Civil Court-Based Reforms

Cartoon depicts inmate waiting to be admitted into a virtual child welfare hearing

Locked Out: Structural Barriers to the Child Welfare System for Incarcerated Parents

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For a child, parental incarceration is a legal gateway into the child welfare system. Parents have rights to participate in custody proceedings, but incarceration erects barriers that can make meaningful participation difficult. In this “Student Voices” post, we look at the current system–one in eight incarcerated parents lose their parental rights–and potential solutions to these barriers that, if left unchecked, can effectively lock incarcerated parents out of the child welfare process.

Cartoon depicts Child Protection Services as a falling building, with law and medical support helping to save a family

Inside CHAMPS’ Evidence-Based Holistic Approach to Child Advocacy

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This is the story of a traditional law school clinic that has evolved into much more. CHAMPS, the Carolina Health Advocacy Medical–Legal Partnership, is a legal service provider embedded in a healthcare setting. It’s also the field partner for an A2J Lab study evaluating whether legal partnerships can reduce downstream involvement by child welfare agencies in cases potentially due to poverty-related conditions.

Cartoon depicting an individual looking for specialized mental health court support but finding it closed to civil defendants

The Case for a Specialized Civil Mental Health Court

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While specialized “problem-solving” courts have become common, there is still no equivalent civil mental health court in Massachusetts to handle complex issues like civil commitment and involuntary psychiatric treatment. The gap exposes the potential for the Commonwealth to learn from other states leading reform of the civil judicial system in this area and to pilot such a court and evaluate its impact through a randomized controlled trial.

Cartoon depicting legal delays for involuntarily committed psychiatric patients with schizophrenia seeking treatment in Massachusetts

Involuntarily Committed Patients Face Legal Obstacles, Treatment Delays

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In Massachusetts, involuntarily committed psychiatric patients with schizophrenia often face systemic barriers to timely treatment from procedural inefficiencies that prioritize legal formalities over patient well-being.  To address this access to justice challenge, the Commonwealth could implement reforms to streamline the legal process while preserving patient rights.

Cartoon depicting website navigation as searching for a needle in a haystack

Government Websites: Why are They so Bad (and Can They be Better)?

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Government websites, when effective, can make the process of filing for bankruptcy, divorce, restraining orders and other common legal requests easier. Unfortunately, the quality of these websites varies significantly with many state and federal sites’ lack of accessibility reflecting limited access to justice for their users. Fixing these websites is a relatively easy and inexpensive method to expand accessibility to court systems and services, provided the willpower is there. 

Cartoon depicting a lawyer shown as a wolf evicting the Statue of Liberty and replacing her with Uncle Sam

Who Deserves a Lawyer? The Hidden Gender Bias in the Right to Counsel

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The landmark court decision in Gideon v. Wainwright from 1963 made it a constitutional right, both in federal and state courts, for criminal defendants to have the right to counsel. That decision does not extend to civil cases– such as child custody, eviction, and domestic violences cases–which affect women, often from marginalized backgrounds, more than than men. HLS student Laura Aquino argues for a study to address the gender bias in denying legal assistance to civil litigants that may play a role in preserving a system that limits access to justice for women.

Cartoon depicting three little pics trying to avoid eviction from the wolf

Legal Literacy: An Upstream Eviction Prevention Strategy

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With this housing insecurity having potentially numerous contributing factors, the Access to Justice Lab and research partners at the University of Houston Law Center targeted legal literacy as a potential key to addressing housing evictions in its recently completed pilot study.

Cartoon depicting a lawyer seeing medical quackery in his mirror reflection

What Law Can Learn from the History of Medicine

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Law is a millennium behind medicine (give or take a few centuries). While medicine has evolved into a science-based discipline with rigorous empirical standards, law still operates on precedent, rhetoric, and theory untethered to scientific evidence. It doesn’t have to be that way. There is nothing so unique about the practice of law that makes it immune to data. Why should law, unlike every other discipline, not submit itself to math and science?

Cartoon about courthouse cellphone bans

Courthouse Cell Phone Bans Limit Access to Justice

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Across the country, courthouse cell phone bans pose a significant barrier to entry to the legal system. HLS J.D. candidate Andrew Reed argues that in attempting to maintain a respectful atmosphere and protect privacy with cellphone bans, courthouses have inadvertently made access to justice less attainable for many, including pro se litigants.

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