Access to Justice and Legal Aid

This book considers how access to justice is affected by restrictions to legal aid budgets and increasingly prescriptive service guidelines. As common law jurisdictions, England and Wales and Australia, share similar ideals, policies and practices, but they differ in aspects of their legal and political culture, in the nature of the communities they serve and in their approaches to providing access to justice. These jurisdictions thus provide us with different perspectives on what constitutes justice and how we might seek to overcome the burgeoning crisis in unmet legal need.
The book fills an important gap in existing scholarship as the first to bring together new empirical and theoretical knowledge examining different responses to legal aid crises both in the domestic and comparative contexts, across criminal, civil and family law. It achieves this by examining the broader social, political, legal, health and welfare impacts of legal aid cuts and prescriptive service guidelines. Across both jurisdictions, this work suggests that it is the most vulnerable groups who lose out in the way the law now operates in the twenty-first century. This book is essential reading for academics, students, practitioners and policymakers interested in criminal and civil justice, access to justice, the provision of legal assistance and legal aid.

Autorentext

Asher Flynn is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology within the School of Social Sciences at Monash University.
Jacqueline Hodgson is Professor of Law and Director of the Criminal Justice Centre in the School of Law, University of Warwick.

Inhalt

1. Access to Justice and Legal Aid Cuts: A Mismatch of Concepts in the Contemporary Australian and British Legal Landscapes
   Asher Flynn and Jacqueline Hodgson
   
   2. Challenges Facing the Australian Legal Aid System
      Mary Anne Noone
   3. Rhyme and Reason in the Uncertain Development of Legal Aid in Australia
      Jeff Giddings
   4. The Rise and Decline of Criminal Legal Aid in England and Wales
      Tom Smith and Ed Cape
   5. A View from the Bench: A Judicial Perspective on Legal Representation, Court Excellence and Therapeutic Jurisprudence
      Pauline Spencer
   6. Face-to-interface Communication: Accessing Justice by Video Link from Prison
      Carolyn McKay
   7. The Rise of 'DIY' Law: Implications for Legal Aid
      Kathy Laster and Ryan Kornhauser
   8. Community Lawyers, Law Reform and Systemic Change: Is the End in Sight?
      Liana Buchanan
   9. What if There Is Nowhere to Get Advice?
      James Organ and Jennifer Sigafoos
   10. The End of 'Tea and Sympathy'? The Changing Role of Voluntary Advice Services in Enabling 'Access to Justice'
       Samuel Kirwan
   11. Reasoning a Human Right to Legal Aid
       Simon Rice
   12. Cuts to Civil Legal Aid and the Identity Crisis in Lawyering: Lessons from the Experience of England and Wales
       Natalie Byrom
   13. Access to What? LASPO and Mediation
       Rosemary Hunter, Anne Barlow, Janet Smithson and Jan Ewing
   14. Insights into Inequality: Women's Access to Legal Aid in Victoria
       Pasanna Mutha-Merennege
   15. Indigenous People and Access to Justice in Civil and Family Law
       Melanie Schwartz
   16. Austerity and Justice in the Age of Migration
       Ana Aliverti