Access To Equal Justice: A Dialogue Among the Bench, The Bar, and the Academy

UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall), UC Davis School of Law, and USF School of Law Contributors to this report: Maggie Dundon, Bill O. Hing, Donna Maeda, Stephanie M. Wildman

The Northern California colloquium was very successful. The interest among law schools, service providers, the bench, and many from the private bar was tremendous. Representatives from every Northern California law school attended: USF, Boalt, UC Davis, Hastings, Golden Gate, New College, Santa Clara, Stanford, McGeorge, as well as a faculty member from University of Nevada Las Vegas. Old and new friends from the bay area law schools gathered with representatives of the bench and bar including many local superstars among service providers. Organizations represented included the Asian Law Caucus, ACLU, Immigrant Legal Resource Center, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, State Bar, SF Bar Association, CRLA, National Economic Development and Law Center, Contra Costa County Public Defender, National Center for Lesbian Rights, Legal Services for Children, Public Interest Clearinghouse, and Equal Rights Advocates.

Fifty folks inaugurated the conference with dinner Friday evening at USF, while more than 120 attended sessions on Saturday at Boalt. The deans from USF, Boalt, and Davis played prominent roles throughout the agenda.

Friday Evening Session
The dinner on Friday night was beautiful and inspiring, moderated by Jacqueline Ortega, Assistant Dean for Student Affairs. Dean Jeff Brand introduced the guest speaker: Hon. Cruz Reynoso. Justice Reynoso has experienced access to justice issues from every angle: the bench, private bar, legal services, the academy, foundation world, and now the US Civil Rights Commission. He didn't mince words, challenging us all to do more, while maintaining his usual optimistic outlook.

Saturday Sessions
Welcome
John Dwyer, Dean of Boalt Hall, welcomed the audience and talked about the importance of institution-building for increasing access to justice. He discussed the role of law schools in this project and talked about innovative clinical programs and the Center for Social Justice at Boalt Hall.

Dean Rex Perschbacher from the University of California, Davis, School of Law, welcomed the audience and stressed the special responsibilities of public law schools as public institutions for creating equal access for students, staff, faculty and communities. According to Dean Perschbacher, law schools are responsible for 1) creating learning environments to prepare students for leadership in a democratic society; 2) engaging consciously with developing resources (as community’s greater interests and opportunities); 3) accountability to the public--to have processes that are open and above board; and 4) consciously to take on public responsibilities and roles.

Professor Stephanie Wildman, Director of Boalt Hall’s Center for Social Justice, pointed out that many students attend law school with an interest in social justice. She suggested that law schools should not destroy that interest. Professor Wildman made the connection between diversity in law schools to the issue of access to justice.

Plenary I: Challenges to Achieving Access to Equal Justice
The Honorable Claudia Wilken, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, moderated this panel.

Mary Viviano, Legal Services Outreach, State Bar of California, offered an organizational/institutional perspective. She first talked about the system of providing legal services for low income people on civil matters. In California, there is approximately one legal service attorney for every 12,000 people eligible for public legal resources. In 1980, there was approximately one legal service attorney for every 5,700 low income people; in 1990 the numbers were one for every 10,000. With a new California funding source of ten million dollars, the state will spend approximately $1.82 per low income person for these services. In contrast, Minnesota, the leader, spends $15 per low income person. The average in the U.S. is $2.26 per low income person; in England, the figure is $26 per poor person. Other countries such as the Netherlands, Germany, and France similarly spend a much greater amount than the U.S. In this country, approximately one half of the funding for these legal services comes from the government. The largest government source is Legal Services Corporation, which provides $32 million to California. Although incoming President Bush has continued this funding for the current year, Viviano is concerned about the push to reduce this amount and competition for funds.

In addition to financial resources, Viviano addressed human resources including pro bono volunteers and legal service programs. She raised concerns about the “graying of legal services.” A large proportion of public lawyers began work in the 1970s. Most public lawyers are either recent law school graduates or veterans of over twenty years. Viviano sees the large loan debt shouldered by law school graduates as a factor in this problem.

Viviano ended her presentation with a report on client need in California. In the state, there are 7.2 million low income people in comparison with approximately 5 million in 1990. A very large number of children in the state live in poverty. Conditions of poverty are complicated by such factors as language barriers and immigration issues. Viviano reported that over one-half of people in family law cases are unrepresented by lawyers.

