Publisher's Synopsis
Combining the disciplines of economics, public policy development, political science and philosophy, history, and law this book comprehensively shows how the poor and near poor are denied justice in a variety of legal disputes. Unlike those indigent parties in a criminal actions, indigent civil litigants are not entitled, save for very narrow circumstances, to appointed counsel.These unrepresented indigent civil parties are left vulnerable to vagaries of the civil justice system, not only is their poverty unwittingly used against them, not only are bad judicial outcomes reached, but the very legitimacy of the rule of law and democracy are threatened.This book also details the struggles and successes that one non-profit legal services organization had serving indigent clients, and the causes of its ultimate demise.Well researched and told through the prism of the founder of a legal services organization, this book describes what is wrong with the legal system and offers proposals to fix it.This book is not a work of neutral abstract scholarship. It is advocacy, using various disciplines and data to come to its conclusion: all civil litigants, no matter their inability to pay, deserve legal services in all areas of legal disputes.But more than the needs of indigents for legal services, and the unavailability of those services, is a subtle critiques of why progress is often derailed by those in power. In many ways, this is a cautionary tale of how powerful elites and institutions obstruct efforts for meaningful change on behalf of the powerless in our communities.
