WORKSHOP: Access to Civil Justice: Re-envisioning and Reinvigorating Research, Chicago, IL, Fall 2012.

在当代美国，民事司法问题普遍存在。至于有多普遍，我们无法得知，因为最近一次关于民事司法问题和机构的公众经验的全国综合调查已经有35年的历史了。在美国，这些共同的问题每年影响多达1.5亿人，并对生活的核心领域，如生计、住所、未成年儿童和受抚养成人的照顾和监护、邻里安全和环境状况，产生潜在的广泛和强大的影响。尽管大多数这些问题从未诉诸正式司法系统，但法院往往因民事诉讼当事人的数量而不堪重负。地方，州和联邦政府，慷慨的个人和私人基金会每年贡献超过10亿美元，为中低收入人群提供民事法律的援助，但由于我们缺乏对这个主题的研究，我们对这项活动是如何组织的，这项资金支持的服务，现有的计划如何发挥作用，以及外联工作是否充分了解和解决获得这些服务的最常见障碍。几乎没有高质量的公开数据可以激发理论，从事学术研究，并指导关于诉诸司法问题的政策。该项目是一个研讨会，召集学者和从业人员制定并开始关于诉诸民事司法的新研究议程的工作。受邀者包括来自民事司法机构的工作人员，如法官、有组织的律师协会的领导人、法律的从业人员以及法律、统计和社会及行为科学领域的学者。会议力求综合和协调现有的研究活动，并开展新的研究活动，包括可以为政策提供信息的研究。

In the contemporary United States, civil justice problems are widespread. Just how widespread cannot be known, as the most recent comprehensive national survey of public experience with civil justice problems and institutions is thirty-five years old. In the U.S., these common problems affect as many as 150 million people each year, and have potentially wide-ranging and powerful impacts on core areas of life such as livelihood, shelter, the care and custody of minor children and dependent adults, neighborhood safety, and environmental conditions. Despite the fact that most of these problems never reach the formal justice system, courts are often overwhelmed by the numbers of civil litigants. Local, state, and federal governments, generous individuals, and private foundations contribute more than 1 billion dollars each year to fund civil legal assistance for low- and moderate-income people, but because we lack research on this topic, we know little about how this activity is organized, what services this funding supports, how existing programs do their work, and whether outreach efforts adequately understand and address the most common barriers to access to these services. Little high quality, publicly available data exist to stimulate theory, engage scholarship, and guide policy on issues of access to justice. This project is a workshop convening scholars and practitioners to develop and begin work on a new research agenda for access to civil justice. Invitees include staff from institutions of civil justice, such as judges, leaders from the organized bar, and legal services practitioners as well as scholars from law, statistics and the social and behavioral sciences. The convening seeks to synthesize and coordinate existing research activity and to generate new research activity, including research that can inform policy.