Following Viviano was Bernida Reagan, Executive Director of the East Bay Community Law Center (EBCLC), who offered a legal service provider’s perspective on the issue of equal access. EBCLC was started by Boalt Hall students; over 600 alumni/ae have worked with the Center. EBCLC is the primary direct services legal aid center in Alameda County. In addition to marshaling services for low income people, EBCLC supports people in law school by providing clinical education. EBCLC takes a great number of housing cases; they receive approximately 100 calls per day about this issue. Because of gentrification and steeply rising rents, people are displaced from their homes at an alarming rate. Reagan discussed the ways that this is changing Oakland as people are pushed out into different communities. EBCLC holds approximately 100 tenant workshops per year with 20-30 attendees at each. Not only does the Center train private attorneys and link them to community centers but also provides the opportunity for information-sharing between people facing the same issues.

EBCLC offers holistic and comprehensive services by addressing not only specifically legal issues but also issues in education, environmental justice and other areas. Reagan commented on the relationship between the Center’s work in housing, HIV/AIDS, and workers’ rights. She talked about the great need for youth services. She also discussed the challenges of helping students from varying backgrounds to work with low income clients.

Reagan concluded her talk with constructive suggestions. In addition to work on expanding resources, she urged better connections between regional pro bono initiatives; increased work on organizing low income people, legislative and policy efforts; the development of broad-scale strategies, systems and institutions; and capacity-building and best-practices models for organizations to develop more effective ground-level work.

Richard Odgers, from Pillsbury Winthrop LLP, spoke on the role of corporations and corporate law firms in increasing access to justice. According to Odgers, the lack of support for public interest law by the bar has reached crisis proportions. He believes that members of the legal profession have a duty to do what they can to contribute to improvements in society. While the need for public interest lawyers has grown exponentially, support for this kind of law has remained static. The problem has been exacerbated by the growing gap between public interest and private bar salaries. Odgers stated that never before in history have the salaries of the newest attorneys been over 150% greater than those of the most experienced public interest lawyers.

Odgers attributed these problems to a fundamental change in attitudes of lawyers about the profession. In the past, attorneys in private practice generally felt they had obligations as professionals to support the public interest bar. Odgers has observed the gradual disappearance of the belief that the profession entails such responsibilities. According to Odgers, in 1999, the top one hundred highest grossing law firms spent an average of eight minutes per day on pro bono work. Between 1989 and 1999, those firms saw a 56% revenue increase in average per-partner profits.

Odgers urged that law students be instilled a renewed sense of what it means to be a member of the profession for long term changes. In the short term, he believes that leadership in the judiciary and corporate general counsels as the only two groups that would be able to guide firms in the right direction. One suggestion would be for law firms to contribute a percentage of their gross revenue to support public interest work.

Dean Rex Perschbacher from UC Davis followed Odgers’ presentation. Dean Perschbacher pointed out that while we are living in a period of unimaginable wealth and comfort, there has never before been less public support for what would be necessary to guarantee public justice for all. He argued that while we need more than incremental changes, law schools can only do small fixes for the following reasons:

1. Law schools cannot provide the entire solution to address the need for public legal services. Not only is there a limited number of law schools; each school is limited in the amount of legal services it can provide. Clinical programs are very expensive and offer a limited number of spaces for students and clients. Dean Perschbacher argued that the medical school modes for providing health services cannot work for law schools because of the different levels of government support for each type of institution.
2. Law schools embody many different interests and must provide an academic program to meet these varied needs. Not all law students wish to participate in clinical programs and the disparity between often-wealthy law students and poor clients can be too dramatic. In addition, law schools’ nine-month calendar is not set up to meet the year-round needs of clients.
3. Law school involvement in specific clinical programs may lead to political backlash. If such clinical programs are highly successful, they may become targets of legislative backlash.
4. Support from outside law schools is limited. Without greater funding for law school clinics, public interest legal education is at risk.

Perschbacher concluded with comments about what law schools can do in the face of these problems. Law schools are places to think about law and justice. Before they are caught up in the day-to-day tasks of law practice, law students have the luxury to think about the profession. Law schools can provide the opportunity for students to take courses that speak to the question of justice. In addition to clinics, law schools can offer public interest seminars and pro bono programs to support the public interest tradition of law. These provide the first models for students to see what their role in the profession might be. Faculty members are important for providing models for dedication to public interest law.

