Author: msuhr

By Kelsea Jeon, Rhode Center Civil Justice Fellow

On Veterans Day 2024, U.S. Attorney Ismail Ramsey of the Northern District of California delivered a talk co-sponsored by the Rhode Center on the importance of service—in military uniform and beyond.

Ramsey, a U.S. Air Force veteran, is the 53rd U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California. As the district’s chief federal law enforcement officer, he oversees investigations and prosecutions of federal and civil matters in a jurisdiction spanning fifteen counties and covering a population of roughly nine million people.

During his talk, Ramsey reflected on his career, from deciding to join the military to becoming a U.S. Attorney. Ramsey spoke candidly about how his father inspired him to join the military and traced his journey from Berkeley High School to Harvard ROTC and then to military postings in Mississippi and Montana. He humbly described his own service in the Air Force as “flying a desk” rather than a plane. Yet he emphasized that his time in the military shaped him in fundamental ways. He gained exposure to the rich diversity of American life and came to believe that service should be a shared responsibility across all segments of society.

Though no longer in military uniform, Ramsey has continued to serve his community. From coaching the local high school’s Mock Trial team to volunteering on the Berkeley Police Commission to supervising law students providing pro bono representation to veterans struggling after their return to civilian life, Ramsey has been an active member of his community.

One of the pro bono matters exposed Ramsey to the importance of court systems recognizing the root causes of veterans’ legal issues. In the matter, Ramsey assisted a veteran navigating a case in state court and persuaded the court to recognize his client’s need for tailored treatment. And this experience inspired Ramsey to create a veteran-focused initiative in federal court.

During the talk, Ramsey announced the official launch of a first-ever Veterans Court initiative in the Northern District of California. Modeled on state-level Veterans Treatment Courts and programs that provide alternatives to incarceration, this program is designed to support veterans involved in the federal criminal justice system. From mental health support to vocational training, the initiative prioritizes stability, accountability, wellness, and community connection. Ramsey explained that the program’s rigorous framework ensures participants understand the consequences of their actions while offering them tools to rebuild their lives. By prioritizing alternatives to incarceration, the Veterans Court honors the unique challenges veterans face and offers them a chance to succeed.

Throughout his talk, Ramsey shared personal stories of mentorship and commitment to justice, emphasizing the value of following one’s passions rather than societal currents. Ramsey’s vision for the Veterans Court demonstrates a deep belief in the potential for redemption and the need to extend grace to those who have served. His inspiring talk was a powerful reminder of the enduring spirit of service—both on Veterans Day and beyond.

By Olivia Jessner, Rhode Center Intern

The Rhode Center recently hosted a talk by the only lawyer in the country who has won a more than one-billion-dollar verdict for a single person: renowned plaintiffs’ lawyer Jason Itkin of Arnold & Itkin LLP.

Itkin is one of the most prolific plaintiffs’ attorneys in the country, and the audience was rapt hearing about his path to such heights of success. His legal practice journey began when he earned a law degree with honors from the University of Texas in 2001. Soon after, he and his business partner, Kurt Arnold, founded their law firm in 2004. At the time, it was a huge leap of faith; even securing office space was a challenge. Twenty years later, after building their firm from the ground up, Arnold & Itkin has won over 20 billion dollars on behalf of injured clients.

As part of this story, Itkin shared a personal perspective on his path to becoming a plaintiffs’ lawyer, frequently directly addressing the many law students in the audience. He compared the law student version of himself with law student attendees, as being curious, high-achieving people who have many options for how to use their legal talents. Ultimately, he encouraged everyone to use their talents to do good, rather than “sell out.” To make this concrete, Itkin recounted how he had spent time working at a large reputable firm but pivoted to plaintiffs’ lawyering out of a desire to help individuals who have been seriously injured and too often don’t have a voice in the legal system.

Itkin’s talk then shifted to the ways in which he has been able to achieve that goal through his career as a plaintiffs’ lawyer. He detailed many victories that his firm has had and then moved into an extended case study, that of a young woman who tragically and wrongfully died as a result of a poorly attended crane falling on her apartment building. Itkin guided the audience through the process of fighting against the large real estate company that had chartered the crane for wrongful death compensation for the victim’s mother. He walked everyone through the research that he had done to prove that the company had been negligent in its maintenance of the crane and how he had humanized the victim for the jury through accounts from her vibrant life, and also gave the audience a taste of what his closing argument looked like. Several members of the audience were moved to tears by this portion of Itkin’s talk. It was a beautiful example of the power of plaintiffs’ litigation and how it can bolster human dignity in the face of loss.

