News & Updates
In Louisiana civil courts, the poor are left to defend themselves
Forty-six states provide funding to help their most vulnerable citizens secure free legal assistance in civil matters. Louisiana, which has the worst health care, the second highest rates of poverty and domestic violence, as well as being more prone to natural disasters than all but 10 states, provides nothing.
Everyone Needs Legal Help. That Doesn’t Mean Everyone Needs a Lawyer.
Rebecca Sandefur, a sociologist and researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has spent years considering a question that’s central to the American legal system: Does everyone facing legal issues need a lawyer?
America’s civil justice system needs reform, too
There are solutions for our badly broken civil justice system. Americans understand this, and strongly support reform.
In 83 Million Eviction Records, a Sweeping and Intimate New Look at Housing in America
In Richmond, most of those evicted never made it to a courtroom. They didn’t appear because the process seemed inscrutable, or because they didn’t have lawyers to navigate it, or because they believed there is not much to say when you simply don’t have the money. The median amount owed was $686.
A New York courtroom gave every detained immigrant a lawyer. The results were staggering.
Omar Siagha has been in the US for 52 years. He’s a legal permanent resident with three children. He’d never been to prison, he says, before he was taken into Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention — faced with the loss of his green card for a misdemeanor.