Judge Wilken concluded the panel by remarking on the limited funding for public defenders in the criminal justice system.

Following this plenary session, nine small group discussions were held on the following topics: Racial Justice/Critical Race Theory; International Human Rights/Immigrant Rights; Families, Youth, and Education; Constitutional Law; Community Economic Development/ Bankruptcy; Collaborations between Law Schools, the Courts, the Bar, and Service Providers; Institution Building; Prisoners’ Rights/Criminal Procedure; and Providing Rural Legal Services. Reports for several sessions follow.

International Human Rights/Immigrant Rights
Richard Boswell, Professor at Hastings College of Law, discussed the importance of clinics for legal education. He questioned presumptions about what law schools teach and the order in which courses are taught. He also challenged the argument that clinics are overly expensive, suggesting that if the overall process of legal education was re-thought, expenses might be redistributed according to a different set of priorities. Boswell emphasized the importance of encouraging participation in public interest law by giving first year students clinical experience. He discussed the success of his Immigration Law class for first year students that contains a clinical component. In his experience, this type of clinical experience during the first year sparks interest by making the issues real to students.

Lucas Guttentag from the ACLU’s National Immigrants’ Rights Project discussed his work on impact litigation in immigration law. Impact litigation in this area is especially challenging because immigration law courts are generally deferential to the federal administrative agency complex due to the foreign policy and political issues involved. However, because Immigration and Naturalization Services and the federal government continue to violate the law, significant class action cases have been necessary, particularly in the areas of asylum, work authorizations, detention and custody of minors. 1996 saw the passage of legislation that has made it even more difficult to get such cases into court. Guttentag is now involve in challenging those provisions that limit the ability to bring these cases to court. He predicts that the right to go to court will be sustained because of constitutional protections of individual rights. However, clients fighting deportation have no right to counsel unless they have committed a crime. Guttentag argued that the right to appointed counsel is necessary for these clients.

Mark Silverman, Directory of Asylum Policy for the Immigrant Legal Resource Center in San Francisco, addressed the role that lawyers can play in community organizing efforts. He stressed that lawyers need to take a secondary role to community organizers and leaders because of the priority of building the internal power of the constituency group. For example, he offers free legal consultation after community organizers’ events to attract attendees. His consultations occur after the main event so that people will stay for the entire presentation and discussion. He also offers more intensive legal presentations to community leaders to increase their knowledge and skills; he also participates in strategy meetings in order to offer perspectives on how the law operates. He sees lawyers’ role as offering tools for community leaders. Silverman stressed that his model supplements rather than replaces direct legal service and litigation models for social change.

Like Richard Boswell, Constance de la Vega, Professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law, stressed the importance of clinical experience for first year students. Her work involves the use of international human rights law and international law as mechanisms to promote equal justice. This work includes pushing legislation that embodies human rights standards. de la Vega offered five ways her students have been involved in order to present ways students can participate in this type of work: 1) Students can assist lawyers by doing research and writing amicus briefs. For example, one of her students wrote a paper on executions of juvenile offenders that a public defender in Nevada used. de la Vega’s students have also helped to prepare witnesses to testify in cases. 2) Students can assist with advocacy efforts using international mechanisms. Her students have written and presented reports to the Commission on Human Rights on the juvenile death penalty as well as other governments’ willingness to change their policy and practice in such cases. 3) Students can participate in international forums that discuss international human rights issues. 4) Her students have participated in the broader issue of the death penalty, showing how standards are used arbitrarily. They have also looked at the importance of treaties in making claims about the death penalty. 5) Her students have been involved in creating arguments that migrant workers’ right to life is violated in the carrying out of immigration policies. For example, under Operation Gatekeeper, 1500 people have died at the California border. Students in her clinical program have gathered information to develop procedures for examining this problem. They have also brought information to the U.N.’s Special Rapporteur to encourage attention on this issue.

