ABA has its work cut out for it

We live in a nation of laws, according to John Adams. For too many Americans, however, relying upon those laws is a difficult task. With the American Bar Association holding its 2015 midyear meeting in Houston this weekend, downtown should serve as an example of people's limited access to justice.

Civil courthouses are supposed to put people right when they've been wronged, but the Harris County civil courthouse is less crowded than it once was. Lawyers refuse to take legitimate cases because the cost of litigation outweighs potential gains. Texas' tort reform has put a hard cap not only on damages, but on justice as well.

Around the corner, the Harris County Criminal Justice Center routinely overflows during morning docket call. The Supreme Court has held that the Constitution guarantees the right to effective counsel for indigent defendants, but that promise rings hollow when appointed attorneys take on more clients than they can handle and provide substandard representation.

Judges can even be heard rejecting requests for appointed counsel, and instructing people to sell jewelry or stereo equipment to afford an attorney. Justice cannot be found at a pawn shop.

When people do get attorneys, they often function as little more than shepherds to a plea deal. The jury trial is supposed to sit at the core of our criminal justice system, but according to a report to the Texas Indigent Defense Commission, only 1.1 percent of misdemeanors in Texas are tried and only 2.5 percent of felony cases are disposed by trial. At this point, our criminal courthouses feel more like assembly lines on a factory floor than halls of justice.

The 3,000-plus ABA members at the conference know these issues well.

"Eighty to 85 percent of people in this country don't have access to legal services," ABA President William Hubbard told the Chronicle editorial board Wednesday. "It is more and more not just an issue for the poor, it is an issue for (people of)moderate means."

The problem is that the traditional model of delivering legal services no longer works. People can't pay what lawyers charge, and lawyers couldn't stay in business (or pay down their student loans) if they charged what people could pay.

Affordable legal help is out there for important yet routine legal duties, such as divorces and estate planning. But not everyone knows what resources they have available or that they can get help at a reasonable price. For too many people, the only answer to legal woes is do it yourself or pay too much. As an alternative, ABA leadership is promoting the idea of unbundled legal services, where lawyers can handle the complex aspects of otherwise simple legal tasks.

Across the nation, lawyers are working on a Blueprint Project, in which attorneys share their own successes, and failures, in improving access to legal services by changing their own policies and procedures. Harris County has fallen behind when it comes to having obvious, accessible help in our courthouses and law libraries.

The ABA also is promoting the idea of creating a new class of certified legal worker that could help people with routine legal duties. Doctors and lawyers often come in the same breath, yet there's no legal equivalent to something like a nurse practitioner. The state of Washington, however, has created a program for limited license legal technicians to help people with routine duties in the family courts.

"Those persons will be trained, will be regulated by the Supreme Court so public protection is there, and many people are looking at that to see if it will solve some of the family court issues," Hubbard said.

Not every legal problem requires a full-time lawyer, and loosening the controls on who can help should work to lower costs.

Technology also has a role to play in making it easier for attorneys to provide simple but necessary services. From smartphone apps to teleconferencing, the legal profession has yet to fully take advantage of tools that could allow lawyers to deliver their skills quicker and cheaper. The prospect of a lawyer's app on your phone also can help bridge the gap to people who simply don't know that there are legal solutions to their problems. From car accidents to apartment evictions, people often aren't aware that they have the legal system at their disposal.

However, it will take more than a smartphone app to deliver justice.

Black communities can look at police officers going unpunished after shooting unarmed citizens in Ferguson or Staten Island and come to the conclusion that the law does not serve them. Women can look at the leadership of top law firms and see a legal industry that is anything but welcoming.

As the ABA president put it: "So many people don't have a connection with the justice system as we know it and it stems not just from frustration with the criminal justice system, but this lack of access."

The barriers are high for people who seek to resolve their problems through the law. For many, it is easier to pay a community activist or start a social media campaign to get a sense of justice. But the Founding Fathers designed a Constitution intended to deliver something greater than a hashtag, and each generation has to work harder to aim for that more perfect Union. After all, our nation was founded by lawyers, and they have a duty to set her right.