
Symposium – 2023 – Access to Justice
Monetary Sanctions Thwart Access to Justice
by Karin D. Martin
Abstract. The core of the access-to-justice problem is widespread unmet civil legal needs coupled with general disuse of the civil legal system. This Essay posits that monetary sanctions are an important contributing factor to the problem of access to justice. First, monetary sanctions and the unpaid criminal legal debt they produce are engines of “legal…