Recently, the Connecticut Bar Association announced that providing legal representation for the indigent in civil cases would be a top priority for the coming year. This is a laudable goal, but it is not enough.
The civil justice system is broken and beyond band-aid fixes. The average individual and small business dragged into court can no longer afford to defend or prosecute a claim — period. The monetary costs and time delays in “getting to trial” have passed the point of reason. This is an old cry, but today the problem has become so serious that it threatens to undermine public confidence in our legal system’s fundamental fairness. This is not a clamor for perfect justice, but simply a demand that dispute resolution not entail a choice between insolvency and surrender.
