Access to Justice

  • March 26, 2024

    'Landmark' Trans Women Prison Housing Deal Gets Final OK

    A Colorado state judge on Tuesday approved a consent decree between the state and a class of transgender women who sued over dangerous housing conditions in state prisons and now hope the plan to accommodate their needs will spread to other states.

  • March 22, 2024

    MoFo Helps Secure $2B For Calif.'s Forgotten Students

    Morrison & Foerster recently helped nab a historic $2 billion settlement to help roughly a million California students — disproportionately from Black, Latino and lower-income families — who say the state failed to provide them meaningful instruction once the COVID-19 pandemic began.

  • March 22, 2024

    Milbank Pro Bono Counsel On Leading By Example

    Milbank LLP attorneys logged more than 54,000 hours of pro bono work across the firm's 12 offices worldwide in 2023, with 96% of its lawyers in the U.S. volunteering their time. According to Anthony Perez Cassino, the firm's pro bono counsel, it's a commitment to public service work that starts at the top.

  • March 20, 2024

    Study Sees Promise For Gen AI Tools In Closing Justice Gap

    Widespread access to generative artificial intelligence tools could help increase access to justice for low-income Americans, according to a new study that found these tools largely boosted productivity for legal aid lawyers.

  • March 20, 2024

    US Senators Seek Clemency For Native American Activist

    A group of mostly Democratic senators is urging U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to release compassionately a Native American activist who is serving a life sentence for his alleged involvement in the 1975 murder of two FBI agents, saying he is suffering from severe health conditions and should be able to live out his remaining days among his own people.

  • March 18, 2024

    Connecticut Exonerees Ask Lawmakers For Help After Prison

    The Connecticut Legislature's joint judiciary committee is considering sweeping changes to the way the state compensates exonerated convicts, and three men who each served more than 18 years in prison urged lawmakers Monday to make one edit that would apply the bill to pending state-level claims.

  • March 18, 2024

    Bookseller Says Ga. Jail's Book Policy Is Unconstitutional

    A Georgia bookseller filed a federal lawsuit Friday accusing an Atlanta-area sheriff of imposing an unlawful policy that only allows books into the county jail from "authorized retailers" under the guise of security concerns, alleging the practice is arbitrary, subjective, and an "unconstitutional permitting scheme."

  • March 15, 2024

    Justices Back Strict View Of Sentencing 'Safety Valve' Relief

    The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to let a broader class of nonviolent drug offenders qualify for relief from federal mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines, siding against certain recidivists in a ruling that focused on the meaning of the word "and" in a section of the First Step Act.

  • March 14, 2024

    Calif. County's Indigent Defense System Is Illegal, Atty Says

    A criminal defense program for indigent people run by the bar association in San Mateo County, California, violates a state law prohibiting trade associations from engaging in legal practice and provides constitutionally deficient representation, a member of the association says in a suit in state court.

  • March 13, 2024

    Mass. Gov. Announces Pardon Plan For Marijuana Possession

    Massachusetts Gov. Maura T. Healey has announced plans for sweeping pardons of misdemeanor cannabis possession convictions, following the directive of President Joe Biden, who urged state executives to follow his lead in pardoning low-level marijuana offenses.

  • March 12, 2024

    Judge Lets Feds Appeal 'Novel' Issues In Asylum Bond Suit

    A Washington federal judge allowed federal immigration agencies to seek the Ninth Circuit's opinion on whether the district court can hear a class of asylum-seekers' lawsuit alleging deprivation of bond hearings, saying jurisdictional and constitutional issues in the case seem novel.

  • March 12, 2024

    NY DAs, Public Defenders Urge Student Loan Aid Expansion

    A coalition of 35 district attorney offices, public defender offices, civil legal services providers and unions has urged New York elected officials to pass a bill increasing student loan financial assistance for legal aid attorneys and state prosecutors, many of whom face yearslong debt, Law360 has learned.

  • March 08, 2024

    'It Erases Us': Sex Abuse Survivors Troubled By Wash. Bill

    Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is expected to sign into law a bill that eliminates time limits for bringing child sex abuse claims in the future, but survivors say they are disappointed by an amendment stripping the bill's retroactivity, saying the legislation doesn't go far enough to hold abusers accountable.

  • March 08, 2024

    Debt-Stricken Homeowners Fight Back After High Court Ruling

    Ten months after a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision finding a Minnesota county wrongly held onto excess proceeds it reaped after seizing a woman’s condominium and selling it to settle a tax debt, states are scrambling to reexamine their laws as financially distressed homeowners file new suits challenging the practice.

