April 9, 2019

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:

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.

Visit the A2J Initiative at Fordham Law School

Recent Articles

Rikers and Mental Illness

Join us on September 13th at 6:30 pm as NCAJ's Legal & Policy Director Lauren Jones leads this panel of NYC leaders in this timely and critical conversation...

In NY Times Op Ed, NCAJ asks "What's Wrong with Getting a Little Free Legal Advice"

NCAJ Executive Director David Udell and Fordham Law Prof. Bruce Green describe in their New York Times Op Ed why the First Amendment protects the freedom of a reverend in the South Bronx to talk with community residents about the basic problems of everyday life including by advising them on how to complete court forms provided by the New York Courts for use by lay people.

New Findings on Fines & Fees Policies, Released Today by the National Center for Access to Justice, Rank the States & Provide a 50-State Policy Reform Agenda

In 2016, a court in Lexington County, South Carolina ordered Twanda Marshinda Brown, a single mother who worked at Burger King, to pay $2,300 for two traffic offenses. Although she told the court she could only afford to pay $50 each month, the judge ordered her to pay $100 in monthly installments. Ms. Brown managed to make the payments for five months but she fell behind when her son was hospitalized and several checks from her employer bounced. The sheriff’s office ...

NCAJ Files Amicus Brief to Protect Access to Justice for Indigent People in Prison

On June 25 the National Center for Access to Justice filed a brief as lead amicus (“friend of the court”) in Rosa v. Doe in the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. On behalf of nine organizations, the amicus brief urges the Circuit Court to guide its federal district courts on how to ensure that people in state prison are not forced by substantial federal court filing fees to choose between pursuing justice in court and covering their “necessary expenses” including their expenditures for family members.