Access to Justice: Comparative and Historical Perspectives

4 credits · Undergraduate

This class first introduces students to the origins of the access to justice problem, paying attention to disparate impacts along the lines of race, class, and gender. It examines how the costs of legal services, and in turn of law school tuition, steadily rose in the last several decades. Drawing on both historical and comparative case studies, students will then be encouraged to think creatively about who can represent individuals at law. Further inspiration comes from contemporary case studies outside North America and Europe. Finally, students will have an opportunity to execute a guided research project on a historical, comparative, or contemporary aspect of access to justice that helps shed light on potential solutions today.