Laurel Fletcher, Associate Director of the International Human Rights Clinic at Boalt Hall, discussed what new lawyers can do to continue to develop their public interest law commitments. She noted that there is a transfer of values during the law school process. Most students go into private practice regardless of the variety of extra opportunities that are made during the first year. Fletcher argued that the first year curriculum contributes to the problem by teaching students to “think like a lawyer,” which encourages students to be bloodless technicians rather than human beings. Fletcher encourages greater pro bono involvement. She also talked about several current efforts in that encompass a hybrid impact litigation/direct services approach to public interest law. Efforts to use U.S. courts for Holocaust survivors’ claims against corporations may bring substantial fees, attracting law firms to these kinds of cases. More complicated are lawsuits in the U.S. against multinational corporations for human rights violations because law is not settled in this area. Fletcher summed up these efforts as ways to expand the field of public interest law and inculcate different values in lawyers.

Constitutional Law
John Denvir, USF, started off with the basic assertion that we should not assume that everyone is cut out for public interest, and we don’t all have the “injustice gene.” This turned out to be a controversial assertion, but it seemed his main point was that some people are driven or will be driven to do this kind of work, while others are not. Both types can be good people, and a realistic social justice model would accept this. On Denvir’s model, law students should be introduced to the major issues of access to justice, rather than focusing uniquely on one theme, because people are very diverse and their interests are as well. Today’s law school climate does not provide “stepping stones” to the public interest career, and as a result students can’t see how the small steps will make up a holistic career. He would like to see bridge programs between school and practice, so students don’t feel like they are simply the province of “Career Services” once they leave school but rather are still connected with legal education. Another option is seeding people into private practice. This moves beyond the traditional model of two types of legal services: state-paid staff attorneys and pro-bono work. These would essentially be legal aid solo practitioners.

Tobias Wolff, UC Davis, changed the direction of the conversation to a more generalized look at the process of socialization in law schools. He announced his comments as “foufy,” which other panelists and participants re-cast as both “fluffy” and “floppy.” Regardless of its air content, his thesis focused on teaching students the power of legal arguments and preventing the alienation of the law student’s individual “voice” through showing the value of that voice. This would focus on the relationship of students to the world of law and teach them what voices have power in the law. He related an anecdote about Betty Fletcher’s expression of her voice in the law.

Picking up on that theme, Margaret Russell, Santa Clara, talked about socialization pressures of law school and academia in relation to the difficulties in the execution of the “voice” model. Often, she hopes that she can achieve this through “conversion experiences,” some kind of “lightbulb” experience that she can only spark but cannot directly create. How can we harmonize the voices notion and understanding/ teaching the difficult doctrinal issues of constitutional law? The mainstreaming process happens at professor level too, and law professors in the classroom should be scholars rather than advocates of a particular position. This brings up the general question of the appropriateness of the teaching model to pass on the social justice mentality. How can it be done neutrally? It is especially difficult when judicial & political control of the vocabulary of an issue, such as affirmative action, pervades the classroom. Is neutrality in this scenario allowing your own voice-as a professor-to be “captured”?

Discussion focused on the issues of socialization in the law schools, and how to engage students in social justice issues without being polemical. There is a tension between teaching everything you need to teach doctrinally and everything you want to teach in relation to access issues. In the first year, the preference is for doctrine as well as discipline. This results in the “pollution of 1st years” and it may be crucial to get them inspired early on. They are still reeling from a cycle of trauma and recovery that they don’t think they can escape from. In the undergraduate teaching of con law in the military, the context is quite different. It is required, as graduates will soon be required to apply it in combat and non-combat situations. They will be leaders, and they have the increased responsibility because of judicial deference to military decisions. One way to make these issues come alive-to allow students to understand the disconnect between good and bad decisions is the context of decisions and realities vs. context-free teaching. Often law professors teach completely devoid of context, which increases the feeling of alienation. This connects, again, to the professional goal of mainstreaming, which requires a certain blindness to the reality of your actions. One way to resolve this is to encourage an awareness that all branches of the government apply constitutional law, not just the courts. The notion of “court-worship” contributes to alienation.

Wolff highlighted at the end that the importance of history, and that much of it may be new to students, cannot be underestimated. He also emphasized that politics is not separate from scholarship and engagement of both in the classroom is not “external.” One way to approach the problem, and to discuss the ideas of fairness and justice is to describe the whole of constitutional as being composed of some situations where the government is allowed to be unfair and sometimes when it is not. This avoids shoving viewpoints into “fair” and “unfair” corners, but rather encourages and exploration of the why/why not permissible questions.

Plenary II: Envisioning a Future With Access to Equal Justice
The Honorable Marsha S. Berzon, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, moderated this plenary session.