As Itkin wrapped up his talk, he fielded several questions from law students on career advice and work-life balance in the face of such high-stakes litigation. He concluded his talk with a call to action: he conveyed his sincere hope that he had inspired students to consider a career in plaintiffs’ litigation as a vehicle to helping the injured. After a very enthusiastic round of applause, attendees emerged to the Stanford Law courtyard for a reception. Many emerged with Arnold & Itkin-branded baseball caps, and all, I would wager, emerged with a more enlightened perspective on plaintiffs’ litigation.

Rhode Center Civil Justice Student Fellow Kelsea Ahjin Jeon has been awarded the 2024 Susman Godfrey Prize, which the law firm awards annually to students of color who have demonstrated excellence and overall achievement. She is one of only 20 winners from law schools across the country and will receive a prize of $3,500 and ongoing mentorship from Susman Godfrey’s partners and associates.

“I am beyond grateful to the Rhode Center for their support, particularly to Professor Nora Freeman Engstrom for nominating me for the Susman Godfrey Prize,” Kelsea said. “Being a member of the Susman Godfrey Prize cohort is an honor, and I feel touched by the outpour of support from the Susman Godfrey community. I look forward to making the most out of the mentorship opportunities as I navigate law school and beyond.” 

As a Student Fellow, Kelsea has played an integral role in many aspects of the Rhode Center’s work, including by assisting Professor David Engstrom as he leads the American Law Institute’s Principles Project on High-Volume, High-Stakes, Low-Dollar-Value Civil Claims. Outside of the Rhode Center, Kelsea is an editor on the Stanford Law Review and is currently a member of Stanford’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic. She earned a Master’s degree in Socio-Legal Research at the University of Oxford on a Rotary Global Grant Scholarship after graduating magna cum laude from Yale with a B.A. in History. A rising 3L, Kelsea will continue her work as a Civil Justice Student Fellow in the 2024-2025 school year.

The Deborah L. Rhode Center on the Legal Profession at Stanford Law School is extending its impact across multiple key projects through the hiring of several new professionals. “The Center is the leading generator of research and policy advocacy on the immense challenges facing the civil justice system and the legal profession,” noted Center Co-Director and Stanford Law Professor Nora Freeman Engstrom. “As our ambition and impact grows, we are thrilled to welcome these extraordinary leaders to our team.”

Rose Carmen Goldberg joins the Center as the new Associate Director of Policy and Programs. Most recently, Rose served as a Deputy Attorney General in the California Attorney General’s Office where she led affirmative civil litigation and policy advocacy focused primarily on gun violence prevention and veterans’ rights. A 2015 graduate of Yale Law School, Rose clerked for Judge Theodore A. McKee of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. She also served as a Skadden Fellow, providing direct legal services to veterans with mental health conditions. Rose will manage and develop multiple programs and conduct original research to make the civil justice system more accessible and equitable.

Next, Natalie Knowlton joins the Rhode Center as Special Projects Advisor for the Center.  In so doing, she brings extensive experience in legal technology, regulation, and civil justice research. The founder of Access to Justice Ventures, a firm empowering entrepreneurs developing scalable access to justice solutions. Natalie is a thought leader recognized as a 2023 ABA Journal Legal Rebel and was the Director of Special Projects and a Regulatory Innovation Consultant at IAALS, the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System. Natalie will lead the Center’s work on AI, courts, and access to justice.

Daniel Bernal has come aboard the Rhode Center as a Research Fellow and will lead the research component of the Center’s partnership with the Los Angeles Superior Court. Daniel graduated from Stanford Law School in 2019 and also holds a Ph.D. from the University of Arizona. Prior to joining the Center, Daniel clerked for Judge Andrew D. Hurwitz on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and was also a litigation associate at Latham & Watkins.  Daniel’s scholarly work centers on improving access to civil justice, with a focus on how civil procedure impacts case outcomes, litigant participation, and perceptions of justice.

