Access to Justice

  • April 05, 2024

    Study Shines Light On Excessive NY Prison Sentences

    A recent report shining a light on excessive felony prison sentences handed down by more than 140 trial judges in New York over a 16-year period has experts and advocacy groups calling for increased transparency to help ensure that courts are imposing fair penalties on criminal defendants in the Empire State.

  • April 04, 2024

    New Leader Discusses The Next Era For NY Federal Defenders

    The Federal Defenders of New York has chosen its new leader, elevating its director of strategic litigation to become the first Black woman serving as the federal public defense organization's executive director.

  • April 01, 2024

    BOP Drops Accreditation Org After IG, Sens. Raise Concerns

    The Federal Bureau of Prisons has let its $2.75 million contract with its accreditation organization expire, after a group of Democratic lawmakers and the bureau's watchdog raised concerns that the group wasn't effective or objective.

  • March 27, 2024

    Associates Help Ga. Prisoner Beat The Odds In Court

    When a team of mostly associates at Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Bondurant Mixson & Elmore LLP took on the civil case of a Georgia prisoner who had developed stage 4 hepatitis C as he waited five years for prescribed treatment, they expected they'd have their work cut out for them.

  • March 26, 2024

    'Landmark' Trans Women Prison Housing Deal Gets Final OK

    A Colorado state judge on Tuesday approved a consent decree between the state and a class of transgender women who sued over dangerous housing conditions in state prisons and now hope the plan to accommodate their needs will spread to other states.

  • March 25, 2024

    Justices Nix Lenient Drug Sentence After 'Safety Valve' Ruling

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday vacated a 100-month sentence given to a woman who pled guilty to drug offenses and remanded the case to the Fourth Circuit after the justices recently clarified which defendants qualify for "safety valve" relief under a 2018 federal law.

  • March 22, 2024

    MoFo Helps Secure $2B For Calif.'s Forgotten Students

    Morrison & Foerster recently helped nab a historic $2 billion settlement to help roughly a million California students — disproportionately from Black, Latino and lower-income families — who say the state failed to provide them meaningful instruction once the COVID-19 pandemic began.

  • March 22, 2024

    Living With Death: How Judges Experience Capital Cases

    When presiding over death penalty cases, judges are called to set aside their political and moral beliefs, and shut out their emotions. It’s easier said than done.

  • March 22, 2024

    Milbank Pro Bono Counsel On Leading By Example

    Milbank LLP attorneys logged more than 54,000 hours of pro bono work across the firm's 12 offices worldwide in 2023, with 96% of its lawyers in the U.S. volunteering their time. According to Anthony Perez Cassino, the firm's pro bono counsel, it's a commitment to public service work that starts at the top.

  • March 20, 2024

    Study Sees Promise For Gen AI Tools In Closing Justice Gap

    Widespread access to generative artificial intelligence tools could help increase access to justice for low-income Americans, according to a new study that found these tools largely boosted productivity for legal aid lawyers.

  • March 20, 2024

    US Senators Seek Clemency For Native American Activist

    A group of mostly Democratic senators is urging U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to release compassionately a Native American activist who is serving a life sentence for his alleged involvement in the 1975 murder of two FBI agents, saying he is suffering from severe health conditions and should be able to live out his remaining days among his own people.

  • March 18, 2024

    Connecticut Exonerees Ask Lawmakers For Help After Prison

    The Connecticut Legislature's joint judiciary committee is considering sweeping changes to the way the state compensates exonerated convicts, and three men who each served more than 18 years in prison urged lawmakers Monday to make one edit that would apply the bill to pending state-level claims.

  • March 18, 2024

    Bookseller Says Ga. Jail's Book Policy Is Unconstitutional

    A Georgia bookseller filed a federal lawsuit Friday accusing an Atlanta-area sheriff of imposing an unlawful policy that only allows books into the county jail from "authorized retailers" under the guise of security concerns, alleging the practice is arbitrary, subjective, and an "unconstitutional permitting scheme."

  • March 15, 2024

    Justices Back Strict View Of Sentencing 'Safety Valve' Relief

    The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to let a broader class of nonviolent drug offenders qualify for relief from federal mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines, siding against certain recidivists in a ruling that focused on the meaning of the word "and" in a section of the First Step Act.

  • March 14, 2024

    Calif. County's Indigent Defense System Is Illegal, Atty Says

    A criminal defense program for indigent people run by the bar association in San Mateo County, California, violates a state law prohibiting trade associations from engaging in legal practice and provides constitutionally deficient representation, a member of the association says in a suit in state court.

