Expert Analysis

• Civil Legal Aid's Essential Role In Wildfire Response

  

  Wildfires and other natural disasters present a wide range of often unanticipated civil legal challenges. Disaster survivors should be able to turn to "second responders" from the legal community to preserve their rights, say John Levi of the Legal Services Corp. and Robert Malionek of Latham & Watkins LLP.

• How To Stop Civil Jury Trials From Becoming Extinct

  

  If we wait to take action until we identify all the reasons civil jury trials are in decline, trials might disappear altogether. Let's address the causes we've already identified using these important jury innovations, says Stephen Susman, executive director of the Civil Jury Project at NYU School of Law.

• Stripping The False Premises From Civil Justice Problems

  

  When I began researching access to justice in 2004, there were two settled beliefs about civil justice problems so obvious that few bothered to investigate them. Both turned out to be false, says Rebecca Sandefur, associate professor of sociology and law at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

• Cy Pres Awards Are The Best Answer

  

  The argument that cy pres awards violate the rights of absent class members is wrong on many levels and ignores the fact that prohibiting such distributions creates far more problems than it solves, says John Campbell, a professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.

• Maybe Virtual Reality Juries Can Facilitate Access To Justice

  

  Jury service is a terrible user experience and an unpredictable disruption. What if the courts leveraged virtual reality technology to allow jurors to serve remotely? asks Stephen Kane, founder of online dispute resolution platform FairClaims and a fellow of Stanford CodeX Center for Legal Informatics.

• A Key Legal Reform To Fight The Child Sex Abuse Epidemic

  

  With child sex predators victimizing, on average, over 100 children in their lifetimes, the implicit danger of retaining state statutes of limitation for prosecution of these crimes could not be more obvious, says Michael Dolce of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC.

• Blockchain Can Empower Stateless Refugees

  

  Innovative blockchain-based projects providing stateless refugees with forms of identification, digital assets and educational opportunities could change the rules for this vulnerable population, say Amy Schmitz of the University of Missouri School of Law and Jeff Aresty of Internetbar.org.

• How State Courts Are Fighting Our National Opioid Epidemic

  

  Loretta Rush, chief justice of Indiana and co-chair of the National Judicial Opioid Task Force, discusses how state courts can facilitate a successful policy response to the opioid epidemic.

• How The 3rd Generation Of Bail Reform Imploded

  

  Thirty-four years after the passage of the Federal Bail Reform Act of 1984, we have finally seen the implosion of this misguided attempt at justice, says Jeffrey Clayton, executive director of the American Bail Coalition.

• Class Cy Pres Settlements Are A Troubling Practice

  

  Class actions are often touted as a powerful mechanism for access to justice, but is this true when there is zero chance of recovery for class members? asks Mary Massaron, a partner at Plunkett Cooney PC and former president of Lawyers for Civil Justice.

• The Pro Bono Law That United Congress

  

  Those who perpetrate crimes are guaranteed the right to counsel, but victims of domestic violence and sexual assault are not. With the unanimously passed Pro Bono Work to Empower and Represent Act, I envision an army of lawyers helping break the cycle of abuse, says Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska.

• Aggressive Stops And Frisks Won't Make Chicago Safer

  

  Speaking recently to the International Association of Chiefs of Police, President Donald Trump called for stop-and-frisk practices in Chicago to reduce violent crime. But beyond the negative consequences of this approach, data supporting its effectiveness is sparse, say Dr. Tara Lai Quinlan and Northeastern University School of Law professor Deborah Ramirez.

• How BigLaw Pro Bono Pros Can Promote Access To Justice

  

  Allegra Nethery, president of the Association of Pro Bono Counsel, discusses opportunities for large law firms to make a difference.

• The Pro Bono Policies Worth Adopting In Every State

  

  A recent survey of attorneys across the country found that, despite broad opposition to mandatory pro bono, strong support exists for a number of statewide policies and initiatives to more effectively engage the private bar in pro bono work, says Latonia Haney Keith, associate dean of academics at Concordia University School of Law.

• Using The Constitution To End Punishment Of The Poor

  

  One hundred and fifty years after the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, lawyers are achieving real victories on the ground with new constitutional theories striking at both inequality and unfair process, says Brandon Garrett of Duke University School of Law.