Access to Justice - Vanderbilt Law SchoolVanderbilt Law School

Overview

The Vanderbilt Access to Justice (AtJ) Initiative aims to expand and equalize access to knowledge and participation in the civil and criminal legal systems. It does so through an interdisciplinary and people-centered approach, grounded in the notion that every participant in the program serves as both teacher and student, drawing on their own experiences and learning from those of others.

court watch Working in partnership with the Office of Public Interest and several Nashville-based legal service providers, this program and its related course(s) facilitate court observation by law students.

Students observing court will engage in related training and reflection opportunities, providing them with a richer understanding of how the courts operate in practice and how litigants in those courts experience the legal system.

Related Courses:

Access to Justice

This course focuses on how lower-income people navigate and experience the civil and criminal legal systems, often without the assistance of a lawyer. Students will consider what “access to justice” means and requires on a macro, structural level and examine micro-level, on the ground access issues. In doing so, they will hear from a variety of relevant experts and stakeholders, explore interdisciplinary perspectives, and engage in court observation. Topics covered will likely include (but are not limited to) the right to counsel, the role of non-lawyers, the use of technology, legal design, and legal literacy. The primary assignment for the course will involve identifying a specific access-to-justice problem and developing a feasible reform proposal—along with correlating support and justification—that will be presented in class.
Access to Justice: Legal Education and Empowerment

In this class, law students will work cooperatively with system-involved individuals to engage in a mutual process of legal education and empowerment. All participants will meet in an initial session to define their goals for the class and agree upon an initial set of topics. They will also share as a group their individual experiences with and understanding of the legal system. Following that initial meeting, students will develop a short curriculum, which they will then use to facilitate related discussions with the full group over a series of in-person class sessions. Possible topics might include: the legal system and understanding law; housing and property (e.g., how to read a lease, eviction, buying property); family law (divorce, custody, child support); and collateral consequences. These sessions will include coverage of procedural and substantive law and students’ shared impressions of law, courts, and the legal system.

Faculty Director

Lauren Sudeall
David Daniels Allen Distinguished Chair of Law

Lauren Sudeall research focuses on access to the courts, both civil and criminal, and how lower-income individuals engage with the legal system, either with a lawyer or on their own. Her earlier work has also included the relationship between rights and identity and the intersection of constitutional law and criminal procedure.

Before joining the academy, Sudeall clerked for Judge Stephen Reinhardt on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court of the United States. She then worked at the Southern Center for Human Rights--first as a Soros Justice Fellow and later as a staff attorney--where she represented indigent capital clients in Alabama and Georgia and litigated civil claims regarding the right to counsel.

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