  • March 13, 2024

    Mass. Gov. Announces Pardon Plan For Marijuana Possession

    Massachusetts Gov. Maura T. Healey has announced plans for sweeping pardons of misdemeanor cannabis possession convictions, following the directive of President Joe Biden, who urged state executives to follow his lead in pardoning low-level marijuana offenses.

  • March 12, 2024

    Judge Lets Feds Appeal 'Novel' Issues In Asylum Bond Suit

    A Washington federal judge allowed federal immigration agencies to seek the Ninth Circuit's opinion on whether the district court can hear a class of asylum-seekers' lawsuit alleging deprivation of bond hearings, saying jurisdictional and constitutional issues in the case seem novel.

  • March 12, 2024

    NY DAs, Public Defenders Urge Student Loan Aid Expansion

    A coalition of 35 district attorney offices, public defender offices, civil legal services providers and unions has urged New York elected officials to pass a bill increasing student loan financial assistance for legal aid attorneys and state prosecutors, many of whom face yearslong debt, Law360 has learned.

  • March 08, 2024

    'It Erases Us': Sex Abuse Survivors Troubled By Wash. Bill

    Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is expected to sign into law a bill that eliminates time limits for bringing child sex abuse claims in the future, but survivors say they are disappointed by an amendment stripping the bill's retroactivity, saying the legislation doesn't go far enough to hold abusers accountable.

  • March 08, 2024

    How Manhattan's Community Court Became A National Model

    The Midtown Community Court was founded 30 years ago as a “problem-solving court” designed to unjam the city’s jails and courtrooms by providing social services and other programming to low-level criminal offenders in lieu of more serious penalties. Since then, courts following similar models have quietly spread to almost every state in the country, and plans for even more are in the works.

  • March 08, 2024

    Debt-Stricken Homeowners Fight Back After High Court Ruling

    Ten months after a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision finding a Minnesota county wrongly held onto excess proceeds it reaped after seizing a woman’s condominium and selling it to settle a tax debt, states are scrambling to reexamine their laws as financially distressed homeowners file new suits challenging the practice.

  • March 08, 2024

    NY Atty's 10-Year Fight Upends Wrongful Murder Conviction

    Garrett Ordower's career has evolved considerably over the last decade. But from his time at Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz, to his current roles at Scale LLP and as general counsel for a legal tech startup, there's been one constant: his commitment to clearing Steven Ruffin's name for a murder he didn't commit.

  • March 08, 2024

    Thompson Coburn Duo Lead 'Army Of Women' In Documentary

    In waging an uphill battle against the city of Austin, Thompson Coburn LLP partners Jennifer Ecklund and Elizabeth Myers secured a groundbreaking settlement for sexual assault survivors whose cases were never prosecuted, but what they discovered was that standing up for the survivors meant more to them than that legal victory.

  • March 08, 2024

    Judge Orders Probe Into NY Atty's Secret Courtroom Meeting

    A New York court will look into whether a secret meeting last year between the local attorney representing a man charged with murder and the law clerk for the judge trying his case amounted to an ethical violation and possibly infringed the man's constitutional right to a fair trial, attorneys told Law360 Friday.

  • March 06, 2024

    Most States Allow Abusive Debt Collection, Report Says

    A majority of states lack legal guardrails preventing people burdened by debt from facing legal jeopardy and even jail time, the National Center for Access to Justice at Fordham University School of Law recently found.

Expert Analysis

  • DOJ's Cautious Return To Supplemental Enviro Projects

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    While the U.S. Department of Justice has ended the Trump-era ban on negotiating supplemental environment projects as part of civil and criminal environmental settlements, the process and delay around this change suggest that SEPs may be more limited under the Biden administration than in the past, say attorneys at Sidley.

  • Justices' Ruling Makes Some Progress On Cop Accountability

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    The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Thompson v. Clark removes a roadblock that stymied malicious prosecution lawsuits, and could have positive impacts beyond the Fourth Amendment — but suits seeking accountability for police misconduct still face numerous challenges, says Brian Frazelle at the Constitutional Accountability Center.

  • We Can't Rely On Lawyers For Every Justice Need

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    The Southern District of New York, which recently heard arguments in Upsolve and John Udo-Okon v. New York, has the opportunity to increase access to justice by allowing nonlawyers to provide legal help, shifting the focus from credentials to substantive outcomes, says Rebecca Sandefur at Arizona State University.

