The resources on this page were last updated on July 15, 2024.

Citations Only (Annotated Version Available on Request) 

 

• General Resources 

• Massachusetts

• Masslegalservices.org – Racial Justice Resources. 
• MA Justice for All Strategic Action Plan. 
• Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation (MLAC).
• Greater Boston Legal Services.
• Northeast Legal Aid:  2021 Annual Report.
• Community Legal Aid: 2022 Annual Report. 

 

• National

• LSC By the Numbers, 2022

 

• Substantive Areas 

  Housing 

• Massachusetts 

• MA Right to Counsel Fact Sheet “The Right to Counsel and Racial Justice”. 

• MA Justice for All Strategic Action Plan.
• Nicole Summers, Civil Probation, 75 Stanford Law Review 847 (2023). 

 

• National

• ACLU, Clearing the Record: How Eviction Sealing Laws Can Advance Housing Access for Women of Color (Jan. 10, 2020).
• ACLU and the National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel, No Eviction without Representation: Evictions’ Disproportionate Harms and the Promise of a Right to Counsel (2021). 

• Aspen Institute, The COVID-19 Eviction Crisis: an Estimated 30-40 Million People in America Are at Risk (Aug. 7, 2020). 

• Center for American Progress, The Disproportionate Burden of Eviction on Black Women (Aug. 29, 2023). 

• Center for American Progress, Racial Disparities in Home Appreciation (July 15,2019). 

• Matthew Desmond, Poor Black Women Are Evicted at Alarming Rates, Setting Off a Chain of Hardship, MacArthur Foundation (Mar. 2014). 

• Eviction Lab, Racial and Gender Disparities Among Evicted Americans (Dec. 16, 2020). 

• Reinvestment Fund, Evictions in Philadelphia: Race (and Place) Matters (Feb. 2021). 

• Results for America, Advancing Housing Justice: Right to Counsel for Tenants – Informational Webinar (2022). 

• Timothy A. Thomas, et al., The State of Evictions: Results from the University of Washington Evictions Project, University of Washington (Jan. 6, 2020). 

• National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel (NCCRC). 

• Kathryn A. Sabbeth, Eviction Courts, 18 U. ST. THOMAS L.J. 359, 398-99 (2022). 

• Colleen F. Shanahan, Jessica K. Steinberg, Alyx Mark & Anna E. Carpenter The Institutional Mismatch of State Civil Courts, 122 Colum. L. Rev. 1471 (2022). 

• Anna E. Carpenter, Alyx Mark, Colleen F. Shanahan & Jessica K. Steinberg, The Field of State Civil Courts, 122 Colum. L. Rev. 1165 (2022). 

• Brito, Sabbeth, Steinberg & Sudeall, Racial Capitalism in the Civil Courts, 122 Columbia Law Review 1 (2022). 

• Peter Hepburn, Renee Louis & Matthew Desmond, Racial and Gender Disparities Among Evicted Americans, 7 Socio. Sci. 649 (2020). 

• Kathryn A. Sabbeth, Housing Defense as the New Gideon, 41 Harv. J.L. & Gender 55, 89, 95–96 (2018). 

• Richard Lempert & Karl Monsma, Cultural Differences and Discrimination: Samoans Before a Public Housing Eviction Board, 59 Am. Soc. Rev. 890, 894–905 (1994). 

• Barbara Bezdek, Silence in the Court: Participation and Subordination of Poor Tenants’ Voices in Legal Process, 20 Hofstra L. Rev. 533, 534 (1992). 

 

• Consumer 

• Massachusetts 

• MA Justice for All Strategic Action Plan. 

 

• National

• Paul Kiel et al., The Color of Debt: How Collection Suits Squeeze Black Neighborhoods, PROPUBLICA (Oct. 8, 2015).  

• Nina Lea Oishi, Judging Debt: How Judges’ Practices in Consumer Credit Court Undermine Procedural Justice 133 The Yale Law Journal Forum  271-304 (2023). 

• Brito, Sabbeth, Steinberg & Sudeall, Racial Capitalism in the Civil Courts, 122 Columbia Law Review 1 (2022). 

• Payday Lending in America: Who Borrows, Where They Borrow, and Why, PEW (2012). 

• How Debt Collectors are Transforming the Business of State Courts, Pew Charitable Trusts (May 6, 2020). 

• Jessica K. Steinberg, Colleen F. Shanahan, Anna E. Carpenter & Alyx Mark, The Democratic (Il)legitimacy of Assembly-Line Litigation, 135 Harvard L. Rev. forum 359 (2022). 

• Victor Ray, A Theory of Racialized Organizations, 84 Am. Sociological Rev. 26, 32 – 34 (2019). 

• Jamila Michener, Policy Feedback in a Racialized Polity, 47 Policy Studies J. 423 (2019). 

• UPSOLVE, INC., v.  JAMES, Case No. 1:22-cv-00627-PAC (SDNY), NAACP BRIEF OF AMICI CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR A PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION, Opinion and Order, Hon. Paul A. Crotty (May 24, 2022). 

 

• Family (Divorce/Custody/Child Support/ Child Welfare

• Massachusetts 

• MA Justice for All Strategic Action Plan. 

• DCF said she and others neglected their children. Hundreds of times last year, investigators were wrong, officials say, The Boston Globe (February 19, 2024). 