Finally, Brianne Holland-Stergar has joined the Center as the Civil Justice and Innovation Fellow. Prior to joining the Center, Brianne clerked for Judge Sidney Thomas on the Ninth Circuit and Judge Gregory H. Woods of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. She also practiced law as a litigation associate at Davis Polk & Wardwell and Munger, Tolles & Olson. Brianne will oversee the Center’s Civil Justice Student Fellows program and contribute to research and scholarship on access to justice and diversity and mental health in the profession.

We are so pleased to welcome each of these outstanding individuals to our team and look forward to the exciting work to be done.

About the Deborah L. Rhode Center on the Legal Profession

Through a multidisciplinary approach to teaching, research, and policy, the Rhode Center works to make civil justice more equitable, accessible, and transparent and to promote the legal profession’s commitment to the public interest. Since its founding at Stanford Law School in 2008 by Professor Deborah Rhode, the Center has become a leading voice in the scholarly and policy debates on the present and future challenges facing the profession, including particularly the crisis in access to justice, the role of technology in resolving it, and the need for increased diversity.  The Center is also a vivid example of the unique role law schools can play to connect theory with practice and translate scholarly research into real-world impact to benefit both the profession and the public.

by Kelsea Jeon, Civil Justice Fellow

Last term, the Rhode Center hosted a lunch talk at Stanford Law School on “Access to Justice: Crisis and Crossroads.” During the hour-long discussion, Professors Nora and David Freeman Engstrom, Lucy Ricca, and Todd Venook introduced the audience of primarily first-year law students to the access-to-justice crisis and laid out the myriad of ways the Rhode Center is tackling the issue.

Professor Nora Engstrom began the talk with a nod to the late Deborah Rhode, who once noted the “shameful irony that the nation with the highest concentration of lawyers fails so miserably to make their services available to those who need them most.” Professor Engstrom then presented the audience with statistics capturing the extent and severity of the access-to-justice crisis–in approximately 75% of civil cases in state court, at least one party is self-represented. These cases in civil court touch on significant aspects of people’s lives. The vast majority of civil cases in state court are debt collection actions, where most debtors are unrepresented, and which could lead to wage garnishment. Not only do debt collection actions take place in state courts, but so do evictions and child support matters, among others. And in these evictions, 98% of tenants are unrepresented, and in child support cases, 95% of parents are also unrepresented.

Next, Todd Venook presented a case study diving deeper into the problems with debt collection actions. He noted the rise of debt claims in state courts over the past decade and highlighted the disparity between parties on both sides of the v. Plaintiffs are increasingly institutional debt collection companies—as opposed to the original creditors—and defendants are almost exclusively unrepresented individuals, many of whom are people of color. What usually happens in these cases, Venook pointed out, is wage garnishment for the defendants.

After the deep dive into debt collection matters, Lucy Ricca presented one of the potential solutions to the access-to-justice crisis. Given that unauthorized practice of law rules in many states restrict non-lawyers from providing legal advice, advocates have been creatively thinking about how to reform regulations on who could provide legal help. The Rhode Center has been at the center of the research and policy work in this area. Ricca proposed three emerging categories of regulatory reform—from the allied legal professionals who are licensed legal paraprofessionals, to justice workers who are lay community-based providers, to finally organizational entities which have nonlawyer owners/investors and/or use nonlawyer providers.

Finally, Professor David Engstrom closed the presentation by pointing out the role of state courts, who are feeling increasing pressure from the pro se crisis to reform, and of technology, especially generative artificial intelligence given its capabilities in helping self-represented litigants, in addressing the access-to-justice crisis.

The access-to-justice problem is a complex issue with entwined contributing factors, and accordingly, the Rhode Center has been tackling the issue from a variety of angles. For those eager to join the efforts of the Rhode Center, here are some ways to get involved: taking courses including the Winter/Spring Policy Lab: “Expanding Access to Justice in Eviction and Family Law” and the Spring Course: “Access to Justice: Law, Policy, and Legal Ethics”; applying to the Rhode Center Civil Justice Fellows Program in the Spring; and finally, staying in touch with the Rhode Center online. We hope to see you soon!

by Ben Welton, Civil Justice Fellow

Today, Stanford Law School’s Filing Fairness Project announced the launch of its Filing Fairness Toolkit, a first-of-its-kind, interactive guide for state courts to increase access to justice for all court users by modernizing, standardizing, and simplifying court technology and filing systems. The toolkit provides concrete, actionable recommendations for courts and court partners to work across jurisdictions and to implement and scale more efficient, usable, and sustainable ways for court users to access the legal system. This was a major milestone for the project, which has been working with state supreme court justices, court technologists, and access to justice experts for nearly two years to understand the landscape of court technology in the United States.

