February 2, 2018
San Francisco, CA – Yesterday, the New York Times reported that the Department of Justice has quietly moved to shut down the Office for Access to Justice. We are deeply disappointed, though not surprised, by this decision, the most recent in a series of actions that has revealed this administration’s contempt for civil legal aid and dedication to maintaining an unequal and unjust status quo.
The Office for Access to Justice was created in 2010, under Attorney General Eric Holder in response to “the access-to-justice crisis in the criminal and civil justice system.” The office’s goals included promoting access and eliminating barriers to justice, ensuring fairness for all participants in the legal and judicial process, and increasing efficiency in the justice system. In addition to its substantive accomplishments, which included launching a “federal interagency roundtable” to demonstrate the benefits of legal aid in various areas of federal policy, the office represented a commitment from the federal government to realizing our shared value of equal justice for all, not just for those who can afford it.
Approximately five million low-income Californians will face legal problems over the next year. Of course, only lawyers call these “legal problems.” For the people involved, they are life problems – which happen to have legal solutions. There’s the grandmother who complains about the broken toilet spewing sewage into her apartment – and the landlord serves her with eviction papers rather than fix it. Or the young woman who has left an abusive relationship and lives in fear of the idea that her abuser might be able to find her at her job. Or the Vietnam veteran living on the street because he cannot access the benefits or medical care he needs.
Unfortunately, most of these people cannot afford to hire an attorney to get the legal help they need. They are shut out of the civil justice system – one of the jewels of American democracy – simply because they cannot afford it.
Legal aid offers hope for filling this gap, and helps ensure a more level playing field in our civil justice system, by providing advice and representation to those who could otherwise not afford it. Legal aid attorneys provide life-changing help to those who need it most – helping the grandmother stay in her home, the young woman live without fear, the veteran safe and secure.
Over the last twelve months, the Trump administration has repeatedly moved to undermine this core American value of civil justice by threatening legal aid programs. The Administration called for the complete elimination of federal funding for civil justice services for low-income Americans. The shuttering of the Office for Access to Justice is further abandonment of our shared value and the constitutional promise of equality under law.
But we know that access to justice is a concept revered by many – on both sides of the aisle and across the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. Americans understand that having a level playing field in court is not a partisan issue. With this in mind, we promise that the OneJustice Network will never stop working to defend the civil justice system.
You can take action now to make your voice heard to protect civil legal aid in California.
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