The first speaker was Michael Harris from the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in San Francisco. Harris presented an overview of case law, current trends, and suggestions for what needs to be done to increase access to justice. He reviewed shifts in constitutional analyses of racial issues and the use of strict scrutiny by the U.S. Supreme Court in affirmative action cases. Harris pointed out broader trends in reversals of rights for people of color. In the area of voting rights, ten years ago redistricting efforts focused on maximizing voting rights for minorities in contiguous and compact areas. In current approaches to redistricting, any hint of race as a factor will subject the efforts to a challenge. In Eleventh Amendment jurisprudence, such as the recent case involving the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Supreme Court has limited individuals’ power to sue states in federal courts. As a result of these trends, Harris pointed out that litigation no longer provides a strong mechanism for increasing access to justice. In addition, efforts of organizations such as the Federalist Society have been effective in their efforts to undermine civil rights gains of the past thirty years. The Federalist Society has been effective in gaining power in the legal profession, law schools, in gaining political seats, and in shaping appointments of judges. Harris argued that more strategic organizing is needed to develop both political and legal strategies in order to establish an agenda rather than always responding to moves from the right.

Following Harris, Tanya Neiman, Director of Volunteer Legal Services for the Bar Association of California, discussed holistic advocacy as her vision for poverty law. For poor people, theoretical access to federal courts does not translate into real access. With severe cutbacks in legal services, “access” to a lawyer typically means very brief advice. Neiman next addressed three major questions:

1. Who needs justice? Neiman pointed out that nearly everyone needs more justice; most people cannot afford quality legal services. Middle class and working class people are important allies for the struggle to increase legal access. At the same time, new technological innovations may provide increased access to legal services for some but may leave poor people further behind.
2. Who can provide justice? Neiman urged a re-thinking of providers beyond the traditional paid staff in legal services. Communities include many kinds of justice workers who might be mobilized to create systems for better service.
3. What do we mean by justice? Neiman also urged a move toward solving clients’ real needs as opposed to narrow legal problems. Poor people need to be able to move from poverty to self-sufficiency. Comprehensive programs will be more helpful than highly specialized, technical aid for crisis situations. Legal service providers ought to work with other justice workers to link services.

Jose Padilla, Executive Director of California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc., followed Neiman’s presentation. Padilla commented on the decrease in general interest in issues of poverty and a corresponding decrease in numbers of people who are committed to working on these issues. He also summarized changes in proportions of legal service providers per poor people in the state as well as current needs in access to legal services. In 1996, for example, there was one legal advocate for every 33,000 farm workers in California. Cutbacks in funding have added to the decrease in interest in this kind of law. In addition, many formerly effective legal tools are no longer available. Padilla stated that because class action suits are too controversial, his organization can no longer file them. They are also unable to serve undocumented people. Like Neiman, Padilla urged a bigger vision for what justice can be. He spoke of the need for courage and creative approaches that require strong leadership and risk-taking. He also invoked the memory of Ralph Santiago Abascal, a legendary legal services attorney, who has inspired many.

The final speaker on the panel was Jeffrey Brand, Dean of the University of San Francisco Law School. Brand pointed out that private law schools also have an obligation to contribute to solutions for the problem of access to justice. Law schools provide the necessary first step: the education of lawyers. Law schools can provide the environment for discussions about law and justice and nurture students’ passion to do good works. At USF, efforts to create an environment that promotes justice have been met with an enthusiastic response. Students do have the desire to contribute to justice; law schools ought not extinguish that desire. Brand gave five suggestions for moving this vision forward in law schools:

1. Law schools must give a clear and consistent message in mission statements, public statements, and other self-representations that promoting justice is important as well as academic excellence.
2. Justice must be made a critical part of the curriculum and a constant theme of everything the law school does.
3. Service opportunities must be provided so that students have contact with marginalized people who do not have adequate access to justice. Such opportunities show students the role they can place in society and give them a sense of their responsibility in the project.
4. Law schools must understand the global imperative of struggles for justice and to come to grips with the importance of universities in the international context.
5. Ethics must play an important role in the entire law school curriculum. Brand urged the development of a national agenda for multidisciplinary teaching of legal and applied ethics.

Brand ended his remarks by offering the metaphor of jazz for promoting justice. Each solo works within a chord structure to create the texture and the beauty of the whole work.

