In more than a dozen new writings gathered in The A2J Summit Collection, activists from across the country describe the leading edge and future promise of the civil justice reform movement, in many instances seeing its prospects as closely intertwined with the criminal justice reform movement and the national effort to reduce mass incarceration.
The A2J Summit Collection, published in the Fordham Law Review Online, is an outgrowth of a pathbreaking Fall 2018 national convening — the A2J Summit — that brought more than 85 activists and leaders together at Fordham Law School for a strategic reconsideration of the place, purpose, and importance of civil justice reform.
The pieces in the A2J Summit Collection make the case for the crucial importance of civil justice reform to address the crisis in which people risk the loss of their homes, their children, their savings, their physical and emotional well-being, even their liberty, because of challenges posed by the civil justice system. The authors and the titles of their writings are:
- David Udell, Building the Access to Justice Movement
- Jonathan Lippman, A Perspective from the Judiciary on Access to Justice
- Rebecca L. Sandefur, “What Do We Want!”?
- Gillian K. Hadfield, Striking a Match, Not a Pose, for Access to Justice
- Jo-Ann Wallace, Access to Legal Help is a Human Service
- Ariel Simon & Sandra Ambrozy, Don’t Go It Alone
- Katherine Alteneder, Self-Representation is Becoming the Norm and Driving Reform
- Lauren Sudeall, Integrating the Access to Justice Movement
- Lisa Foster, Building a Movement: The Lessons of Fines and Fees
- Justine Olderman & Runa Rajagopal, A National Movement for Access to Justice Must Be Holistic
- Peter Chapman, The Legal Empowerment Movement and its Implications
- Jennifer Ching, Thomas B. Harvey, Meena Jagannath, Purvi Shah, and Blake Strode, A Few Interventions and Offerings from Five Movement Lawyers to the Access to Justice Movement
- Jamie Gamble and Amy Widman, The Role of Data in Organizing an Access to Justice Movement
- Martha Bergmark, All Rise for Civil Justice
The National Center for Access to Justice and the A2J Initiative at Fordham Law School, the joint sponsors of the A2J Summit and of the A2J Summit Collection, invite readers to consider the new writings, and to join forces with our own efforts and with those of the authors in working to expand civil access to justice.
The A2J Summit was generously supported by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the Pew Charitable Trust.
Visit NCAJ’s website, check out NCAJ’s Justice Index, and sign up for NCAJ’s Blog.