Access to Justice
Forum
Interoperable Legal AI for Access to Justice
This Essay argues that technological and procedural legal interoperability—that is, widespread consistency in legal technology design and related processes—can help stakeholders effectively leverage artificial intelligence to maximize access to legal services and fairness of outcomes through self-he…
Forum
Legal Deserts and Spatial Injustice: A Study of Criminal Legal Systems in Rural Washington
This Essay uses a mixed-methods study to sketch operation of criminal legal systems in several rural counties in central and eastern Washington. The study reveals how an attorney shortage, along with reliance on local funding of justice system functions, is leaving defendants vulnerable to delays a…
Forum
Lawyers’ Monopoly and the Promises of AI
Access to justice in American civil courts won’t come through free or pro bono lawyers. To drive down costs, we need to loosen bar regulation and streamline procedures. And we should embrace technology and AI responsibly to give more people the legal help they need but can’t afford.
Feature
Auto Clubs and the Lost Origins of the Access-to-Justice Crisis
A century ago, auto clubs offered an astonishing array of legal services, representing members in civil and criminal cases, on both sides of the proverbial “v.” But in the 1930s, bar associations decimated these clubs, alongside other group-legal-service providers—and, we argue, sowed the seeds of t…
Note
The Political Economy of Arbitration Law
The prevalent academic critique of arbitration, the access-to-justice critique, fails to account for arbitration’s influence on how firms organize themselves. This Note offers a new critique of arbitration from a political-economy perspective, arguing that today’s highly restrictive arbitration law …