ACTIVISTS LOBBYING CONGRESS FOR INVESTIGATION OF U.S. LEGAL ABUSE

The Citizens Justice Institute, a legal reform outreach initiated by Boston lawyer and human rights activist David Grossack, has begun lobbying the House Judiciary Committee for the purpose of holding hearings on the existence of widespread dysfunction of the state and federal courts.

THE SCOPE OF THE PROBLEM

The problems faced by litigants include the excessive cost of legal counsel. When the average cost of a lawyer approaches $200. an hour and the average worker earns about $19. an hour, it is not very hard to see why most people cannot afford a lawyer.

Naturally, if the courts were user friendly, if the laws were simple and the process scrupulously fair, the lack of a lawyer would not be so critical. Unfortunately, the laws are needlessly complex, the courts are not user friendly, and the System is badly broken.

Corruption, cronyism and dirty pool are also fairly widespread. Judges have been arrested in Brooklyn, New York for widespread fixing of divorce cases for lawyers who were "in the loop." Allegations of judicial misconduct and reprisals have also surfaced in Massachusetts divorce courts. Similar complaints are heard from coast to coast.

Public confidence has been long shattered in the legal profession and the courts.

Heavy-handed abuse of litigants is common. Cases brought by pro se litigants are often dismissed even when they are meritorious. One federal judge in New Jersey dismissed a case brought by a pro se litigant who had been wrongfully imprisoned for nearly two years. He appealed to the Court of Appeals, which said the lower court had 'abused its discretion", which is quite strong language. The judge permitted the case reinstated, and then dismissed it again on rather spurious grounds. The case is back in the Court of Appeals.

Lawyers who blow the whistle are rare. Reprisals are taken out on lawyers who fight the System or who criticize the judiciary or the bar. In Indiana, there are rules which call for the discipline of lawyers who criticize the judiciary.

WHY A FEDERAL INVESTIGATION?

Congress can do things to make the Courts a more level playing field. By bringing attention to the problem, and by their control of the purse strings over both the state and the federal courts, they can force changes, like making the courts user friendly by forcing laws to be rewritten in to plain English. Amazingly, Congress supported SEC legislation to make prospectuses for investors written in "plain English" but never the laws of the land. Try reading the Internal Revenue Code or SEC regulations or some federal court decisions. Congress can enact relief mechanisms for people who have been victims of legal abuse. By making lawyers subject to the federal civil rights act as officers of the court, by eliminating judicial immunity, and by requiring federal judges to be elected rather than appointed, Congress can improve the quality of justice. Moreover, the doctrines of qualified immunity, abstention and collateral estoppel have made many wrongdoers at the state and local level immune from their actions and have shielded corrupt or unfair state court proceedings from

A monitoring system over state courts would also be helpful. Lack of accountability breeds corruption, inefficiency and incompetence. Cases are dragged out, files are lost, needed documents are never issued. Tapes of cases disappear. Lawyers now have saying, " Judges can't hurt you but clerks can kill you!"

The effects of this on litigants has been noted and documented. The book "Legal Abuse Syndrome" chronicles the posttraumatic stress disorders experienced by many parties to a lawsuit.

HOW YOU CAN HELP!

All you need to do is to contact members of House Judiciary Committee and ask them to hold hearings on legal abuse as suggested by the Citizens Justice Institute. Contact Committee Chairman Sensenbrenner through his contact website at http://judiciary.house.gov/contact.aspx. Tell him that you support a Congressional investigation of legal abuse in the United States. And please write to Citizens Justice Institute and let us know about your support. Our address is Post Office Box 90, Hull, Massachusetts 02045