Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2-13-2016
Abstract
Access to justice interventions that provide a little representation, including nonlawyer representation and various forms of limited legal services, may be valuable solutions for low- and middle-income Americans. However, a thoughtful approach to improving access to justice efforts should recognize that a little representation may have risks. In particular, one potential risk of a little representation is that while it provides assistance with a discrete legal need in a specific moment, the nature of the assistance is incompatible with challenging the law. As a result, individual litigants do not have the benefit of legal challenges in their own cases and our legal system develops devoid of law reform that reflects the needs of low- and middle-income litigants.
Keywords
access to justice, empirical, legal services, poverty law, Legal Representation, expertise, professional expertise, law reform
Publication Title
Hastings Law Journal
Repository Citation
122 Columbia L. Rev. 1471 (2022)