Summary
Professor Deborah Rhode weighs in on the need for neighborhood law clinics in light of the high prices of legal expertise for The Seattle Times.
Marcia Jackson sat at a wooden table between long shelves of books at the King County Law Library. The 64-year-old cook needed help dealing with what she described as a complex family-trust issue.
She had come to one of the few places where she could get it: a neighborhood law clinic, where volunteer lawyers dish out advice on a wide range of legal topics, for free.
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“There’s a crucial need,” said professor Deborah Rhode, director of Stanford Law School’s Center on the Legal Profession, noting that surveys have shown “over four-fifths of the legal needs of poor people and close to one-half of the needs of moderate income people are not being met.”
“Lawyers have priced themselves out of the market for people of limited means,” she said.
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Nevertheless, Rhode questioned whether Washington’s requirements are so burdensome that they’ll keep the program from helping as many people as it could.
“You see a relatively small number of individuals ready to jump through the hoops,” she said. “Many countries have nonlawyers handling these matters without adverse effects.”
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“They know just as much if not more than all your judges and lawyers,” she said. “They’re the ones who do all the work.”
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