Access to Information is Connected to Access to Justice

In a a November 1, 2023 blog post on the LISP/SR Blog,¹ I discussed the origin of the Guide to Virginia Legal Information Resources and the Virginia Association of Law Libraries (VALL) Access to Justice Committee’s purposes for the Guide. In April, the VALL Access to Justice Committee published the Second Edition of the Guide (also available at the Internet Archive) which continues to include many legal information resources on issues affecting everyday life such as fighting traffic tickets, buying a home, and writing a will. The Committee has maintained the Guide’s focus on information that is available free of charge at the websites of libraries and bar associations and emphasized that many books listed within the Guide are available at public libraries by including hyperlinks to the records of these books within WorldCat’s website. By including information that is available for free, either on the Internet or at libraries, the aim is to remove the cost barrier to legal information. While the Guide does not constitute legal advice, it focuses on authoritative legal information. The information at the websites of libraries, government agencies, and bar associations has generally been vetted by their editors and is considered reliable. By providing authoritative information that is available free of charge, the Committee shows that there is reliable legal information that is not behind a paywall. The Guide is one of many resources produced by AALL and other groups with a similar interest in making legal information more readily available. While access to legal information is often considered as a separate issue from access to justice, the two issues are “inextricably intertwined,” as the lawyer and journalist Bob Ambrogi notes.²

Three Reasons Why Open Access to Legal Information is Important

The Second Edition of the Guide and similar resources are important for three reasons: 1) people need legal information, 2) a variety of information is disappearing from government websites, and 3) librarians, if the libraries where they work are open to the public, are in a unique position to facilitate access to information.

1. People need legal information.

The Self-Represented Litigation Network (SRLN), which has been succeeded by the Access to Justice Network noted that civil courts throughout the United States estimated that in 75% of cases, there was a self-represented litigant.³ The National Center for State Courts (NCSC) has set guidelines for reporting the number of self-represented litigants.⁴ However, as SRLN has noted, these reporting measures are difficult to implement.⁵ The most recent Justice Gap report from the Legal Services Corporation notes that 92% of people with low income in the United States receive insufficient legal help for their legal needs.⁶ While people have many reasons for choosing to represent themselves in court, the high cost of an attorney’s services is often a factor in self-represented litigants’ decision to represent themselves. Making research guides available is one way that librarians can assist self-represented litigants as they seek legal information and prepare their pleadings.

2. A variety of information is disappearing from some government websites.

Authors of numerous news articles and blog posts have recounted the disappearance of information from government websites throughout early 2025. For example, Scott J. Mulligan writing in the MIT Technology Review notes that webpages on public health, environmental justice, and scientific research were removed.⁷ Fortunately, there are initiatives to preserve government websites and these initiatives include the End of Term Web Archive and the Open Environmental Data Project and Jason Koebler, writing for 404 Media, asserts that there are archivists working to preserve the datasets aggregated by Data.gov.⁸ Initiatives to preserve data are forming throughout the United States and even over social media platforms such as Reddit.⁹ Libraries are stepping up to help people find missing government information. The University of Michigan Library has created a research guide with a section called Finding Missing Government Websites and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries includes a section called Disappearing U.S. Government Data in its research guide on government information. Information that has been removed could be related to legal research that self-represented litigants may want to conduct. When one is researching a legal matter, finding relevant statistics, maps, or other datasets may be useful. Through open access research guides specifically addressing missing government information and through research guides on legal topics, librarians are bridging gaps in information and connecting people with the information that will help them access justice.

3. Librarians, if the libraries where they work are open to the public, are in a unique position to facilitate access to information.

Legal information is available in a lot of places. It’s available through textbooks, self-help books, apps, blogs, scholarly articles, and behind paywalls in subscription databases to name a few places. Depending on the amount of money they are willing to spend, self-represented litigants seeking legal information may be more likely to choose low-cost services and free services. Librarians can provide research, resource guides, and access to print collections that are available free of charge at libraries. They can recommend resources based on topics sought and search strategies. The position of librarians is unique because unlike vendors of subscription databases, librarians are not trying to sell a product and unlike lawyers, librarians are not trying to sell legal services. While information on a blog at a law firm’s website may be informative, the ultimate aim is to sell legal services. When self-represented litigants consult with librarians to find legal information, librarians should provide objective assessments of a search strategy or source’s relevance that is not influenced by a desire to sell a product or service.

Librarians have an important role to play in making legal information accessible. Research guides that are available on open access platforms are integral in allowing self-represented litigants to access information so that they may access justice.

1. Latia Ward, Self-Help Legal Information Resources in Virginia, LISP/SR Blog (Nov. 1, 2023), https://lispsr.wordpress.com/2023/11/01/self-help-legal-information-resources-in-virginia/ [https://perma.cc/G9K8-L7GL]. LISP/SR stands for “Legal Information Services to the Public / Social Responsibilities” both of which are special interest sections of the American Association of Law Libraries.[↩]
2. Bob Ambrogi, Access to Justice Requires Access to Law. So Why Aren’t the Advocates of Each More Closely Aligned?, LawSites (March 11, 2024), https://www.lawnext.com/2024/03/access-to-justice-requires-access-to-law-so-why-arent-the-advocates-of-each-more-closely-aligned.html [https://perma.cc/6Y79-CBJ8].[↩]
3. Self-Represented Litigation Network (SRLN), SRLN Brief: How Many SRLs? (2019), https://www.srln.org/node/548/srln-brief-how-many-srls-srln-2015 [https://perma.cc/2AEG-559D].[↩]
4. National Center for State Courts, Cases with Self-Represented Litigants (2025) https://www.courtstatistics.org/pub-and-def-third-row-cards/srl_main [https://perma.cc/ZQS9-JMUF].[↩]
5. Self-Represented Litigation Network (SRLN), supra note 3.[↩]
6. Legal Services Corporation, The Justice Gap Report: Executive Summary, (2022), https://justicegap.lsc.gov/resource/executive-summary/ [https://perma.cc/X5KF-3C3U].[↩]
7. Scott J. Mulligan, Inside the race to archive the US government’s websites, MIT Tech. Rev. (Feb. 7, 2025), https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/07/1111328/inside-the-race-to-archive-the-us-governments-websites/ [https://perma.cc/4FZA-VRUK].[↩]
8. Jason Koebler, Archivists Work to Identify and Save the Thousands of Datasets Disappearing From Data.gov, 404 Media (Jan. 30, 2025), https://www.404media.co/archivists-work-to-identify-and-save-the-thousands-of-datasets-disappearing-from-data-gov/ [https://perma.cc/6ETJ-UN9U][↩]
9. Jowi Morales, Data hoarders race to preserve data from rapidly disappearing U.S. federal websites, Tom’s Hardware (Feb. 13, 2015), https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/big-tech/data-hoarders-race-to-preserve-data-from-rapidly-disappearing-u-s-federal-websites [https://perma.cc/4BU3-YJPX].[↩]