 

• National 

• Tonya L. Brito, David J. Pate, Jr., & Jia-Hui Stefanie Wong, “I Do for My Kids”: Negotiating Race and Racial Inequality in Family Court, 83 Fordham L. Rev. 3027 (2015). 

• Brito, Sabbeth, Steinberg & Sudeall, Racial Capitalism in the Civil Courts, 122 Columbia Law Review 1 (2022). 

• Judicial Friends (Minority Judges), Report on Systemic Racism in New York Courts (2020). 

• New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) Report, Racial Justice and Child Welfare (2022). 

• Office of the Deputy Chief Admin. Judge for Justice Initiatives, Self-Represented Litigants: Characteristics, Needs, Services: The Results of Two Surveys (2005). 

• Dorothy E. Roberts, Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare 267–76 (2002). 

 

 

• General: Self-represented/Unrepresented Litigants in Civil Cases 

• Massachusetts

• MA Justice for All Strategic Action Plan. 

 

• National

• Brito, Sabbeth, Steinberg & Sudeall, Racial Capitalism in the Civil Courts, 122 Columbia Law Review 1 (2022).
• Rebecca L. Sandefur, Access to Civil Justice and Race, Class, and Gender Inequality, 34 Ann. Rev. Soc. 339, 349–50 (2008).
• Peter Hepburn, Renee Louis & Matthew Desmond, Racial and Gender Disparities Among Evicted Americans, 7 Socio. Sci. 649 (2020).
• Paul Keil & Annie Waldman, The Color of Debt: How Collection Suits Squeeze Black Neighborhoods, ProPublica (Oct. 8, 2015). 
• Kathryn A. Sabbeth & Jessica K. Steinberg, The Gender of Gideon, 69 UCLA L. Rev.1130 (2023).
• Colleen F. Shanahan, Jessica K. Steinberg, Alyx Mark & Anna E. Carpenter The Institutional Mismatch of State Civil Courts, 122 Colum. L. Rev. 1471 (2022).
• Jessica K. Steinberg, Colleen F. Shanahan, Anna E. Carpenter & Alyx Mark, The Democratic (Il)legitimacy of Assembly-Line Litigation, 135 Harvard L. Rev. forum 359 (2022).
• Anna E. Carpenter, Alyx Mark, Colleen F. Shanahan & Jessica K. Steinberg, The Field of State Civil Courts, 122 Colum. L. Rev. 1165 (2002). 

Underlying issues that impact court proceedings

 

• Wealth/Income Disparities

• Massachusetts 

• The Color of Wealth in Boston A Joint Publication of Duke University, The New School, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston (2015). 

 

• National

• Colleen F. Shanahan, Jessica K. Steinberg, Alyx Mark & Anna E. Carpenter The Institutional Mismatch of State Civil Courts, 122 Colum. L. Rev. 1471 (2022). 

• Tonya L. Brito, David J. Pate, Jr., & Jia-Hui Stefanie Wong, “I Do for My Kids”: Negotiating Race and Racial Inequality in Family Court, 83 Fordham L. Rev. 3027 (2015). 

• Brito, Sabbeth, Steinberg & Sudeall, Racial Capitalism in the Civil Courts, 122 Columbia Law Review 1 (2022). 

 

• Shortage of Empirical Work/Hidden Procedures 

• Massachusetts 

• Nicole Summers, Civil Probation, 75 Stanford Law Review 847 (2023). 

 

• National 

• Nat’l Ctr. for State Cts., The Landscape of Civil Litigation in State Courts, at iii (2015). 

• Rebecca L. Sandefur, Paying Down the Civil Justice Data Deficit: Leveraging Existing National Data Collection, 68 S.C. L. Rev. 295 (2016). 

• Rebecca L. Sandefur & James Teufel, Assessing America’s Access to Civil Justice Crisis, 11 U.C. Irvine L. Rev. 753 (2021). 

• Brian J. Ostrom, Shauna M. Strickland & Paula L. Hannaford-Agor, Examining Trial Trends in State Courts: 1976–2002, 1 J. Empirical Legal Stud. 755 (2004). 

• Colleen F. Shanahan, Jessica K. Steinberg, Alyx Mark & Anna E. Carpenter The Institutional Mismatch of State Civil Courts, 122 Colum. L. Rev. 1471 (2022). 

• Brito, Sabbeth, Steinberg & Sudeall, Racial Capitalism in the Civil Courts, 122 Columbia Law Review 1 (2022). 

• Martha F. Davis, Race and Civil Counsel in the United States: A Human Rights Progress Report, 64 Syracuse Law Review 447 (2014). 

 

• State Courts – Racial Bias/Inequities Generally 

• Massachusetts 

• MA Trial Court, Report on the 2023 Access and Fairness Survey. 

• MA Trial Court, Report on the 2017 Access and Fairness Survey. 

• Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Standing Committee on Lawyer Well-Being, Report Summarizing Affinity Bar Town Hall Meetings, February 4, 2021. 

 

• National

• Brennan Center – May 2022 updates on state supreme court diversity among justices. 

•  Report from the Special Advisor on Equal Justice in the New York State Courts (2020).  

• NY Court’s Equal Justice Annual Review (in Response to Report from Special Advisor) (2021).
• Judicial Friends (Minority Judges), Report on Systemic Racism in New York Courts (2020).