A Consumer Based Approach
The U.S. system of government, admired around
the world as a model of democracy, is grounded in the rule
of law. In theory, justice is available readily and equally
to all. In practice, access to justice is easier for some
than for others, and for those unable to afford legal services,
justice may be difficult to obtain at all. The American
ideal for justice is not unreasonable or unattainable. It
can be achieved by systematically removing the unnecessary,
simplifying the necessary, and rethinking processes from
the standpoints of those who must use them.
Today an increasing flood of people, numbering in the hundreds
of thousands, have begun to try to handle their own court
cases rather than rely on lawyers. However, modern court
systems in the United States are too complex for all but
the most sophisticated non-lawyer. Courts, in their efforts
to improve access to justice, have inadvertently made the
system more complex by adding more procedural layers and
rules.
To address these shortcomings, Chicago-Kent
College of Law, has joined with the Institute
of Design and the National
Center for State Courts to bring together the most advanced
process design technologies and the power of the Internet
to fundamentally reengineer civil court processes from a
customer prospective, in which self-represented litigants
seek access to judicial services in a research project entitled
"Meeting the Needs of Self-Represented Litigants: A
Consumer-based Approach".
This web site presents the results of the
18 month study. To present the vast amount of material,
the web site is divided into six areas: the project, planning,
system design, development, implementation, and evaluation.
