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Access to Justice
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March 24, 2023
How Legal Aid Groups Are Using Artificial Intelligence Tools
Legal tech companies Casetext and Relativity have partnered with several legal aid organizations to give them access to their artificial intelligence tools. Here is a look at how these groups are using the tools and what it means for access to justice.
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March 23, 2023
Mich. High Court Mulls New Rule That Helps Indigent Clients
The Michigan Supreme Court is eyeing a change to the state's rules of professional conduct that would allow attorneys to help certain clients out with transportation and other amenities during court proceedings, potentially furthering the court's recent focus on increasing access to justice in the state.
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March 23, 2023
Reed Smith's Sachnoff Remembered As Pro Bono Icon
The Chicago legal community is mourning the loss of longtime Reed Smith LLP attorney Lowell Sachnoff while celebrating his impact, which ranged from passionately advocating for the rights of transgender people and for prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay to mentoring generations of young lawyers he affectionately called his "ducklings."
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March 22, 2023
Pa. Gov. Calls For State-Level Public Defender Funding
Gov. Josh Shapiro urged members of the Philadelphia Bar Association on Wednesday to support dedicating $10 million of his $44 billion budget proposal to end Pennsylvania's distinction as being the only state to not provide state-level funding to public defenders.
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March 21, 2023
Bipartisan Report Recommends Axing Mandatory Minimums
A new study co-chaired by Sally Yates, the Obama administration's former deputy attorney general, and former Republican Congressman Trey Gowdy recommends doing away with mandatory minimum sentences and increasing parole opportunities to cut down on long prison sentences, which they say are often wasteful and ineffective.
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March 17, 2023
Georgetown Tech Program To Begin In Tenn., Utah, Kan.
The Georgetown University Law Center has announced the first three court projects selected for its inaugural Judicial Innovation Fellowship, which will embed technologists and software designers in state, local and tribal courts to develop tech-based solutions to improve access to the judicial system.
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March 10, 2023
Stoel Rives, Dorsey Attys Break Ground For Minn. Detainees
In a win for two Minnesota Sex Offender Program patients left waiting for more than two years after being deemed eligible to move out of lockdown confinement, attorneys at Stoel Rives LLP and Dorsey & Whitney LLP recently secured a significant ruling requiring speedier state action on court-ordered transfers.
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March 10, 2023
Attys Work To Take The 'Civil' Out Of Civil Forfeiture
A case pending before the Nevada Supreme Court is the latest in a nationwide battle to try and make civil forfeiture, a process through which the government can seize property from criminal defendants, a part of criminal court proceedings. Critics of civil forfeiture say that conducting seizures through separate civil cases violates double jeopardy and due process protections, and deprives those facing forfeiture of legal representation.
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March 10, 2023
NY Lawmakers Renew Push To Ban 'Predatory' Court Fees
New York levies a mandatory surcharge on every criminal conviction, whether it’s for a violation, a misdemeanor or a felony. In some cases, court fees can add up to hundreds of dollars, and critics say the levies fall disproportionately on the backs of low-income residents. A proposed bill would eliminate them.
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March 08, 2023
Senate Votes Down DC's Revised Criminal Code
The U.S. Senate voted Wednesday 81-14-1 to block Washington, D.C.'s revised criminal code from taking effect, a move that would leave in place a 122-year-old code that's been described as unclear and piecemeal, and highlights the district's unique hurdles to self-governance.
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March 08, 2023
Conn. Court Axes Class Action Over State's 'Pay To Stay' Law
A federal judge in Connecticut on Monday told three former inmates they had no standing to challenge the state's attorney general over a controversial law that allows the state to sue prisoners for the costs of their incarceration.
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February 24, 2023
Retired Atty's Fight To Help End DC Driver License Penalties
After retiring in 2018 from several decades of government work, a former U.S. Department of Labor attorney found a new opportunity to serve the public as he recently helped mount a successful challenge to a Washington, D.C., rule barring individuals with unpaid fines from obtaining or renewing driver licenses.
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February 24, 2023
ICE, Prison Co. Targeted Detainee Hunger Strikers, Suit Says
Staff at two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities in California regularly retaliated against migrant detainees for engaging in hunger strikes, including by denying them basic hygiene supplies and threatening solitary confinement, a new lawsuit alleges.