  • Reinvigorated DOJ Is Strong Incentive For Police Reforms

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    The U.S. Department of Justice is fully back in the business of investigating law enforcement agencies as part of the Biden administration's prioritization of racial equity, criminal justice reform and prosecution of hate crimes, so police departments have strong incentive to be proactive in their reforms, say attorneys at McGuireWoods.

  • Habeas Ruling Shows Justices' Growing Hostility Toward Writ

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    The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Brown v. Davenport, upholding the murder conviction of a man who was shackled at trial in view of the jury, makes an unjust federal review law more potent, and points to the conservative supermajority’s increasing antagonism toward writs of habeas corpus, says Christopher Wright Durocher at the American Constitution Society.

  • Time To Fix Legal Industry's Environmental Pro Bono Problem

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    As we observe Earth Month, it's sobering to note that pro bono environmental law work lags behind other practice areas — but the good news is that there are numerous organizations that can help lawyers get connected with environment-related pro bono projects, says Matthew Karmel at Riker Danzig.

  • How Prosecutors Can End Cycle Of Intimate Partner Violence

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    With 10 million people in the U.S. reporting that they experience intimate partner violence each year, it’s clear that traditional forms of prosecution are falling short, especially in small and rural communities, but prosecutors can explore new ways to support survivors and prevent violence, say Alissa Marque Heydari at John Jay College and David Sullivan, a district attorney.

  • DOJ's Boeing Immunity Deal Violated Crime Victims' Rights

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    The Northern District of Texas should support the arguments of 737 Max plane crash victims’ families, and hold that the U.S. Department of Justice violated the families' ability to provide input under the Crime Victims’ Rights Act when it secretly entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with Boeing, says Meg Garvin at the National Crime Victims Law Institute.

  • Jackson Confirmation Hearings Should Examine Due Process

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    In the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings, senators should assess Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s approach to holding government actors accountable in the areas of qualified immunity and forfeiture, as revisiting shaky precedents on these topics could help guarantee due process for all, says Marc Levin at the Council on Criminal Justice.

  • ABA's New Anti-Bias Curriculum Rule Is Insufficient

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    The American Bar Association's recently approved requirement that law schools educate students on bias, cross-cultural competency and racism, while a step in the right direction, fails to publicly acknowledge and commit to eradicating the systemic racial inequality in our legal system, says criminal defense attorney Donna Mulvihill Fehrmann.

  • Justice Reforms Call For Quick Action To Fill US Atty Spots

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    U.S. attorneys play an important role in transforming the criminal legal system for several reasons, and they can restore integrity and independence to the U.S. Department of Justice, so President Joe Biden and Congress must move quickly to fill the remaining two-thirds of the top prosecutor seats, says Derick Dailey at Davis + Gilbert.

  • Judge's Veto Of Arbery Hate Crime Plea Deal Is Not Unusual

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    Contrary to media commentary, a Georgia federal judge’s rejection of the plea agreement between prosecutors and a defendant charged with hate crimes in the murder of Ahmaud Arbery is not actually surprising — it simply indicates the judge’s desire to retain discretion and allow all parties to be heard before making a just sentencing decision, says Dominick Gerace at Taft Stettinius.

  • Indefinite Migrant Detention Without Review Is Kafkaesque

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    In two recently argued U.S. Supreme Court cases, the government's position that detained migrants can't demand an immigration judge review their confinement, but can instead file a habeas petition in federal court, reads like a work of Kafka, offering only the illusion of access to a hearing before a neutral fact-finder, says César García Hernández at Ohio State University.

  • 2 Worthy Goals For The DOJ's New Domestic Terrorism Unit

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    The U.S. Department of Justice’s newly announced Domestic Terrorism Unit should include both counterterrorism and civil rights prosecutors, and would benefit from a criminal statute that is modeled after international terrorism laws and that strikes a balance between protecting the public and constitutional rights, say Emil Bove and Brittany Manna at Chiesa Shahinian.

  • Justice Reforms Are Not To Blame For Waukesha Tragedy

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    Last month's parade attack in Wisconsin has brought into focus the fact that the accused was out of jail on a low bond — but this tragedy must not be exploited to reverse years of long-overdue criminal justice reform, when emerging data shows that new prosecutorial models are associated with better outcomes than an overly punitive approach, says Alissa Marque Heydari at John Jay College.

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