Access to justice

Published on: January 11, 2011

Access to Justice: Oregonians Who Can’t Afford Lawyers: Quotations

By Laura Orr

A former Umatilla County Law Librarian said during a discussion about the importance of public law libraries:

“The folks who cannot pay for a private attorney and cannot get a legal aid attorney are already disadvantaged in being forced to be self represented. With the law library, they have a slim chance at self representation, but it is at least a chance. Without a public law library, they have no hope of achieving any sort of justice at all…. What is the point of operating court facilities if the system doesn’t work for everyone? ”

From a report on access to justice in Oregon:

“There is significant unmet need for outreach, community education and access to easily used, high quality self-help materials…. Lower income people obtain legal assistance for their problems less than 20% of the time.” (From, The State of Access to Justice in Oregon, by D. Michael Dale, published in 2000, sponsored by the Oregon State Bar, the Oregon Judicial Department, and former Governor John Kitzhaber.)

Published on: December 24, 2010

“Free and Online” is not Quite the Same as “Equal Access to Justice”

By Laura Orr

Lewis & Clark Law School Library’s “Law in the News” roundup, brings us this story:

“Law Libraries Struggle with More Patrons, Less Funding,” by Jose Pagliery, Daily Business Review, December 15, 2010

‘… Pro se litigants, who often can’t afford attorneys and instead choose to represent themselves, are quickly becoming the largest share of users of public law libraries, according to a statewide law library nonprofit. As lawyers more frequently choose to study case law from their desktop computers, common folk are shuffling into brick-and-mortar institutions.

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Published on: April 6, 2009

Death, Taxes, Bar Exams, and Access to Justice in Oregon

By Laura Orr

The Feb/March 2009 issue of the Oregon State Bar (OSB) Bulletin has an interesting editorial by Oregon attorney John Gear: A Better Beginning:

There is no shortage of commentary on the life, death, and value of bar exams (including bar exam humor from Blawg Review), but that is as it should be.

Excerpt: “As a transplant attorney, still fairly new to Oregon, it is with some trepidation and thoughts of tilting at windmills that I write to propose fundamental changes to the state’s bar admission practices. However, after reading the December bar Bulletin, I find I must.

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Published on: October 3, 2008

Let’s Kill All the Law Libraries

By Laura Orr

For the past 20 years, at least, law school deans, legislators, law firm managers, lobbyists, jail and prison managers, among others, have been asking why their organizations need law libraries, and heaven forbid, law librarians. After all, “isn’t all the law online?”

My brief response is:

1) No, it’s not all online; only a fraction of it is, and most of that is just online versions of (allegedly official and current) primary sources and a lot of very bad “legal advice”. In other words, the easy-stuff is online, but not the right-stuff (that treatise, that superceded statute, that legislative history, etc.). And, if you don’t know how to use these primary sources in any format, print or otherwise (i.e. do legal research!), woe to those of you who try to make sense of these materials, e.g. the Oregon Laws, online.

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