In eight new writings arising out of the Solutions Symposium, the gathering of more than 500 people that NCAJ hosted with the Stein Center for Law & Ethics and the Fordham Urban Law Journal on February 9, 2024, scholars and advocates discuss and analyze important policy solutions at the leading edge of the access to justice reform movement.

The subjects include upstream (abolitionist) solutions, the civil right to counsel for tenants facing eviction, lay legal assistance programs (and methodologies for their evaluation), the use of generative artificial intelligence in consumer debt litigation, and models for determining whether people have the "ability to pay" fines and fees. The writings include a foreword by NCAJ's executive director, David Udell, and an article by NCAJ’s Legal & Policy Director, Lauren Jones.

We are delighted to share the full collection of writings, below (now published in the Fordham Urban Law Journal's Volume 51, Issue No. 5, 2024):

• David Udell, Foreword: With People Struggling and the Law Failing, What Are the Solutions to the Access to Justice Crisis in America?
• Andrew Scherer, Stop the Violence: A Taxonomy of Measures to Abolish Evictions
• Neil Steinkamp, Maximizing Housing Stability and Minimizing Evictions: Evidence-Based Models That Keep Tenants in Their Homes and Out of the Courts
• John Pollock, Right to Counsel for Tenants Facing Eviction: Justification, History, and Future
• Tanina Rostain and James Teufel, Measures of Justice: Researching and Evaluating Lay Legal Assistance Programs
• Matthew Burnett and Rebecca L. Sandefur, A People-Centered Approach to Designing and Evaluating Community Justice Worker Programs in the United States
• Raymond H. Brescia, Robots vs. Predators: Can Generative Artificial Intelligence Help to Address the Justice Gap in Consumer Debt Litigation
• Lauren Jones, Ability to Pay: Closing the Access to Justice Gap with Policy Solutions for Unaffordable Fines and Fees

For more background on the Symposium, check out the agenda and videos.