Group #4 Access to Justice
• Then They Came for Me: Access to Justice Harms for a Generation of Transgender Youth
Sarah Steadman, University of New Mexico School of Law
In 2021, 32 states across the country introduced an unprecedented onslaught of hostile legislation targeting transgender youth. Thirty-five bills proposed prohibiting 45,100 trans youth from accessing necessary health care and 69 banning them from playing sports consistent with their gender identity. Transgender and nonbinary youth were already alarmingly vulnerable before this attack on their well-being. Studies document high rates of suicidality and self-harm among these youth. The harms of stigmatization, reinforced by these laws, are long-lasting and have exponential consequences, including impaired mental health. Transgender youth have internalized the political hostility. Eighty-six percent surveyed report that politics had negatively affected their mental health.
Growing up, LGB elders similarly faced antagonistic legislation—discriminatory laws that pathologized their identities and criminalized their behavior. In response, many now avoid seeking legal services for fear of bias and mistreatment. This generation of transgender youth is also likely to avoid seeking legal services as they age. That would preclude remedies for harms such as employment discrimination, domestic violence, eviction, or public benefit denials. They may also neglect their legal health by avoiding necessary, preventative legal services, such as a name change, protecting their safety, and affirming their identity.
Therefore, the current adverse legal and political environment poses a historical risk that a generation of transgender youth will perceive the legal system, including courts, as unjust and hostile rather than a safe, unbiased forum to access justice. Avoidance of legal assistance and court remedies would lead to poor legal health and outcomes over their lifetime.
• Holistic Housing Aid: Harnessing the Benefits of Lawyer-Social Worker Collaboration
Jenna Prochaska, Loyola University Chicago School of Law
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States was plagued by an eviction crisis. Millions of families are forced out of their homes each year. Due to a significant gap between the need and availability of legal services, tenants in eviction court are rarely represented by a lawyer. Most unrepresented tenants are ultimately evicted, leading to a wide range of negative health and other consequences. By incorporating collaborations between social workers and lawyers, legal services providers can offer more efficient, holistic, and empowering services. Social workers can help to meet clients’ multiple, integrated social and legal issues and ease the burden on resource-strapped lawyers. Collaboration of this kind is particularly valuable in the provision of housing legal aid given the trauma of forced removal from a home.
This article is the first to explore the unique benefits and challenges of lawyer-social worker collaboration in the provision of housing legal aid. After setting the stage of the underlying eviction and access to justice crises and the new challenges presented by COVID-19, it explores the range of collaborations between social workers and lawyers providing housing legal services. Informed by interviews with attorneys, social workers, and clients, it sets out best practices and recommendations for the expansion of these collaborations moving forward.