Access to justice

Mauren Gutierrez

What are the biggest challenges facing Iowa in providing access to the courts, and what
changes would you recommend the state adopt in order to increase access to justice?

In the following paper i'm going to addressing and research about the questions
described adobe, but for the real understanding of this questions there's crucial
mentioned what is access to justice, “Access to justice means having a fair chance to
be heard in court or other forum that can help find solution to the problem you face,
regardless of who you are, where you live, or how much money you have. Access
means that, at a minimum, a person should be able to learn about their rights and then
give effective voice to them in a neutral and nondiscriminatory, formal or informal,
process that determines the facts, applies the fair rule of law, reaches a resolution, and
enforces the result.” 1

The objective of this paper is defined if the access to justice in iowa is hard and if it is
the reasons for it, for this purpose i'm going to based my analysis in class discussion
and my personal research, To begin with is important to analyze the real iowa access to
court and justice, as we know in iowa we have:

● two federal district court:

United states district court for the northern district of iowa
United states district court for the southern district of iowa

● States supreme court of appeals:

Decides only cases transferred to it by the Iowa Supreme Court, Typically decides
cases in which the legal issues are well-settled, Court of Intermediate Appeal – 90% of
1
From the National Center for Access to Justice, the “Justice Index,” https://ncaj.org/state-
rankings/2021/justice-index/about-justice-index.
all ap- peals are transferred to this court 9 judges sit in 3 panels of 3 judges, A party
may ask the supreme court to review a court of appeals decision, a process called
further review Rural legal access in iowa
● District courts : serve different purposes.

Low amount of lawyers in iowa rural counties

I think one of the reasons for this is the amount of lawyers in the state. Quantity of
lawyers in iowa: this could be an issue for access to justice? Iowa has 7452 attorneys
authorized according to the bar association. Iowa has a population of 3.193 millions
approx. so just doing simple math we are able to realize the perhaps the amount of
lawyers in iowa is not enough for satisfied to the population, is also true the not all the
population is going to need the assistance of a lawyer and also the one lawyer can
manage multiple case at the time but if is like that what will be the quality of the
service?, moreover an important thing to consider is that most of these attorneys are in
the bigger cities of our state but what happens with the small towns?, are they receiving
the help and the access to justice that they deserve?.

It has been reported the rural areas of iowa face decline numbers of attorneys, one of
the most interesting examples the i found in my research is ringgold county, this is one
of the smallest counties in iowa with just 5.130 residents and even when sounds funny
this count only have 2 attorneys, is hard to believe the in america this is a everyday
situation in this little counties, these is actually a issue for the democracy and for the
social pact if you think about it, because this citizens experiment everyday the fact the
they are probably are not going to get justice in many of their issues and not just justice
they don't even have the opportunity of be here because there's not attorneys to
represent them and express their issues, how long is going to pass until they decide the
don't need attorneys or respect the law in general i wouldn't blame them.
I really think the this is a issue the should be check as a state and even we could work
with others state the have the same issue, there's had been plan to address and fix this
situation like work with law school to encouraging new lawyers to work in smaller
counties but this initiatives wasn't approved for the iowa supreme court. This is an issue
that needs to be addressed and taken care of, I think this is fundamental as a state.

In addition is important mention the lack of diversity in the lawyer in iowa, there's a really
low among of lawyer of underrepresented groups, how i'm going to approach in the next
title, the diversity is important in many ways, currently in iowa there's many population
take to trial who are of some ethnicity that needs to be represent.

The language barrier in justice

As I put in one of my comments in the discussion board on week 7, In Iowa there exists
a great language barrier. Currently the population in iowa whom english in not their first
language or not there language at all is increasing and this people needs to be
represent as well but no one is paying attention to this issue in the iowa justice system,
specially the some new international population in iowa are refugees from another
countries the are in wars or in really bad situations so is important there representation
in terms of justice because they come from bad places trying to improve their situation
that's why the “Report of the iowa supreme court access to justice commission july
2017” was so interesting to me, in this they explain and address this issue and is
specially important the this is still a barrier in 2023, in the report they express the
recommendation of “The Work Group recommends that the Advisory Committee include
experienced judges, court staff, attorneys, and representatives from key stakeholder
groups. For example: a district judge, a district associate judge, a magistrate, a certified
oral language interpreter, a district court administrator, a district court staff member
experienced in scheduling and coordinating interpreter and translator services, and a
representative from: SCA, OPR, ISBA, Iowa Legal Aid, State Public Defender’s Office,
Department of Inspections and Appeals, Department of Human Rights’ (DHR) Office of
Deaf Services, DHR Office of Latino Affairs, DHR Office of Asian and Pacific Islander
Affairs, and at least one nonprofit organization experienced in providing services to
immigrants.2
As an international student who english is not my first language, I really can relate to
this issue, specially because normally immigrants come to this country to work and to
really make a contribution to the American workforce so i like to see the solutions for
this problem in action. besides I personally believe that this is a problem that we are
working much harder to correct than the problem of access to lawyers in rural areas, but
what happens when these two arguments are mixed together, if there are no lawyers in
rural areas, surely there will be no lawyers who speak more than one language, so it
becomes even more important to solve and address the problems of access to justice
as a whole. Besides this, in my research I found the “language access plan for iowa
courts”3 of 2020 that shows how the court system is realizing this issue and trying to do
improvements about it.

