Texas Supreme Court Commission to Expand Legal Services Releases Justice Gap Report

On December 6, 2016, the Commission to Expand Civil Legal Services released eight recommendations for increasing the public's access to justice in Texas. As part of these recommendations, the Commission presented innovative options for those of modest means to participate in the legal system and thereby narrow the justice gap in Texas. Two overarching goals guided the Commission in the drafting of its report: connecting lower and middle-income clients with affordable representation and helping pro se litigants navigate the court system.

According to the report, the success of current initiatives has been dependent upon the participation of public law libraries at the state and county levels. Recognizing the essential role that libraries play, the Commission's report encourages the court to promote adequate funding for public law libraries and for the placement of navigators in libraries, courthouses, and other public spaces. 

In addition to the Travis County Law Library and the Texas State Law Library, the Harris County Law Library was recognized by the Commission for taking steps to close the justice gap. We at the Harris County Law Library are very proud of this recognition, as well as our partnership with the Houston Volunteer Lawyers Program in providing services to the populations targeted by the Commission’s recommendations and objectives. We look forward to continuing to provide assistance to our library clientele, helping them to navigate their way through the justice system.

Geography and the Law -- Data Mapping to Improve Access to Justice

Today marks the last day of Geography Awareness Week, an annual event sponsored by the National Geographic Society, the National Council for Geography Education, and the American Association of Geographers. The purpose of this week is to call attention to the importance of geography as a discipline and as a field of inquiry. It is also a good opportunity to discuss the role that geography can play in the access to justice movement.

The Self-Represented Litigants Network created a geospatial story map called America's Civil Courts: Whom Do We Serve?. This analysis of publicly-available datasets from the 2014 American Community Survey, the Esri Racial Diversity Index, and the FCC Form 77 County Data on Internet Access Services examines the potential impact of social, economic, and demographic factors on access to justice in communities across the nation. Depicting the data geographically helps identify problems that contribute to the justice gap and provides insights about the need for improved access to the legal system. Those who serve low-income, self-represented litigants, can predict the prevalence of various legal problems, identify high-value collaborations, evaluate the responsiveness of providers, and assess the impact of various interventions.

Using geographic information software to examine the variables that affect diffusion of legal services to low-income litigants is just one example of how geography plays a role in law. Another dataset, The National Registry of Exonerations, has been mapped to reveal trends in the number of exonerations by state and the factors that contribute to false convictions. Several other datasets are just waiting to be mapped, including the legal data from Data.gov and the Datasets for Empirical Legal Research at Yale Law School.  The White House open data initiatives are continually generating data that can be mapped to reveal trends over time in various areas of the law and legal system. The possibilities are endless!