of such practice can be great, and increasing access to justice in underserved communities is an enormously important sector of public interest law, the specialty of CUNY School of Law. Without mentoring support and additional training, it is easy for new attorneys to founder in isolated, economically precarious, situations. CLRN, based at the Law School, also helps new attorneys “find” one another for networking opportunities through virtual connections such as e-mail and other modern technologies. Individual members thus retain autonomy and the ability to locate in a community of their choice while, at the same time, tapping into the virtual community of some 300 lawyers.
In late 2007, CLRN also established a new project, the Incubator for Justice, in Manhattan. The Incubator trains CLRN members, over an 18-month period, in basic business issues such as billing, record-keeping, technology, bookkeeping and taxes while, at the same time, facilitating Incubator participants’ involvement in larger justice initiatives and in subject-based training in immigration law, labor and employment and other topics that will arise continually as these attorneys build their practices.

Posted in Middle Income, Systematic Change | Tagged , | Comments Off on Lovely Video on New Health Care Rights Initiative Developed With Help From CUNY’s Community Legal Resource Network’s Incubator

Claudia Johnson Bloggs on Online Interviewing Issues

Posted on December 12, 2011 by richardzorza

Claudia writes:

The recent post here on online document assembly and the corollary issue of online interviewing techniques triggered may thoughts I want to share w/the readers of this blog.

  1. Online interviewing techniques in legal aid, is a very new field.  Online interviewing is a requirement to create a document using document assembly. However online interviews can stand on their own and do so, without producing a document—so we should view online interviews as field separate and related to online document assembly.  For example, in LawHelp Interactive, which is the national server for legal aid groups and courts using online interviews to assemble pleadings, 443,276 interviews have been served from January to September 2012, and 236,923 documents (letters, pleadings, and self assessments) have been assembled in the same time period.

Online interviews can be used for a lot of different purposes:

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Posted in Access to Justice Generally, Document Assembly, LEP, Research and Evalation | 1 Comment

One Year of Blogging — Some Reflections on the Year in Access to Justice

Posted on December 11, 2011 by richardzorza

Today is the first anniversary of this blog.  306 posts, over 16,000 web views (and maybe the same number of subscriber push views), and counting.  Please celebrate with me by passing the word, and by encouraging folks to use the box on the right to subscribe and get regular automatic notification of new posts.  And, of course, vote for this blog in the ABA poll.  (It’s in the “Niche” category, for some reason).

Here’s my list of the biggest  trends in the year:

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Posted in Access to Counsel, Budget Issues, Dept. of Justice, Funding, Legal Aid, LEP, LSC, Metrics, Research and Evalation, Supreme Court, Systematic Change, Technology, This Blog, Triage | 1 Comment

Justice Breyer Urges Debate on Need for Triage and Generally Urges Experimentation

Posted on December 9, 2011 by richardzorza

Today was the NLADA Centennial Conference Awards Luncheon.

Supreme Court Justice Breyer, Attorney General Holder and Congressman John Lewis spoke.  An impressive list and a powerful moment.

Innovation advocates will be encouraged to learn that in the course of a positive and appreciative speech, Justice Breyer explicitly urged those present to input with their opinions on whether there should be greater use of triage.  He also urged those present to engage generally in access experimentation.

The Justice, of course, is the author of Turner, which many believe implicitly requires a triage approach to civil access to justice.  Criminal defenders will be reassured that he limited this encouragement to civil cases.

In any event, the raising of the issue by a Justice of the Supreme Court underlines how far thinking about innovative approaches are spreading into the mainstream.

Update:  Audio of speech online here.

 

Posted in Access to Counsel, Supreme Court | Tagged | Comments Off on Justice Breyer Urges Debate on Need for Triage and Generally Urges Experimentation