  • March 08, 2024

    NY Atty's 10-Year Fight Upends Wrongful Murder Conviction

    Garrett Ordower's career has evolved considerably over the last decade. But from his time at Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz, to his current roles at Scale LLP and as general counsel for a legal tech startup, there's been one constant: his commitment to clearing Steven Ruffin's name for a murder he didn't commit.

  • March 08, 2024

    Thompson Coburn Duo Lead 'Army Of Women' In Documentary

    In waging an uphill battle against the city of Austin, Thompson Coburn LLP partners Jennifer Ecklund and Elizabeth Myers secured a groundbreaking settlement for sexual assault survivors whose cases were never prosecuted, but what they discovered was that standing up for the survivors meant more to them than that legal victory.

  • March 08, 2024

    Judge Orders Probe Into NY Atty's Secret Courtroom Meeting

    A New York court will look into whether a secret meeting last year between the local attorney representing a man charged with murder and the law clerk for the judge trying his case amounted to an ethical violation and possibly infringed the man's constitutional right to a fair trial, attorneys told Law360 Friday.

  • March 06, 2024

    Most States Allow Abusive Debt Collection, Report Says

    A majority of states lack legal guardrails preventing people burdened by debt from facing legal jeopardy and even jail time, the National Center for Access to Justice at Fordham University School of Law recently found.

  • March 04, 2024

    'Access To Justice Means Language Justice,' DOJ Official Says

    The U.S. Department of Justice said some language barriers in the justice system have been mitigated but that more work needs to be done to ensure non-English speakers have equitable access to the courts. 

  • March 01, 2024

    Conn. Lawmakers OK $25.2M Deal For 2 Jailed In 1985 Killing

    The Connecticut General Assembly's bipartisan joint judiciary committee on Friday unanimously approved a $25.2 million settlement for two men who lawmakers agreed were improperly incarcerated for more than 30 years after a chain of failures led to wrongful convictions in a December 1985 New Milford murder.

  • February 28, 2024

    Justices Allow Idaho Execution, But State 'Unable To Proceed'

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday cleared the way for Idaho to execute a man for the murder of a fellow inmate, refusing to review his claim that Idaho's continued execution of prisoners whose death sentences were issued by judges and not juries violates the Eighth Amendment.

  • February 26, 2024

    Boston Moves To Settle Suit Over 2016 Police Shooting

    The city of Boston has reached an agreement in principle to settle a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the mother of a Black man who was shot to death by Boston police officers in 2016, according to a Monday filing.

  • February 26, 2024

    Murder, Robbery Exoneree Seeks $1M For Lost Years

    A Massachusetts man who spent more than half his life in prison before being exonerated for a 1994 murder and robbery has filed a lawsuit seeking $1 million in compensation under a 20-year-old state law.

  • February 23, 2024

    New Group Aims To Help Attys Meet Middle Class Legal Needs

    For middle-class Americans who may make too much money to qualify for legal aid services, affording an attorney to assist with civil matters like divorces and estate planning can still be a financial impossibility. The recently launched Above The Line Network, however, is on a mission to promote cost-conscious lawyering models to put legal services within economic reach for a big and underserved middle market.

  • February 23, 2024

    WilmerHale Scores Win For Hearing Impaired Mass. Prisoners

    After an eight-year legal fight, WilmerHale and several nonprofit legal advocacy organizations recently won a major ruling from a federal judge to help change how deaf and hard-of-hearing Massachusetts prisoners receive emergency notifications and other announcements.

Expert Analysis

  • Passing The HALT Fentanyl Act Will Repeat Past Mistakes

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    The war on drugs has failed, with overdose deaths at an all-time high despite decades of criminalization, so lawmakers should vote no on the HALT Fentanyl Act's proposal to impose lengthy mandatory minimum sentences for fentanyl-related drug offenses, says Liz Komar at The Sentencing Project.

  • Behind The Unique Hurdles Of Rural Access To Justice

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    While rural access to justice has become conflated with access to lawyers, the two are not synonymous, and in order to solve both issues, it is critical to further examine the role and impact of resident attorneys in these communities, say Daria Fisher Page and Brian Farrell at the University of Iowa College of Law.

