Access to Justice

SATURDAY, JANUARY 20, 2024

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For Immigrants, Gun Rights Debate Goes Beyond Firearms

By Marco Poggio

Last month, for the first time, a federal court found that a long-standing law banning gun possession by unauthorized immigrants violates the Second Amendment. As similar challenges play out around the country, the legal and political backdrop of the case has caught the attention of legal scholars, who see in the right to be armed a fundamental question about noncitizens’ belonging in the nation and their ability to exercise other constitutional rights.

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Texas Non-Atty Ownership Plan Fizzles As Justice Gap Fix

By Lynn LaRowe

As the legal industry struggles to find ways to bridge the wide gap between those who can afford civil legal services and those who cannot, a proposal in Texas to allow non-attorney ownership of firms providing low- or no-cost services faces an uncertain future following opposition from lawyers who say it would create an ethical quagmire.

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How Bass Berry Helped Free 3 Wrongfully Convicted Men

By Marco Poggio

Working alongside the Tennessee Innocence Project, Bass Berry & Sims PLC committed more than 4,000 hours of pro bono work to challenge the wrongful convictions of three Black men. Thanks to those efforts, Wayne Burgess, Artis Whitehead and Thomas Clardy all walked free last year after collectively spending 62 years behind bars.

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Ala. Inmate Tells Justices 2nd Execution Attempt Violates Rights

By Katie Buehler

An Alabama death row inmate asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay his looming execution and decide whether the state, after previously failing to kill him via lethal injection, can try again with a new method, or if he is being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment.

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AI Tool Updated To Help Immigration Attys With Legal Tasks

By Britain Eakin

The American Immigration Lawyers Association and software platform Visalaw.ai released an updated version of an artificial intelligence legal research tool that now has an expanded library and a document upload feature.

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Mich. Attys Can Now Pay For Pro Bono Clients' Travel, Clothes

By Carolyn Muyskens

Lawyers in Michigan can give impoverished pro bono clients certain kinds of financial aid under a revision to the state's professional conduct code adopted by the Michigan Supreme Court.

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New Mexico Judiciary Establishes Rural Clerkship Program

By Jack Rodgers

The New Mexico Judiciary is launching a Rural Justice Initiative Clerkship Program, which creates four paid clerk positions for attorneys who will work with state judicial district chief judges.

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Big Law Leans Liberal In Pro Bono Amicus Briefs, Study Says

By Hannah Albarazi

BigLaw firms don't usually advertise their political and ideological leanings, but a new study examining amicus briefs filed by the largest U.S. law firms on behalf of likely pro bono clients before the U.S. Supreme Court may offer new insights into which direction BigLaw firms tilt.

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Perspectives

Justices May Clarify Expert Witness Confrontation Confusion

After oral arguments in Smith v. Arizona, the U.S. Supreme Court seems poised to hold that expert witness opinions that rely on out-of-court testimonial statements for their factual basis are unconstitutional, thus resolving some of the complications created by the court’s confrontation clause jurisprudence, says Richard Friedman at the University of Michigan Law School.

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Perspectives

8th Circ. Redistricting Ruling Imperils The Voting Rights Act

The Eighth Circuit’s recent ruling in Arkansas NAACP v. Arkansas Board of Apportionment, holding that private plaintiffs don't have standing to sue in redistricting cases, creates a circuit split, and, if upheld, would nearly destroy the Voting Rights Act, says William Brewer at Brewer Storefront.

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