Lifting the American Exceptionalism Curtain: Options and Lessons from Abroad
![handle is hein.journals/hastlj67 and id is 1227 raw text is:
Lifting the American
Exceptionalism Curtain:
Options and Lessons from Abroad
EARL JOHNSON JR.*
Contrary to its public rhetoric promising 'justice for all and equal justice under law,
access to civil justice in the United States is exceptional only in a negative sense. The
Rule of Law Index ranks our nation next to last among the world's thirty-one richest
countries. A major reason for this is that most ofour fellow industrial democracies have a
right to counsel in civil cases and invest from three times to ten times more than the
United States on civil legal aid. Beyond these differences, the United States has much to
learn from research and other developments in foreign countries. Studies in England
about how poor and moderate income deal with their justiciable problems suggest that
unmet effective demand for lawyer services is substantially less than unmet legal
needs recorded in legal needs studies-because even with a right to counsel many people
instead resolved their problems in other ways. A study in Canada found that those in the
upper income quartile spent 167 times more than those in the bottom quartile resolving
their legal problems, even though their problems often were less disruptive than those the
bottom quartile confronted. A survey of past and present innovations covers the following:
(i) Belgium's problematic system that encourages individual lawyers to provide as much
representation as they can while at the same time limiting what the government will pay
out for the total amount of legal services rendered each year; (2) Dutch lokets, a
nationwide network of offices where people can receive advice and brief assistance from a
paralegal staff, (3) Dutch Rechtwijzer i.o and 2.0, online dispute assistance and online
dispute resolution; (4) English McKenzie friends which allows nonlawyers to
accompany unrepresented litigants to the courtroom and render limited assistance; and
(5) partially subsidized lawyers for the lower middle classes and legal expense insurance
for the middle classes found in several European countries.
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* Justice, California Court of Appeal (Ret.). Visiting Scholar, University of Southern California
Law School and Western Center on Law and Poverty.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/hastlj67&div=36&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Lifting the American Exceptionalism Curtain: Options and Lessons from Abroad
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