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February 24, 2023
New Law Helps Lathrop, Bryan Cave Win Mo. Exoneration
Relying on a recently passed state law giving prosecutors new authority to challenge wrongful convictions, attorneys with Lathrop GPM and Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner won a ruling this month exonerating a St. Louis man following a 1995 murder conviction they said had been marred by false testimony.
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February 24, 2023
Inside The Fight To Update DC's Criminal Code
As the District of Columbia prepares to enact a wholly revised criminal code to replace its jumbled set of statutory provisions cobbled together over 122 years, critics and congressional Republicans are objecting to a handful of provisions, including an end to most mandatory minimum sentences and reduced maximum sentences for certain violent offenses, insisting they would embolden criminals.
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February 24, 2023
How Baton Rouge Activists Won A Rare Civil Rights Settlement
Activists who accused the Baton Rouge police of brutalizing them at a 2016 protest faced long odds as they sought to hold the department accountable. But two veteran civil rights attorneys helped secure the group a rare $1 million settlement this month as a two-week jury trial neared its conclusion.
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February 24, 2023
Law360 Seeks Members For Its 2023 Editorial Boards
Law360 is looking for avid readers of our publications to serve as members of our 2023 editorial advisory boards.
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February 22, 2023
Justices Say Ariz. Got Death Penalty Due Process Wrong
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday said Arizona high court justices so wrongly interpreted the state's criminal procedure rules that federal review was warranted, in a death penalty appeal that spurred a 5-4 divide among the justices.
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February 21, 2023
Use Of Plea Bargains Undermining Justice, ABA Report Says
The overuse of plea bargains in criminal prosecutions is undermining the criminal justice system's integrity, exacerbating its racial inequality and creating "perverse incentives" to prioritize expediency over fact-finding, according to an American Bar Association report issued Wednesday.
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February 03, 2023
What The Tyre Nichols Case Means For Police Prosecutions
When Tyre Nichols was fatally beaten by Memphis, Tennessee, police last month, videos of the incident helped prompt local prosecutors to quickly bring second-degree murder charges against five of the officers involved — a highly unusual result that offers a window into the evolving state of police accountability in the U.S. Here, Law360 looks at some of the factors that make the Nichols case unusual, and what implications it could hold for future police prosecutions.
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February 03, 2023
House Task Force Aims To Help Ex-Cons Thrive After Prison
More than two dozen members of Congress have banded together to create a new bipartisan task force focused on aiding former inmates' reentry into society.
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February 03, 2023
Md. Court Watchers Push For Permanent Remote Access
Singer-songwriter Fiona Apple added another skill to her repertoire during the pandemic by becoming a citizen court-watcher, remotely observing hearings in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, and now she is part of a coalition advocating for a bill that would make it easier for the public to access court proceedings.
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February 03, 2023
Gibson Dunn Aids Venezuelan Asylum-Seekers Bused To NYC
When Texas, Florida and Arizona authorities began busing tens of thousands of migrants from the Southern border to Northern cities last year, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP attorneys stepped up to provide legal aid to hundreds of Venezuelan families applying for asylum in the U.S.
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February 03, 2023
Calif. Federal Judge Orders Release Of Medical Pot Operator
A man convicted of running a California medical marijuana operation and sentenced to over two decades in federal prison is expected to walk free on Friday after a federal judge granted a motion to reduce his sentence.
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February 02, 2023
Gov't Denies It's 'Not Playing Ball' On Remote Hearings
The federal government has rebuffed a claim by the American Immigration Lawyers Association that it is "not playing ball in a serious way" to provide a remote option for immigration hearings, saying the group was the uncooperative party.
Expert Analysis
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Border Phone Search Questions Continue In Federal Court
A Massachusetts federal court's eventual decision on cellphone searches at the U.S. border in Alasaad v. Nielsen will further illustrate the differences in how federal courts apply the U.S. Supreme Court's 2014 decision in Riley v. California to the warrant-requirement exception for border searches, says Sharon Barney at Leech Tishman.
