Director Rachel Rossi of the Office for Access to Justice Delivers Remarks at the OECD Global Policy Roundtable on Equal Access to Justice

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery

Thank you, State Secretary Kosi, and other distinguished representatives. Thank you to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for your leadership in advancing access to justice and for convening us here today. It is a delight to join you for this event, even if virtually.

This has been an exciting year for access to justice. At home, the Office for Access to Justice has grown from a handful of staff to over 40 public servants and has been firmly established as a fundamental component of the Justice Department’s mission. And our office has been pleased to collaborate with international organizations who have launched new initiatives, such as the OECD’s Recommendation on People-Centered Justice adopted in June, and the first-ever UN resolution on access to justice adopted in May in Vienna at the UN Crime Commission that establishes a first-ever meeting of experts on equal access to justice.

We believe that justice belongs to everyone. Yet, when communities do not equally access the promises and protections of our legal systems, it undermines trust in our institutions, diminishes the rule of law and weakens the freedoms which underpin democracy. Through data-driven people-centered justice, and broad collaboration, we can achieve equal access to justice for all.

People-centered justice requires improved data collection to better understand where access to justice gaps exist. Our office carries a critical mandate to assist with U.S. efforts to implement UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16. The Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development were adopted by all United Nations Member States to provide a shared blueprint and call to action for peace and prosperity for all people. Specifically, Sustainable Development Goal 16 is a commitment to promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice to all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels. Every year, SDG progress is tracked based on global indicators, official statistics and other data and information. Data is available for many indicators, but there are still gaps.

Goal 16.3, in particular, utilizes criminal and civil justice indicators to determine the level at which a nation is providing equal access to justice for all, and measures civil and criminal justice needs. One way that our office is focused on improving better determining measures of civil justice is through a partnership with the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics to conduct the first civil justice survey of U.S. state courts since 2005. With our support, the Bureau of Justice Statistics will also award $2 million in funding for the Access to Justice Design and Testing Program — a multi-year initiative to expand the scope of publicly-available data on the civil legal system.

And while data is critical, it is one piece of a broader effort required to understand access to justice gaps and needs. To truly understand access to justice disparities, we must also center the voices and experiences of the communities we serve. As one example, our office staffs and directs the work of the White House Legal Aid Interagency Roundtable, a collaboration of over 28 U.S. federal agencies, co-chaired by the Attorney General and White House Counsel. This broad agency partnership has recently focused on simplification of government processes to enable better access to resources that provide food security, housing and safety and more, by directly engaging with the communities we serve to understand barriers, especially barriers disproportionately faced by low-income communities, and communities of color.       

Just yesterday, principal members of this interagency collaboration, led by Attorney General Garland and White House Counsel Ed Siskel met as part of the 2023 White House Legal Aid Interagency Roundtable convening at the White House and addressed agency efforts that further advance access to federal government programs, including through innovative community-focused models which support assistance by lawyers and non-lawyers alike.

Colleagues, our participation at this meeting today follows a long tradition of the Justice Department engaging with partners around the world to address shared challenges. In 1962, former Attorney General Kennedy affirmed this sentiment by stating: “Neither your nation nor mine can retreat within its own boundaries and seek a destiny merely for itself. In truth the world is now a seamless web from which no nation, large or small, young or old, can disassociate itself. Every attitude and every action of every nation can affect the welfare and security of every other nation around the globe.”

Indeed, this is why the OECD Roundtable is so vital. When we collaborate, we find that the barriers we face are not so different, and together, we are able to develop creative and innovative solutions. The Office for Access to Justice is committed to continuing this exchange ideas to drive progress.

Thank you.