After Universalism Re-engineering Access to Justice

As state spending on legal services has come under pressure, so too has state commitment to equal access to justice. This volume brings together experts from around the world to look at what happens when the notion that justice should be available to everyone, regardless of means, is challenged. Explores the impact that increasing pressure on state spending onlegal services, and lower universal welfare provision have on the concept of "justice for all". Draws together original research from leading contributors to debates about access to justice from Australia, the United States and Europe. Covers unrepresented litigants, public defenders, self-help legal services, state- and market-based alternatives to legal aid, and the adaptation of common law court procedures to aboriginal culture, among other topics. Emphasises the tensions between efficiency, equality and justice. Published in association with the prestigious Journal of Law & Society.

Richard Moorhead is Senior Research Fellow in the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies at Cardiff Law School. He is the co-author of More Civil Justice? The Impact of the Woolf Reforms on Pre-action Behaviour (2001), Quality and Cost: The Contracting of Civil, Non-Family Advice and Assistance Pilot (2001), Pioneers in Practice: The Community Legal Service Pioneer Partnership Research Project (2000) and Willing Blindness? OSS Complaints Handling Procedures (1999).

Pascoe Pleasence is Head of the Legal Services Research Centre at the Legal Services Commission. He is the author or co-author of Criminal Case Profiling Study: Final Report (2001), Local Legal Need (2001), Personal Injury Litigation in Practice (1998) and Profiling Civil Litigation: The Case for Research (1996).