  • Compassionate Release Grants Needed Now More Than Ever

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    After the U.S. Sentencing Commission's recent expansion of the criteria for determining compassionate release eligibility, courts should grant such motions more frequently in light of the inherently dangerous conditions presented by increasingly understaffed and overpopulated federal prisons, say Alan Ellis and Mark Allenbaugh at the Law Offices of Alan Ellis.

  • Justices' Double Jeopardy Ruling Preserves Acquittal Sanctity

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    The U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous decision last week in McElrath v. Georgia, barring the state from retrying a man acquitted of murder after a so-called repugnant verdict, is significant in the tangled web of double jeopardy jurisprudence for its brief and unequivocal protection of an acquittal’s finality, says Lissa Griffin at Pace Law School.

  • NY Must Address Urgent Need For Immigration Legal Aid

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    The recent influx of migrants to New York has exposed the urgent need for state legislators to make a long-term investment in sustainable immigration legal services infrastructure, supervision and training, say Marielena Hincapié and Stephen Yale-Loehr at Cornell Law.

  • 911 Call Scrutiny Should Not Be Used To Identify Suspects

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    Though the use of 911 call analysis to identify suspects continues to spread across the country, this scientifically unproven method opens the door to wrongful convictions, so prosecutors should review investigations that relied on the technique, and lawmakers should ban it nationwide, say Miriam Krinsky at Fair and Just Prosecution and Isabelle Cohn at the Innocence Project.

  • 6 Practice Pointers For Pro Bono Immigration Practice

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    An attorney taking on their first pro bono immigration matter may find the law and procedures beguiling, but understanding key deadlines, the significance of individual immigration judges' rules and specialized aspects of the practice can help avoid common missteps, says Steven Malm at Haynes Boone.

  • 8th Circ. Redistricting Ruling Imperils The Voting Rights Act

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    The Eighth Circuit’s recent ruling in Arkansas NAACP v. Arkansas Board of Apportionment, holding that private plaintiffs don't have standing to sue in redistricting cases, creates a circuit split, and, if upheld, would nearly destroy the Voting Rights Act, says William Brewer at Brewer Storefront.

  • Justices May Clarify Expert Witness Confrontation Confusion

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    After oral arguments in Smith v. Arizona, the U.S. Supreme Court seems poised to hold that expert witness opinions that rely on out-of-court testimonial statements for their factual basis are unconstitutional, thus resolving some of the complications created by the court’s confrontation clause jurisprudence, says Richard Friedman at the University of Michigan Law School.

  • Immigration Detention Should Offer Universal Legal Counsel

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    Given the large backlog of immigration court cases and the more than 70% of people in immigration detention without counsel in 2023, the system should establish a universal right to federally funded representation for anyone facing deportation, similar to the public defender model, say Laura Lunn and Shaleen Morales at the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network.

  • UX Research And Design Is Crucial For Justice Technologies

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    It’s essential that new access-to-justice digital tools incorporate user experience research and design methodologies to enhance access and accessibility, improve efficiency in processes and service delivery, and reduce risk, says Sarah Mauet at Innovation for Justice.

  • Higher Juror Compensation Trend Is Good For Justice System

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    This year a number of states increased daily juror compensation rates after decades of stagnation — a positive development that facilitates more representative juries, aids decision making and boosts public confidence in the legal system, says Cary Silverman at Shook Hardy.

  • The Pop Culture Docket: Judge D'Emic On Moby Grape

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    The 1968 Moby Grape song "Murder in My Heart for the Judge" tells the tale of a fictional defendant treated with scorn by the judge, illustrating how much the legal system has evolved in the past 50 years, largely due to problem-solving courts and the principles of procedural justice, says Kings County Supreme Court Administrative Judge Matthew D'Emic.

  • 6th Circ. Case Eases Path For Some Excessive Force Claims

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    The U.S. Supreme Court recently declined to hear Fox v. Campbell, leaving in place the Sixth Circuit’s holding that excessive force claims based on police shootings can be founded on the Fourth Amendment even if no one is hit by gunfire — which will be helpful for some civil rights litigants, says Sharon Fairley at the University of Chicago Law School.

  • In Culley, Justices Unlikely To Set New Forfeiture Standards

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    As the U.S. Supreme Court considers Culley v. Marshall — a case with the potential to reshape civil asset forfeiture practices — the justices' recent comments at oral argument suggest that, while some of them may be concerned about civil forfeiture abuse, they are unlikely to significantly change the status quo, say attorneys at Jackson Walker.

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