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Courts in the United States may be either federal or state courts, but there is another division in the way that courts operate that is just as salient: those that routinely include lawyers, and those where lawyers are fundamentally absent. 

The American justice system includes both “lawyered" and “lawyerless" courts. Lawyered courts are the federal and state courts that hear, for example, class actions and large-scale commercial disputes, and the kinds of cases where lawyers tend to be paid and plentiful. Lawyerless state courts, on the other hand, hear the vast majority of claims filed in this country, including debt collection and eviction cases. 

Appreciating this divide reveals similarities and differences between these two types of civil justice in America and illustrates both the promise and limits of focusing on procedural reform as a way of improving the operation of justice. Professor Bookman contends that in some areas, such as ensuring that parties receive notice about lawsuits in which they are involved, be they class actions or eviction proceedings, reform efforts in lawyered and lawyerless courts should be aligned. For instance, both types of courts can benefit from developing technology that notifies parties about legal proceedings. Other examples, however, illuminate where and how lawyers are essential to procedural development and procedural protections. Where lawyers are necessary to develop or reform procedures, injustice in lawyerless courts is a problem in need of a structural solution. Understanding the bulk of state civil courts as lawyerless, therefore, can reveal a need for deeper reform. 

About Our Scholar

Professor Pamela Bookman is an expert in the fields of civil procedure, contracts, international litigation and arbitration, and conflict of laws. Her scholarship has appeared in the law reviews of Stanford, NYU, and Columbia, as well as in the American Journal of International Law and other leading law journals. Prior to entering academia, Professor Bookman was a counsel in the New York office of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP, where she represented clients in complex commercial business disputes with a focus on transnational litigation and maintained an active pro bono practice.

Professor Bookman received her BA from Yale University and her JD from the University of Virginia, where she served as an articles editor for the Virginia Law Review and received the Rosenbloom Award for enhancing the academic experience of her fellow students. Following law school, she clerked for Judge Robert D. Sack of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, President Rosalyn Higgins and Judge Thomas Buergenthal of the International Court of Justice, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court.

CLE credits information

DePaul College of Law is an accredited Illinois MCLE provider. 

This presentation is worth 1.25 hours of CLE credit.