We Need Now Law Corps and/or Law For America

This recession has had a drastic affect on the legal community. For a few years now, there have been more graduates from law schools than available jobs at law firms. In addition, the recession of the past three years has compounded the problem, causing the world to become extremely competitive, with numerous lawyers having to locate employment outside of their chosen field, and in many cases, outside of the professional arena. Meanwhile, countless studies show that 90% of the legal needs of the poor go unmet and a sizable portion of those of the lower-middle class and middle class do as well. In a prior blog post, I commented that one method of making it possible for aggrieved parties to secure justice with counsel would be to expand the number of cases for which shifting attorney fees are available as a possible plaintiff award. Shifting attorney fees means that a plaintiff upon victory can recover his or her legal fees in addition to the existing recovery. I believe shifting fees should also be available to defendants upon a showing that the plaintiff was not acting in good faith when filing suit. It is my understanding that these resources are available to defendants, whereas plaintiff-favored shifting fees are only available in a limited number of cases. Shifting fees are logical for certain forms of litigation, but not others. And, they provide no help to those non-wealthy looking for legal help for transactions or consumer matters that need not rise to the level of litigation. In addition, shifting fees are only logical if individuals know they have a legal problem. Thus, there is an additional solution to consider, namely the creation of a Law Corps (a la Peace Corps/National Service Corps) or a Law For America (a la Teach for America). Like Peace Corps or the National Service Corps, a Law Corps could be a cadre of young lawyers providing legal help for members of low to moderate income communities. This could range from addressing individual legal needs, such as divorce law and business law to community issues such as land use law and managing police relations. A Law For America program could be one where young lawyers go into communities and teach to the communities about the legal issues that affect them, and their rights and opportunities to take advantage of the court system for resolution of problems. In this blog I have included several articles about efforts in the Asian subcontinent, specifically India, to go into poor neighborhoods and teach community members about the law that affects them and how to address legal issues. I would also envision discussion based programs that allow community members to learn to read legal texts, like cases, and to familiarize themselves with locating the rules and laws that they desire to learn. In later posts, I hope to follow up with these ideas and think through how these types of programs can proceed without huge budgets.