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US Misdemeanor System Should Honor Principles Of Justice
The U.S. misdemeanor system — which represents the vast majority of the country’s criminal system — is under-regulated, rarely scrutinized and rife with official rule-breaking. It's time we brought this enormous aspect of our democracy into the modern legal era, says Alexandra Natapoff of University of California, Irvine School of Law.
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Does Multidistrict Litigation Deny Plaintiffs Due Process?
Judges in multidistrict litigation consistently appoint lead plaintiffs lawyers based on their experience, war chests and ability to get along with everyone. But evidence suggests that these repeat players often make deals riddled with self-interest and provisions that goad plaintiffs into settling, says Elizabeth Chamblee Burch of the University of Georgia School of Law.
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NLRB Case Hinders Workers' Path To Justice
A little-noticed National Labor Relations Board filing has taken the U.S. Supreme Court's 2018 class action waiver decision and turned it into a justification for further limiting workers’ access to courts, says Sharon Block, executive director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School.
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Immigration Enforcement Under Trump Neglects Rule Of Law
What President Donald Trump and his administration have described as a “humanitarian crisis” at the U.S. southern border is, in reality, a Trump-exacerbated crisis — which demands real solutions, not incendiary rhetoric, cruelty and lawlessness, says David Leopold of Ulmer & Berne.
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Calif. Lawmakers Should Stay Out Of USC Sex Abuse Case
A pending settlement between the University of Southern California and 17,000 former students would resolve claims over the actions of a sexually abusive gynecologist. But proposed state legislation could undermine the settlement, says Shook Hardy partner Phil Goldberg, director of the Progressive Policy Institute’s Center for Civil Justice.
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Utah's Online Dispute Platform Is Streamlining Small Claims
By making small claims litigation cheaper, faster and more convenient, especially for those facing difficulty appearing in court due to work schedules or geographic distances, an online pilot program in Utah is resolving cases that would otherwise go unfiled — or defaulted upon, says Martin Pritikin, dean of Concord Law School at Purdue University Global.
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The First Step Act Is A Major Step For Sentencing Reform
While many have heralded the First Step Act as an example of bipartisan cooperation, the mainstream press has said surprisingly little about the law's specific sentencing improvements — many stemming from recommendations made by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, says Judge Patti Saris, chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
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How To Improve Jurors' Perceptions Of Legal Outcomes
When practitioners use methods to emphasize procedural fairness during jury selection, they can engender more faith in the justice system among potential jurors — which can extend beyond trial, says Natalie Gordon of trial consulting firm DOAR.
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The Role Of Data In An Access To Justice Movement
To change the system, we need the wider community to see beyond personal stories of injustice to the “complete picture” of the lack of access to civil justice. Collecting data, indexing it and making it comprehensible is a key part of painting that picture, say James Gamble and Amy Widman of Fordham Law School's National Center for Access to Justice.
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Changing The Conversation On Bail Reform
Instead of looking at “bail reform” as a choice of bail or no bail, we need to focus on reforming four major aspects of the criminal justice process that lead up to the point of bond determination, says Wilford Pinkney of FUSE Fellows.
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The Criminal Justice System's Algorithms Need Transparency
Trade secret protections for pretrial risk assessment algorithms must be eliminated, or else criminal defendants will be unable to challenge or even examine the data being used to keep them incarcerated, says Idaho state Rep. Greg Chaney, whose bill forcing algorithmic transparency recently passed the Idaho Legislature.
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How Do We Know If Prosecutors Are Doing A Good Job?
From Special Counsel Robert Mueller to Chicago prosecutor Kim Foxx, prosecutors are receiving plenty of negative attention in the news, but there is no clear standard for judging prosecutor performance, says Jeffrey Bellin, a professor at William & Mary Law School.
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The Gig Economy Can Bring More Legal Aid At Lower Cost
Many people in the United States are not getting the legal help they need, and at the same time many lawyers are struggling to find employment. A legal services gig economy could benefit both lawyers and clients, but it must be implemented without disrupting the existing market, says Adam Kerpelman of Juris Project.
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Coercive Process For Material Witnesses Needs Reform
The current application of the material witness statute is deeply flawed and antithetical to the fundamentals of American criminal justice, say attorneys with Buckley LLP.