Judge Berzon concluded the panel with remarks about her observations from the bench. Each Ninth Circuit judge hears approximately 450 cases per year. The high volume of cases affects what each judge can do. As a result, they rely on attorneys’ work. Clients are not well served by this reliance when judges cannot focus adequate attention on each case. Judge Berzon also commented on bad economic incentives that work against the best legal representation for clients. The highly bureaucratized nature of rules of civil procedure and appellate procedure and high costs of litigating exacerbate the problems of lack of judges’ time to do careful research and thoughtful legal analysis.

Eight small group sessions followed this plenary, including Environmental Justice/ Tort Law; Criminal Justice/Criminal Law and Procedure; Employment Rights/ Sex Discrimination and the Law; Housing Issues/Property /Intellectual Property Law/; Institutionalizing a Philosophy of Public Service at Law Schools; The Administration of Justice in a Time of Changing Demographics/Civil Procedure/Evidence; Sexual Orientation/Legal Issues Facing the LGBTTS Community; and Special Issues of Rural Communities. A report for one of those sessions follows.

Administration of Justice in a Time of Changing Demographics/Civil Procedure/Evidence
Mark Aaronson, Professor at Hastings College of Law, opened the session by providing some demographic information about access to courts and lawyers in California. He commented on connections between failures in other social institutions such as educational and health systems and the problem of legal access. Limits in knowledge and familiarity with legal institutions are exacerbated by issues of acculturation, language and poverty.

Following Aaronson was the Honorable Leslie Tchaikovsky of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in San Francisco. Judge Aaronson reported on a 1998 study on bankruptcy. She discussed bankruptcy as a middle class remedy; truly rich people and poor people do not need bankruptcy court. Judge Aaronson also commented on recent moves to change bankruptcy laws. The media presents the question of why so many people have been filing for bankruptcy in an era of prosperity. Judge Aaronson pointed to changes in economic structure and the resulting loss of well-paying skilled industry jobs and their replacement by minimum wage service jobs. The lack of health insurance also pushes people into bankruptcy. While the media point to credit card abuse as a major cause of bankruptcy, the larger economic picture suggests otherwise.

Norman Spaulding, Professor at Boalt Hall, next commented on his work on the litigation of complex group harms and the importance of procedural issues for access to justice. Spaulding posed the question of whether due process rights exist for groups and pointed to the significance of that question for class action lawsuits. He discussed the 1940 Hansberry v. Lee case, noting the demographics that shaped the context of the case. At the time, 80% of Chicago was covered by racial covenants as a strategy by a dominant group to control demographic shifts in the city. The Illinois state courts enforced the covenants and bound Hansberry despite procedural irregularities. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed by considering procedural grounds for setting limits on group litigation.

Spaulding discussed the importance of class action lawsuits for civil rights cases for historically subordinated groups including prisoners, aliens and minorities. Current assaults on procedure damage mechanisms for empowerment. He also pointed out that contemporary libertarian claims that law is now intruding into culture are belied by the Hansberry case, which illustrated the intertwining of law and culture. People attempting to resist demographic changes at that time attempted to use law to resist cultural change.

Spaulding also talked about recent efforts to restrict access to courts in the areas of prison litigation, anti-terrorism, death penalty law, and immigration law. For example, attempts to gain restrictions in judicial review for INS cases and heightened pleading standards for civil rights affect access to courts. Spaulding concluded by pointing to the importance of protecting mechanisms that give open access to courts and resisting criticisms about too much litigation and affecting cultural change by law.

Eleanor Swift, Professor at Boalt Hall, spoke next on connections between race and class, demographic changes, and current changes in the use of rules of evidence. Swift discussed the impact of race on the development of urban areas of high poverty. Racism blocks grand scale efforts to address the needs of urban poor people who are disproportionately Black and Latino. Racism thus contributes to community poverty in contrast to individual poverty. In contemporary economic structures, urban poor people are not exploited for labor. Instead, they become expendable in terms of the economy when labor systems cannot or will not use them.

Swift also discussed the changing role of rules of evidence and their relevance of issues of social justice. While judges apply evidence rules, they were created for lay decision makers. With the growth of arbitration and alternative dispute resolution strategies, litigation may be used less for solutions to problems of urban poor communities. Instead the focus may be on organizing and making communities political actors.

