Access to Justice, New and Noteworthy Items Around the Web

Today’s blog post is a look at resources around the Web. What services exist for those in need of civil legal aid? Who is working in Texas and across the nation to provide these services, and what can be done to further their cause? What alternatives to traditional legal aid already exist and which efforts are most successful? Do law schools, legal clinics, and incubator programs have a role to play? How can technology be employed to help self-represented litigants navigate the justice system? And what is driving this increasingly dire need for legal services to the poor? What can be done to help?

The Harris County Law Library has compiled this brief list of resources to help answer these questions. We invite you to explore the topic further. We will update this list with subsequent blog posts in the near future, making sure to provide the latest coverage about this growing area of concern.

Organizations - Texas

Texas Access to Justice Foundation

TexasLawyersHelp.org

TexasLawHelp.org

Texas Legal Services Center

LegalAidResearch.org

Organizations - National

National Center for Access to Justice

National Coalition for a Right to Civil Counsel

National Legal Aid and Defender Association

Public Welfare Foundation

Self-Represented Litigation Network

Recent Media Coverage

Access to Justice: Is Civil Gideon a Piece of the Puzzle?

The Defenders: What does the future of legal services for the poor look like?

How to Solve the Housing Crisis: More Lawyers

Lawyers: Bulwark against Inequality and Gentrification?

Legal Aid With a Digital Twist

One More Way the Courts Aren’t Working for the Poor

States Look to Provide Lawyers for the Poor in Civil Cases

Recently Published Reports

Blazing a Trail: The Fight for Right to Counsel in Detention and Beyond

The Justice Index 2016

Tech Tip: Limiting Desktop Notifications in Microsoft Outlook

One of the keys to working more efficiently is to create a personal action plan. Set an agenda, and stick to it. And don’t let email rule your day. Microsoft Outlook is a powerful application and an indispensable tool for communicating with clients and colleagues throughout the workday, but some of its default settings may be interfering with your ability to perform at your best.

The blue “toaster” alerts that pop up in the lower corner of your screen and sometimes chime to demand your immediate attention are just one example. Notifications are helpful, but they can also break your focus, interrupting your concentration, and disturbing your workflow. Responding to the needs of others before addressing your own priorities allows external influences to determine your agenda. This deviation from your personal action plan is usually counterproductive. Of course you want to be available for your clients and to address pressing issues as they arise, but giving your attention to matters that don’t warrant an immediate response can add time and money to your balance sheet, making you less productive and your services less cost-effective.

Fortunately, the same system which tries to make your life easier by notifying you of every incoming message you receive can be customized to limit your alerts. Slaw, Canada’s online legal magazine, provides detailed instructions for turning off your email alerts or limiting the volume of incoming messages. You receive notifications for only the most important or immediately actionable items, reducing the intrusive and distracting demands on your time and giving you peace of mind. 

Magna Carta to Miranda - The Due Process link between Law Day themes

Don't you just love it when Law Day themes click?! Each year, the American Bar Association establishes a theme for Law Day, which is observed on May 1. This year's theme, which turned our attention to the 50th anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Miranda v. Arizona, followed the 2015 Law theme celebrating the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta. So, what do a medieval statute and a Warren Court decision separated by 751 years have in common? Simple - Due process.

The connection is extensively examined in a digital exhibit from the Law Library of Congress' titled Magna Carta: Muse & Mentor - Due Process of Law. Prior to June 15, 1215, Englishmen (and everyone else for that matter) had little protection from kings and noblemen hauling them away without cause or trial. When King John placed his seal on Magna Carta, chapter 39 of the document provided that:

No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.

Subsequent English statutes interpreted the phrase "the law of the land" to include procedural safeguards that protect individual rights. One such statute enacted in 1354 added the phrase "due process of law" to the English legal vernacular to describe this collection of procedural rights. The phrase continued in use and found its way into the U.S. Constitution via the Fifth Amendment. By the time Miranda v. Arizona was decided in 1966, the privilege against self-incrimination was a well-established tenet of American jurisprudence and the Court prohibited use of such statements without a showing of the use of procedural safeguards like the warnings that became known as Miranda Warnings.

For more on the Due Process connection from Magna Carta to Miranda v. Arizona, visit the Law Library of Congress digital exhibit Magna Carta: Muse & Mentor. You can also visit the Harris County Law Library's Law Day digital exhibits Magna Carta and Miranda: More than words to discover more about these landmark legal resources. Be sure to also visit the Law Library's lobby to view our 1763 copy of Magna Carta on display during the month of June.

Latest and Greatest – Texas Small-Firm Practice Tools

By Cindy Stormer

James Publishing, Inc. (2015)

KFT 318 .S76

As a small-firm or solo practitioner, you may handle a large variety of cases, thus requiring you to be an expert in many different practice areas. Attorney Cindy Stormer has made your job a lot easier with her book, Texas Small-Firm Practice Tools. Loaded with checklists and over 560 forms, this book focuses on 16 main practice areas, including: civil and business litigation, car accident cases, consumer protection and fair trade practices, landlord-tenant issues, employer-employee relations, credit and collections, small business issues, marriage dissolution, estate planning and administration, criminal defense, and real estate. For each practice area, the author discusses the essential law and procedures with which you need to be familiar and provides you with some useful samples of letters, motions, and client interview questions. It truly is a toolkit for the small-firm or solo lawyer. So, come on down to the Harris County Law Library and find out for yourself how valuable Texas Small-Firm Practice Tools can be to your practice.

Monthly Features: Magna Carta & Constitutional Law Resources at the HCLL

During the month of June, the Harris County Law Library is commemorating Magna Carta. Don’t miss our digital exhibit and the exhibit currently on display in the Law Library's lobby, where you can explore the origins of this historically-significant document and its impact on both the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights, as well as its influence on the rule of law in Texas.

To complement our Magna Carta exhibits, the Law Library has adopted a theme, Constitutional Law Resource Month, which will feature items from our collection, including treatises, reference works, CLE course materials, form books, and other practitioner tools that may be useful in conducting constitutional law research.

The Law Library will also feature a small display of commentaries and related examples of case law that demonstrate the connections between Magna Carta and American law. All of these resources and exhibits will be featured until the end of June. Don’t miss your chance to see them, and please feel free to ask the Law Library staff any questions about the materials you discover.