Abstract
Above the entrance to the U.S. Supreme Court reads the aspiration "Equal Justice Under Law." The importance of these words seems too obvious to warrant discussion. In our quest for this aspiration, however, we sometimes lose sight of the underlying necessities that breathe life, meaning, and reality into what are otherwise mere - albeit well meaning- words. One of these underlying necessities can be captured in an equally majestic phrase: "EqualAccess to the Law." This access must mean more than the absence of official barriers to the legal system. Rather, access must be real, true access regardless of wealth or social circumstance. Without such access our initial aspiration degenerates to "Equal Justice Under Law - but only for those who have the means, financial and otherwise, to gain sustained access to our legal system." Equal meaningful access to the law is crucial to our ideal of equal justice.