Gillian K. Hadfield’s scientific contributions

Are Americans making under $50,000 a year compelled to navigate the legal system on their own, or do they simply give up because they cannot afford lawyers? We know anecdotally that Americans of median or lower income generally do without legal representation or resort to a sector of the legal profession that - because of the sheer volume of claims, inadequate training, and other causes - provides deficient representation and advice. This book poses the question: can we - at the current level of resources, both public and private - better address the legal needs of all Americans? Leading judges, researchers, and activists discuss the role of technology, pro bono services, bar association resources, affordable solo and small firm fees, public service internships, and law student and nonlawyer representation.

Most advanced democracies are thick with law and regulation, rules that structure almost all social and economic relationships. Yet ordinary Americans, unlike their peers in other advanced systems, face this law-thick landscape with relatively few legal resources at their disposal. In this chapter, an updated version of Hadfield Higher Demand Lower Supply? A Comparative Assessment of the Legal Resource Landscape for Ordinary Americans (2009), we document what little data exists on the performance of legal markets for non-corporate clients in the U.S. Our results suggest that while the U.S. has nearly twice as many lawyers as comparable countries on a per capita basis, Americans in fact confront the legal problems of daily life - housing, family, employment, finances, health - with relatively little access to affordable legal help. We begin with a ‘macro’ view, comparing the resources at an aggregate level that are devoted to the legal system in the U.S. as compared to other countries. We find that the U.S. operates with fewer public dollars, judges and even lawyers on a per case basis than other advanced countries. We then consider ‘micro’ data, specifically data on legal needs and use of legal resources, comparing the intensity of legal need and access to legal assistance across countries. Here too we find that Americans experience comparable rates of legal problems but both give up on those problems or manage them without legal help at higher rates than in other advanced countries. The paper concludes with a discussion of how the distinctively restrictive U.S. approach to regulating the legal profession can account for the diminished access to legal help experienced by Americans as compared to those in countries with more open legal markets such as the U.K. and the Netherlands.