Do you have a chance of a fair remedy in the American court system?

Over the years of work as a legal assistant to a trial lawyer, and then as a trial lawyer myself, I came across many cases of, let's say, botched justice, or where justice was outright denied, with no remedy offered whatsoever for apparent violation of people's rights, many cases where people, usually because of lack of money, lack of education, lack of social status, were not given credibility, or were not given an attorney, or their assigned attorney did not do his or her job, and they were left without a remedy.


Sometimes, people came to me as an attorney when nothing could be done, even though their civil rights were clearly violated.  People were without a remedy because of a quagmire of court-created doctrines barring access to courts, even though there were the "right" statutes on the books that promised such a remedy.


I have also learned that there is a pronounced difference in how the court treat represented and unrepresented parties, attorneys and pro se litigants.  Pro se litigants in American courts are treated, at best, as a nuisance, even though, by statistics announced by New York State Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman on many occasions, 80% of New Yorkers cannot afford legal representation in court.

Thus, pro se litigants are the rule at least in the courts of the state of New York, and not the exception.  Yet, state and federal courts and even legislatures create rules favoring attorneys over pro se parties in many aspects of everyday dealings with the courts.  I plan to cover in this blog such judicially and legislatively created discriminatory rules.


I will also focus on some doctrines that are blocking chances of access to court to redress civil rights violations, mostly for poor and underprivileged people.