Limited Legal Assistance

Cartoon, appearing like a Monopoly "Go to Jail" card, states, "Immigration Court: Go directly to Appeal. Do not go to hearing. Do not waste time driving."

A Study of Attorney Impact on Immigration Hearings

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Immigration court has a numbers problem. It had 3.3 million active pending cases as of March 2026. The U.S. government assures the presence of a Department of Homeland Security attorney serving as opposing counsel in every immigration proceeding. But only 37 percent of immigrants, and just 14 percent of detained immigrants, have legal representation themselves. This mismatch between supply and demand (or rather, need) makes it ripe for the randomized controlled trial we’re pursuing.

Cartoon depicting ants triaging wounded ants while a judge dictates how medical cases will be prioritized

“Lawyers for Everyone!”: What Could Go Wrong?

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Applying Gideon—the criminal right to counsel—to civil cases seems like a logical step in attaining better access to justice for everyone. So why are three heavy hitters in the access to justice space speaking out against the push for civil Gideon? The reason has to do with expansion and dilution of a limited resource.

Cartoon depicting a lawyer helping a tenant navigate an eviction hearing

When Lawyers Matter Most: Lessons from Legal Assistance During Evictions

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The premise of right-to-counsel programs is straightforward: if tenants are at risk of losing their homes, and landlords usually have lawyers, then tenants should have lawyers too. But do lawyers actually prevent evictions? And if they do, is it because they win legal arguments in court, or because they help tenants navigate the broader system surrounding eviction? Researchers conducted a randomized controlled trial to learn more.

Cartoon depicting the bar as autos being allowed through an intersection in which a truck labeled as an auto club must stop.

Collision Course: How the Bar Drove Auto Clubs Out of Court

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A Depression-era legal battle between the bar association and auto clubs like AAA pitted the financial interests of lawyers against those of consumers. When the bar won, it not only set forth a future of legal reform controlled by courts rather than lawmakers, it also laid the groundwork for a hundred years of access-to-justice issues that continue to plague the legal profession.

Cartoon depicting Upsolve in jail without a way to communicate while New York courts stand tall with a megaphone in hand

Inside Upsolve’s Legal Fight for Justice Advocacy

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Upsolve is a New York nonprofit attempting to create a program in which non-lawyers give limited legal advice to low- income people in debt collection litigation. The organization would be a boon in helping the roughly 80 percent of defendants failing to appear in debt collection court. The only thing standing in its way? New York’s Unauthorized Practice of Law (UPL) statute. HLS student Ashil Jhaveri charts a legal argument based on UPL’s unconstitutionality that could hopefully move the organization forward.

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.

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