Issues with legal education in iowa

This is essential in the definition of access to justice a person needs to know their rights and be
able to express and apply them, as we had discussed a lot in class, about how the victim or the
person the suffer the damages realize the have a case or the someone else was responsible
for something the never should happened to them, as we talk about the little tony and how his
mother wasn't aware of the responsibility of the doctor until someone else with more knowledge
told her. Education is fundamental on many levels and sometimes can sound funny but the
majority of the population doesn't know their legal rights or their options.
I can identify a similar problem in iowa as the people in some countis is really far from the legal
system that result in the population being ignorant about their rights and duties because this
issue have two mayor affectation:
1. Not knowing about their rights: this is an issue that affects many parts of the population
and not just in iowa, this is a countrywide problem, however for effects of this paper im
going to focus in iowa, this is something that should be analyzed.

2
Report of the iowa supreme court access to justice commission july 2017

3
Language access plan for Iowa's courts, Iowa state court, July 22 2022.
In a recent AmeriSpeak panel conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the
University of Chicago, FIRE asked 1,140 Americans if they could name any of the specific rights
protected by the First Amendment. The results were dismal.

Almost a third of Americans could not name a single enumerated right protected by the First
Amendment and another 40% could name only one — usually freedom of speech. Among
Americans who named one or more enumerated rights, roughly two-thirds (65%) named
freedom of speech, about a quarter (26%) named freedom of religion, 20% named the right to
assemble, 15% named freedom of the press, and 8% named the right to petition. Only 3% of
Americans could name all five and, on average, could name 1.33 First Amendment rights.
These findings are similar to those found in the August 2022 Annenberg Constitution Day Civics
Survey 4.

2. The ignorance of the rights will lead to the ignorance of the obligations, of what the law
allows and does not allow, this is something that must be worked at the state level, since
an educated population will have less tendency to criminal behavior and generates
opportunities.

Solutions and conclusion

In this paper i was able to identify according to my perspective the most important
current issues in the access to justice in iowa, i was surprise in part of my research
because i discover the some of this point are really being address for our system and
trying to improve about it, however issues like the legal education and knowledge in iowa
are not really being treated.
For this my recommendations will be:
● For the first issue about the low number of lawyers in rural counties I think a good first
solution would be the attorneys should be financially incentivized, either by creating a
statewide program that provides a monthly contribution when attorneys take cases from the
county or move to the county to help the county grow.

4
Do Americans know their rights? Survey says: NO, Sean Stevens, February 1, 2023,
https://www.thefire.org/news/do-americans-know-their-rights-survey-says-no
● The second issue analyzed about the language barrier in the access to justice, about this
specific theme really surprise me the is being addressing for our state and their are working
on it since 2017 when this issue was initially report, according to my research multiple
contributions have been made to improve this issue by adding staff to the courts who speak
more than just English, thus improving access for non-English speakers.

● My third point addressed I think it needs much more work, especially when after my
research I realized that it is not only a problem in iowa, but in all the united states, who
according to surveys do not know their legislation or their constitution, I think this problem
has multiple solutions, a first step to improve this situation is to add programs to public
schools in elementary and middle school about civic responsibility and teaching about their
rights and duties.
Bibliography

● American are poorly informed about basic constitutional provisions, Michael Rozansky,
Annenberg public policy center university of pennsylvania, september 2017.
https://www.thefire.org/news/do-americans-know-their-rights-survey-says-no
● Iowa acces to justice 2021 report, Clerk supreme court, August 2021.
● Report of the iowa supreme court access to justice commission july 2017
● Language access plan for Iowa's courts, Iowa state court, July 22 2022.
● From the National Center for Access to Justice, the “Justice Index,” https://ncaj.org/state-
rankings/2021/justice-index/about-justice-index.

● Do Americans know their rights? Survey says: NO, Sean Stevens, February 1 2023,
https://www.thefire.org/news/do-americans-know-their-rights-survey-says-no