Low cost legal services are critical to our justice system. Right now, our system is not providing legal services to people who desperately need them. In the Nashville area, six of seven people are denied free legal services – even if they qualify financially for free assistance.
Our primary focus at Hill Law is providing services to these people. The age-old dilemma is challenging – attorneys need to be paid for their time and expertise, and people need good lawyers, but most people cannot pay a full attorney’s rate, leaving them without legal recourse. The consequences, however, of unjust injuries visited upon this vulnerable population ripple through our society. How do we solve this problem?
The solution becomes clear when you look a bit deeper beneath this seemingly unsolvable problem. Attorneys have been trained to identify the complexities, the fine print, and all the potential pitfalls in a scenario. While investigating the fine print has its place - with basic legal needs, the fine print is often the last place you need to look. The disaster is staring the attorney and the client in the face. Lack of representation is itself the danger. It is the complexity which is the enemy – because it prevents the delivery of legal advice.
Thus, the solution is to fight the attorney's naturally ingrained instinct to withhold advice until all complexities and facts are revealed. Sometimes it really is very simple what people need. While situations exist where the complexity can be critical, let us weigh this concern against the potential harm: should we restrict access to knowledge that could benefit the vast majority of people on the chance that we could be wrong? Especially in the context of our judicial leadership asking us for new ways of providing services - most notably the Tennessee Supreme Court's Access to Justice Campaign - the position this office takes is unequivocal: we should give basic guidance to those Nashvillians who are benefitted by hearing the basics. Such an approach may save someone’s life, or their job, or their home.
There is more to say on this subject; for now, simply know that this concept is the process of being built, and this effort is new in the Nashville area. If you’d like to be a part of this effort, please contact me, especially if you are an investor or an attorney. And if you find yourself with both money problems and legal problems, I hope this service will exist when you need it.