An Access to Justice Crisis: Outdated and Needlessly Complex Court Technology 

The U.S. legal system is currently gripped by an access to justice crisis. Roughly three-quarters of the millions of civil cases filed in the U.S. each year involve at least one self-represented litigant trying to navigate our dense, complex legal system alone. A 2019 report from the California State Bar found that 55% of households had faced at least one legal issue in the previous year, yet more than 85% of them received no or inadequate legal help. Many of these cases are significant, even life-altering moments: debt disputes, evictions, domestic violence, or a former partner behind on child support.

Part of the problem is that court users must wrestle with outdated, opaque, and difficult-to-use filing tools. While user-friendly tools are already ubiquitous for things like public benefits applications and tax filings, the picture is very different for court filing technology. Some courts require that users fill out PDFs directly when they need to generate basic legal forms. Other courts have guided interview tools that generate forms for users, but they often involve highly technical legal language and add procedural hurdles like requiring physical (“wet”) signatures or notarization. And other courts have tools that are expensive and difficult to maintain, which has caused them to become outdated or error-prone.

This has been a burden on litigants and courts alike. Some court users are unable to find information they need, others are intimidated by court form complexity and language, and still others are deterred by barriers like in-person notarization requirements or cumbersome electronic filing systems. The result of all of this is worse substantive outcomes for litigants with otherwise valid claims, assuming they engage with the legal process at all. And when litigants do complete legal filings using these tools, clerks often must manually enter data into difficult-to-use systems, and judges frequently receive incorrect or irrelevant information.

The Filing Fairness Toolkit: Encouraging User-Friendly, Modernized Technology

The Filing Fairness Project—an ambitious, multi-jurisdictional effort to modernize court filing processes and improve access to courts and the administration of justice by leveraging readily available technology—has been working to address these challenges since it began as a Stanford Law School Policy Lab in 2021. The project has engaged seven state court partners—Alaska, Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Texas, and Virgina—to collaborate across jurisdictions to improve their forms and filing systems, and it previously brought state court partners and technology providers together to discuss how to tackle these problems. This toolkit is a culmination of those efforts.

The Filing Fairness Toolkit offers several concrete recommendations that prescribe clear actions for courts to modernize their systems. By following these recommendations, courts can leverage modern standards and contracting practices to promote sustainable, easy-to-find-and-use filing tools. To this end, the toolkit focuses on four key areas of change.

First, it recommends that courts standardize their filing system infrastructures by adopting and encouraging technologies that use modern data standards for their electronic filing platforms. Technologies that use nationally-accepted standards are easier to maintain over time, and they can more easily integrate with new vendors that increasingly rely on these data standards, some of whom serve self-represented litigants. 

Second, it promotes a diverse ecosystem of service partners by encouraging courts to work with vendors using a variety of business models and to set up a clear checklist of vendor requirements to ensure new partners are aligned with the court’s access to justice values. These steps can minimize the potential limitations of any one business model and improve sustainable and fair efiling access while ensuring that at least some among a diverse set of partners are addressing the access to justice crisis.

Third, the toolkit outlines governance and procurement best practices for filing system technology. It recommends that courts adopt a formalized certification process when contracting with vendors and discusses specific provisions for how future integration costs should be allocated. So much of court modernization is actually about governance and contracting, since these decisions freeze courts into multi-year commitments, with rules establishing everything from how flexible a court’s infrastructure is to who resolves technology problems.

Fourth and finally, the toolkit promotes easy-to-use digital form preparation and filing tools through a series of suggestions, such as reducing legalese, allowing electronic signatures, and adding virtual and in-person support resources for court users. While the aforementioned three recommendations are largely focused on attracting good underlying technology and ensuring it is maintainable and scalable, this set of recommendations is more specifically trained on the court users’ experiences.

It’s worth noting that these recommendations are not just for IT professionals. Many of the recommendations are specifically directed at judges, court administrators, and other court decision makers. Nor are the recommendations directed at courts at a particular level of technological maturity. Courts that are in both the early and more advanced stages of their filing modernization efforts will find useful features in the toolkit, including concrete recommendations, a diagnostic tool, maturity models that describe moderate, good, better, and advanced stages of progress, and examples of successful solutions that have been implemented in various state courts. 