Trial and appellate courts currently show less interest in applying evidence rules. Instead, judges use discretion to admit or exclude evidence.

Plenary III: Celebrating Steps Toward Access to Equal Justice
This session was moderated by the Hon. Ken Kawaichi, Alameda Superior Court. Author Charles Reich was the first speaker. He talked about the vast and power forces that currently devalue all efforts to develop community. Wealth is more important than justice; anything that cannot be commodified is held to be valueless. Rampant individualism complements this focus on wealth and undermines efforts to work on issues of justice. In addition, in a bureaucratic society, society becomes a place of battle for position where large institutions are significant. This worldview focused on wealth and individualism is supported by well-organized think tanks that are currently very active in shaping judicial appointments. The judiciary diminished mechanisms for access to justice including habeus corpus, particular remedies, and appeals.

Reich urged progressives to “do ideology” and to sell it. Society has become a place of anger, discontent and violence filled with feelings of injustice. Justice is necessary for bringing back ideas of the common good and working for the health of society. Reich believes that we are at a time when we must make an explicit choice to spend resources on justice and bring justice into the realm of necessity.

Following Reich was Rachel Moran, Professor at Boalt Hall, who wove themes from the day’s presentations together. Moran quoted John Stuart Mill, who called for engaged citizens who care about interests beyond their own and who see that what is of benefit to the public is to their benefit. She also spoke about declining rates of public spiritedness. Within law, this is manifested in drops in the belief in civic obligations of the profession and falling support for legal services, even in times of great wealth. People have become increasingly polarized because of the lack of community and see each other in competition rather than cooperation.

Moran linked the politicization of the judiciary to these social ideas. Judicial nominees are treated as political figures at the same time that law is seen as merely a business. She posed the question of how to rebuild community and raise social capital across differences. Law schools can be places to rebuild community. They provide shared experiences and common commitments. Public law schools provide public spaces for thinking about law collectively. This ideal is challenged by disinvestment in public schools. Moran recalled suggestions by the day’s speakers about building collaborative arrangements across law schools, service organizations, and the private sector to counter this trend.

Moran also spoke about her study on student responses to their legal education and legal socialization. Many students, especially those who come to law school to work for justice, find the command to “think like a lawyer” with detachment to be alienating. Moran recounted a student’s comment on learning about the use of the commerce clause for civil rights enforcement in Constitutional Law class. With the erasure of the fact that Black people needed to plan ahead for every trip, down to such details as where to sleep and to find rest rooms, the the discussion as an abstract exercise in federalism led to easy ridiculing of significant issues. Moran stressed that humans are not just about abstraction and reason but also about attachments and feelings. Passion motivates movement and is necessary for justice work.

Bill Ong Hing, Program Director of Legal Clinics at UC Davis Law School, discussed the importance of creating strategic alliances. He encouraged law schools to commit to collaborating in order to share ideas and to learn from each other. He also finds hope in progressive judges including those who participated in the day’s events. He reminded the audience that such judges need their support. He also encouraged judges to communicate about legislation they feel would help them to administer justice more fairly. Hing suggested that the biggest allies for justice are clients. Client communities can help; they demonstrate political activism in more ways than voting and mass protests. For example, in the areas of welfare rights and immigrant rights, client groups learn and practice community involvement and civic participation. Hing encouraged other forms of collaboration between law schools and different groups. Scholarship, clinics, and courses, including alternative models such as legal services courses can teach students to practice law in ways that support communities.

Conclusion
Organizers Bill O. Hing, Jacqueline Ortega, and Stephanie M. Wildman thank everyone who helped make this conference a success. Priscilla Battis, Administrator for the Boalt Center for Social Justice, kept Saturday running smoothly. Professor Joan Howarth, provided key organizing assistance.

Information about the program is available. Use the link below to view colloquium information.

You may also contact one of the local planners listed below:

Bill Ong Hing
University of California at Davis School of Law
400 Mrak Hall Drive, Davis, CA 95616-5201
(530) 754-9377
bohing@ucdavis.edu

Jacqueline Ortega
University of San Francisco School of Law
2130 Fulton Street, San Francisco, CA 94117-1080
(415) 422-2278
ortegaj@usfca.edu

Stephanie M. Wildman
University of California at Berkeley School of Law
Boalt Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-7200
(510) 642-4474
swildman@law.berkeley.edu