Study finds 'stunning' justice gap in Virginia civil cases
On most days at Richmonds John Marshall Courts Building, dozens of debt, eviction and other civil matters are posted on the general district court dockets.
The high volume of cases moves efficiently through courtrooms that often are largely empty in large part because usually only the plaintiffs have a lawyer and often even the defendants do not appear and represent themselves.
It happens in the surrounding counties and across the state just 1 percent of more than 500,000 civil cases handled in Virginias general district courts each year have lawyers on both sides, according to a new study of Virginia court data from April 1, 2015, to March 31, 2016.
In the states juvenile and domestic relations courts, neither party has a lawyer in almost 90 percent of the 75,000 custody, support and other contested adult civil cases.
Read more: http://www.richmond.com/news/plus/study-finds-stunning-justice-gap-in-virginia-civil-cases/article_b3ad90aa-1d9e-516d-9a2f-8105df3c9f07.html