State Bar of Wisconsin

Board approves Access to Justice Report

At its May meeting, the Board of Governors voted to accept the Access to Justice Report and to adopt the report’s recommendations. The board also directed the State Bar president to refer the report’s recommendations to the appropriate State Bar committees and sections for further work on implementation.  The report’s recommendations focus on the need for coordinated actions that leverage commitments from Wisconsin lawyers, the court system, the Legislature, the Governor, legal aid providers and our law schools.

The Access to Justice Study Committee, appointed by then President Michael Guerin in 2005, was charged to rigorously assess the civil legal needs of Wisconsin residents and to evaluate and recommend long-term solutions. The committee was asked to identify persons or communities with unmet legal needs, the nature of the legal needs, how those needs are distributed statewide, the reasons why the needs are not being met, ways the needs could be met, and the major social impact on our communities by allowing these legal needs to go unaddressed.

Judge Sankovitz informed the board that the report has even attracted national attention to the Bar’s efforts on access to justice, with a number of other states expressing interest in the report’s comprehensive approach and its demonstration of the value of using cost-benefit analysis to supplement the discussion on this important issue.

Past President Guerin told the board, “One of the main committee findings is that the problem of access to justice cannot be solved by Wisconsin lawyers. As Judge Sankovitz has reported, if every lawyer in Wisconsin took on four more pro bono cases, we would not solve the problem. It is much bigger than that. The committee has developed a proposal that brings into play for the very first time, the legislature, the business community, and other parties who have not been stepping up to the plate.”

While many members will have differing points of view on the committee’s recommendations, Guerin said, “I believe members are not looking for us to make them comfortable. I believe they are looking for us to do the right thing. There may be parts of these recommendations that don’t completely satisfy everyone, but implementation is not going to happen overnight. There will be reasoned discussion, and we will be a part of it. Let’s pass the committee’s recommendations and get the process rolling.”

While some governors raised concerns with the recommendations dealing with the mandatory assessment to fund legal services, expanded roles for paralegals and an expansion in pro se assistance, President-elect Tom Basting urged the board to “move the Access to Justice Committee’s recommendations forward,” emphasizing that, “the State Bar of Wisconsin has a real opportunity to take a leadership role in this issue, which will be recognized nationwide. I think we have an opportunity to move forward with solutions for the delivery of civil legal services to the 500,000 poor people of this state who have been identified in this report as being unserved.”

Read the “Bridging the Justice Gap” report and recommendations.