Community Paralegals And The Pursuit Of Justice

The United Nations estimates that four billion people worldwide live outside the protection of the law. These people can be driven from their land, intimidated by violence, and excluded from society. This book is about community paralegals - sometimes called barefoot lawyers - who demystify law and empower people to advocate for themselves. These paralegals date back to 1950s South Africa and are active today in many countries, but their role has largely been ignored by researchers. Community Paralegals and the Pursuit of Justice is the first book on the subject. Focusing on paralegal movements in six countries, Vivek Maru, Varun Gauri, and their coauthors have collected rich, vivid stories of paralegals helping people to take on injustice, from domestic violence to unlawful mining to denial of wages. From these stories emerges evidence of what works and how. The insights in the book will be of immense value in the global fight for universal justice. This title is also available as Open Access.

Informal forms of justice such as mediation have been greeted enthusiastically as progress from the punishment model of justice -- and criticised as broadening rather than narrowing the reach of the criminal justice system. Here the contributors assess the evidence and re-appraise the theory of informalism.

This book attempts to convey some of the challenges that those wielding the law for social change purposes have faced and the successes they have achieved. By intention, it is more a studied appreciation than a critical analysis of their efforts. We asked an international team of consultants to help us document and describe how various law-based strategies have worked in very different settings, to draw out connections between those efforts, and to highlight some of the insights that emerge from grantees' experiences in law-related work. We also asked them to help us learn more about the ways the Foundation has played a role in these efforts. Known as the Global Law Programs Learning Initiative (GLPLI), this effort is not definitive, but rather suggestive. Our goal is to contribute to more serious future reflection and, ultimately, more effective programs in this field.

"Paralegals can be a powerful tool of justice, helping to resolve disputes and empower individual clients and whole communities. Living and working in the communities they serve, community-based paralegals use their knowledge of the formal justice system, alternative means of resolution such as mediation, and community education practices to help the poor and marginalized address their justice problems. Less expensive than lawyers and able to work faster than the formal legal process, community-based paralegals are especially effective in transitional, post-conflict, and developing countries. In Sierra Leone, for example--where there are only 10 judges and about 100 lawyers to meet the justice needs of over three million people--paralegals help resolve land disputes, negotiate divorce settlements, and hold government officials accountable. Perhaps more importantly, community-based paralegals can educate whole communities about their rights, increasing citizens' agency and helping them demand more from their governments. This how-to guide provides information on all aspects of establishing and operating a community-based paralegal program, from assessing a community's needs to training paralegals and resolving justice problems. The book includes case studies, training curricula, client intake forms, and other materials drawn from paralegal programs in Cambodia, Hungary, the Philippines, Sierra Leone, and elsewhere. Community-based Paralegals: A Practitioner's Guide should be useful for anyone who wants to start a new paralegals program, improve an existing one, or learn more about paralegals and the legal empowerment of the poor."--Page 4 of cover.

"Paralegals can be a powerful tool of justice, helping to resolve disputes and empower individual clients and whole communities. Living and working in the communities they serve, community-based paralegals use their knowledge of the formal justice system, alternative means of resolution such as mediation, and community education practices to help the poor and marginalized address their justice problems. Less expensive than lawyers and able to work faster than the formal legal process, community-based paralegals are especially effective in transitional, post-conflict, and developing countries. In Sierra Leone, for example--where there are only 10 judges and about 100 lawyers to meet the justice needs of over three million people--paralegals help resolve land disputes, negotiate divorce settlements, and hold government officials accountable. Perhaps more importantly, community-based paralegals can educate whole communities about their rights, increasing citizens' agency and helping them demand more from their governments. This how-to guide provides information on all aspects of establishing and operating a community-based paralegal program, from assessing a community's needs to training paralegals and resolving justice problems. The book includes case studies, training curricula, client intake forms, and other materials drawn from paralegal programs in Cambodia, Hungary, the Philippines, Sierra Leone, and elsewhere. Community-based Paralegals: A Practitioner's Guide should be useful for anyone who wants to start a new paralegals program, improve an existing one, or learn more about paralegals and the legal empowerment of the poor."--Page 4 of cover.

The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.

Clinical legal education is playing an increasingly important role in educating lawyers worldwide. In The Global Clinical Movement: Educating Lawyers for Social Justice, editor Frank S. Bloch and contributors describe the central concepts, goals, and methods of clinical legal education from a global perspective, with a particular emphasis on its social justice mission. With chapters written by leading clinical legal educators from every region of the world, The Global Clinical Movement demonstrates how the emerging global clinical movement can advance social justice through legal education. Professor Bloch and the contributors also examine the influence of clinical legal education on the legal academy and the legal profession and chart the global clinical movement's future role in educating lawyers for social justice. The Global Clinical Movement consists of three parts. Part I describes clinical legal education programs from every region of the world and discusses those qualities that are unique to a particular country or region. Part II discusses the various ways that clinical programs and the clinical methodology advance the cause of social justice around the world. Part III analyzes the current state of the global clinical movement and sets out an agenda for the movement to advance social justice through socially relevant legal education.

This book is a first-of-its-kind, five-country empirical study of the causes and consequences of social and economic rights litigation. Detailed studies of Brazil, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, and South Africa present systematic and nuanced accounts of court activity on social and economic rights in each country. The book develops new methodologies for analyzing the sources of and variation in social and economic rights litigation, explains why actors are now turning to the courts to enforce social and economic rights, measures the aggregate impact of litigation in each country, and assesses the relevance of the empirical findings for legal theory. This book argues that courts can advance social and economic rights under the right conditions precisely because they are never fully independent of political pressures.

Unfulfilled legal needs are at a tipping point in much of the Canadian justice system. The Justice Crisis assesses what is and isn’t working in efforts to strengthen a fundamental right of democratic citizenship: access to civil and family justice. Contributors to this wide-ranging overview of recent empirical research address key issues: the extent and cost of unmet legal needs; the role of public funding; connections between legal and social exclusion among vulnerable populations; the value of new legal pathways; the provision of justice services beyond the courts and lawyers; and the need for a culture change within the justice system.