Legal Scholarship BlogA Service from the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, University of Georgia School of Law, University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and University of Washington School of Law

Civil Right to Counsel 50 Years After Gideon — Washington, DC

The University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law seeks submissions for its 2013 Annual Law Review Symposium, Expanding the Civil Right to Counsel: 50 Years After Gideon, which will take place in March 2013. Abstracts are due by noon Nov. 15, 2012.

This Symposium seeks to explore the legal and societal implications of creating a civil right to counsel. Panelists may also address the approaches to providing counsel to civil litigants that have been adopted in U.S. and international jurisdictions, and the impact to litigation outcomes in those jurisdictions.

Symposium submissions may examine the relative merits of creating a right to counsel in civil cases legislatively, through court rules, or pursuant to state constitutions. Participants in the Symposium will address the challenges to creation and implementation of a civil right to counsel through these mechanisms, as well as creation of a civil right to counsel through the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Law Review also seeks articles discussing the history of the Lassiter case and the prospects for a civil right to counsel under the U.S. Constitution. Panels may address discrete issues ranging from creation and implementation challenges to jurisdictional comparisons to constitutional construction of the right to counsel.

As an institution dedicated to promoting the study and practice of law in pursuit of social justice, we at the UDC Law Review seek to set the stage for an expansion of the right to counsel for civil litigants. Articles presented during the symposium will be collected for publication in the annual symposium issue of the UDC Law Review. Please submit abstracts to UDC Law Review Symposium Editor Megan Challender at mchallender [at] gmail.com no later than 11:59 p.m. on November 15, 2012. Include an e-mail address, phone number, and mailing address where you can be reached. To be eligible for consideration, submissions must not be published elsewhere.

The Symposium will take place at a date to be determined in March 2013.

mw