NLADA Report: The Access To Justice Series (Part 2)
At conferences, I spend a lot of time wandering around the vendor exhibits. Most of this wandering is done when I have been staffing the Pro Bono Net booth at either the NLADA Annual Training Conference or the Equal Justice Conference. However, this year, even though, or maybe because, NLADA had a great layout for the exhibit hall, I didn't end up wandering around as much.
Nevertheless, I did swing by the Management Information Exchange booth and pick up the latest copy of the MIE Journal. At the same time, I found hard copies of the first two installments of the Access to Justice Series from the Brennan Center for Justice. When I picked them up, I assumed that they were new documents, but when I started reading them at home, I realized that they were written in response to the massive cuts of 1996. I was awed by the stories that had been collected, and they made me incredibly proud to be working with the legal aid community. Along with Houseman's and Perle's "Securing Equal Justice For All: A Brief History of Civil Legal Assistance in the United States," I would recommend that legal aid organizations include these documents as suggested reading for new employees. In addition to providing inspiration, these documents explain why many advocates long for the "good old days" and why organizations advocate so strongly for dropping the restrictions.
Look for Part 3 in my NLADA series tomorrow. I'll cover some more sessions. - K
