Access to Justice

SATURDAY, MAY 20, 2023

Debt Firm's Flameout A Cautionary Tale For Consumers

By Daniel Connolly

The collapse of a California debt resolution law firm has impacted tens of thousands of consumers across the country, leaving many deeper in debt and with ruined credit. It’s an extreme example of predatory behavior across an industry where marketing companies and law firms urge vulnerable debtors to pay big money for services that advocates say have little to no real value.

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Texas Riding Growing Wave Of Bail Reform Rollbacks

By Marco Poggio

Amid a wave of harsher bail laws sweeping through the nation, Texas is considering bills that would give judges more power to set bail for people charged with serious offenses and a constitutional amendment that would categorically deny bail for those accused of the most serious crimes.

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Pro Bono Spotlight

Willkie, Freshfields Help Score NY Medicaid Dental Expansion

By Marco Poggio

Attorneys with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP partnered with the Legal Aid Society to secure a recent class action settlement that will expand dental care coverage to an estimated 5 million Medicaid recipients in New York. Here’s how they did it.

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NYC Faces Suits Alleging Racial Bias In Child Removals

By Rachel Rippetoe

Bronx Defenders and Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP filed two lawsuits Thursday against New York City's Administration for Children's Services, accusing the agency of discriminating against parents of color in its child removal decisions.

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Study Shows NYC Judges Who Are More Likely To Incarcerate

By Marco Poggio

A recent study by decarceration advocates analyzing public pretrial data identified 14 New York City judges who are more likely than their peers to order defendants held in jail while awaiting trial.

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Calif. Judge Halts Some Pre-Arraignment Cash Bail In LA

By Gina Kim

A California judge temporarily blocked Los Angeles city and county from enforcing cash bail systems against arrestees detained for low-level offenses before arraignment, finding the system's constitutional harm is "pervasive in that each year it likely affects tens of thousands of impoverished persons detained solely because they are poor."

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Series

Inside Immigration Court: Making The Case For Bond Release

Immigration Judge Samuel Cole offers a guide to help attorneys practicing in immigration court — against a backdrop of high stakes and fast-moving dockets — better prepare for bond hearings, so proceedings run more smoothly and with less delay.

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Perspectives

LA County Should Loosen Strict Reentry Program Criteria

Los Angeles County’s recent fair chance ordinance proposal is an important step toward reducing recidivism, but the county should also make its reentry programs available to all formerly incarcerated individuals and focus on prerelease job training, say Sophia Lowe, Eleanor Pearson and Samuel Mistrano at USC.

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Perspectives

Why Trump Sexual Abuse Verdict May Be Hard To Replicate

Survivors of sexual assault may be emboldened to file suit after writer E. Jean Carroll’s trial victory against former President Donald Trump, but before assigning too much significance to the verdict, it’s worth noting that the case’s unique constellation of factors may make it the exception rather than the rule, says Jessica Roth at Cardozo School of Law.

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