Lawyers and Access to Justice

The three case studies in this chapter document the retrenchment and reconstruction of access to justice over the last 30 years in the US, Scandinavia and England and Wales. 1 Although developments in each setting have been very different, two common and interlinked themes emerge, which have undermined the legal profession’s autonomy in defining and providing access to justice. First, lawyers have been displaced from their central role as providers and been forced to share the stage with other actors. Second, as states have withdrawn funding from legal aid, they have intervened more actively in determining what constitutes access to justice and who is entitled to it. Lawyers, in turn, have regrouped, responded to and resisted these developments to varying degrees. The three case studies represent points on a spectrum. The US is the furthest advanced in the fragmentation and marketisation of access to justice; the Scandinavian countries have advanced a considerable way down that route; while England and Wales stands uncomfortably on the threshold, unable to return to the past but uncertain of its future.