Universal Single Payer Legalcare for All Now!

I am requesting that you introduce legislation in Congress which would establish a national single-payer legal care system -- civil and criminal, for plaintiffs and defendants. Learn more at http://www.singlepayerlegal.org.

Our nation is facing an unprecedented crisis, one both economic and social. Tort costs alone cost working American families $865 billion annually. The prohibitive costs of lawsuits and liability insurance are crushing small business owners and working Americans, who bear 70% of these costs. The burden of lawsuits is a hidden annual tax of almost $10,000 on each working family of four; and unless you’re Warren Buffett or Bill Gates, you live just one lawsuit away from bankruptcy.

Half of all Americans will require legal care services every year, and yet almost 280 million Americans lack basic legal care insurance. Even those fortunate enough to have legal care insurance find that most plans and attorneys refuse to cover preexisting situations such as divorces, bankruptcies, custody disputes, or cases involving drug or alcohol disorders. This leaves them exposed to unlimited financial liabilities. While half of all poor Americans face serious legal care needs every year, 75% of them have no access to the legal care they need and deserve.

1) WE MUST TRANSFORM OUR LEGAL CARE SYSTEM FROM ONE THAT IS PROFIT DRIVEN to a single-payer legal care system in which all attorneys are salaried, and are required to provide legal services to all-comers, regardless of income or disparity-group status, at fair and stable reimbursement rates determined by a Department of Legal Services (DLS).
2) WE MUST ALIGN INCENTIVES WITH EXCELLENCE, and not allow attorneys to bill working families hundreds of dollars per hour or impose confiscatory contingency fees. Legal costs and quality can vary tremendously among firms and attorneys; however clients have limited access to this information. We must require firms and attorneys to collect and publicly report measures of legal costs and quality, including data on hourly fees, legal errors, miscarriages of justice, attorney-to-client staffing ratios, overruled motions, reversed verdicts, and conviction rates. We must also challenge the legal system to eliminate inequities in legal outcomes by requiring law firms, attorneys, and judges to collect, analyze, and report legal outcome inequalities for disparity populations, and we must hold them accountable for any differences found.
3) WE MUST REQUIRE THAT ATTORNEYS AND LAW FIRMS ADOPT ELECTRONIC LEGAL RECORDS for their clients, the benefits of which are substantial: improved administrative efficiencies, improved quality of legal care, elimination of legal errors, reduction of redundancies and paperwork, and lower legal care costs. The goal is to reduce costs and guide attorneys’ decisions, with the aim of standardizing and improving legal outcomes for all Americans.

I look forward to your response.