What Comes Next?

We look forward to hearing how courts are interacting with this toolkit, and we are already planning how we can facilitate modernization efforts and provide expertise and oversight. We’ll be announcing next steps for the project soon, so check back on the blog in the coming months.

In the meantime, you can take a look at the Filing Fairness Toolkit here. If you are interested in participating in the Filing Fairness Project, please connect with the Filing Fairness team. 

Prompted by Leah Goodridge’s recent essay in the UCLA Law Review which “examines professionalism as a tool to subjugate people of color in the legal field,” the Rhode Center was proud to host a discussion illuminating how racial hierarchy and inequity operates within the legal profession—impacting not only attorneys and paralegals but also citizens participating in the legal process.

Leah Goodridge, a nationally renowned movement lawyer, thought leader, writer and current Managing Attorney for Housing Policy at Mobilization for Justice in New York City, started her presentation with the observation that just 5% of the attorneys in the United States are African American. Over her decade of experience in the legal field, she has seen how the standards of professionalism are not applied equally across all lawyers. In particular, Goodridge has both observed and experienced professional norms applied to people of color and other marginalized groups to police, constrain, and undermine their participation in the field. Specifically, Goodridge has identified three characteristics of professionalism deployed as a tool for marginalization. First, the bias and discrimination threshold concept notes how professionalism demands that people of color and other marginalized groups accept racism and bias with grace and lightheartedness, requiring them to “play the game” and act unbothered when faced with discriminatory behavior by colleagues. Second, the selective offense characteristic normalizes racist, misogynistic, ableist, or otherwise discriminatory behavior but allows for the dominant group to take offense at those who denounce or dispute discriminatory behavior. And third, the reasonable person standard, or reasonable professional standard, labels the marginalized identity, whether by race, gender, sexual orientation, or ability, as unreasonable and unprofessional.

Goodridge’s opening comments and the article itself were then discussed in depth with the panel: Misasha Suzuki Graham, practicing litigator and co-author and co-host of Dear White Women; Ron Tyler, Professor of Law and Director of the Criminal Defense Clinic at Stanford Law School; and moderator Richard Thompson Ford, Professor of Law at Stanford Law School.

Professor Ford asked the group: When do you speak up and how? Goodridge emphasized the importance of building your own support system –to identify and build relationships with people who are not going to reinforce dehumanization just because that was what they were taught or experienced. Graham noted that she had found success in her work with pausing and asking the simple question: Why do you think/say that?

Ford then asked what professional norms need to be reconsidered in the light of their racial implications. Professor Tyler observed that since the professional standard is white male, anything that deviates from that is less than acceptable. Communication styles, hairstyles, clothing, and the acceptability of body art are examples of aspects of professionalism.  Professor Tyler encouraged the audience to think about who sets the norm? Who is applying the standard and how?

A key to being a professional is knowing how to treat other people and show up for them in the workplace. When issues such as these emerge, the panelists noted the importance of first naming the issue and then questioning the standard of professionalism. Moving beyond a white-centered view of the impact of racism, it would be valuable to get input from all impacted communities to arrive at a better standard. But, professionalism and bias are intertwined with power – so unearthing these power dynamics is a vital step in moving toward a professional standard that incorporates intolerance of racism in any form.

Finally, the panelists considered the pace of change in the law profession to move beyond racism. They noted that we are relitigating social norms, and the law is moving slowly. Should we push gently or move toward big changes? It is important to challenge these norms. Ron noted that bigger changes are possible when you are the decision-maker. In the meantime, when confronted with biases or outdated ideas of professionalism, name it and contextualize it. Someone in the room, not just a person of color, flagging it can move the organization forward.

This thought-provoking conversation with Leah, Misasha Suzuki Graham, Professor Ron Tyler, and Professor Richard Ford was hosted by the Deborah L. Rhode Center on the Legal Profession, the Stanford Center for Racial Justice, and the John and Terry Levin Center for Public Service and Public Interest Law. This event was co-sponsored with the Black Law Students Association, Asian and Pacific Islander Law Students Association, Native American Law Students Association, Black Business Student Association, and Stanford American Indigenous Medical Students.