•  
  •  
 
University of Chicago Law Review

Start Page

1755

Abstract

Access justice is one of the most appealing and least contentious regulatory techniques in law's repertoire. It aspires to give people equal opportunity to utilize certain primary goods, and it does so by assuring opennessthat access to these goods is not allocated by markets and is not tilted in favor of wealth or privilege. But access justice often fails to meet its egalitarian aspirations, because groups that are not the intended targets of the intervention deploy access and its benefits dispropor tionately. Paradoxically, access justice often benefits various elites while paid for directly by taxpayers and indirectly by weaker groups. This Article brings to light this unintended and regressive crosssubsidy created by policies of access to information, compensation, insurance, accommodations, and more. It then examines in detail a specific contemporary access justice paradoxconsumers' access to courts and the impact of mandatory arbitration agreements that limit such access. This Article demonstrates that access to courts is a franchise of the elite and of little value to weak consumers. Nevertheless, it considers whether contractual waivers of access to courts hurt weak consumers by foreclosing effective access through classaction representatives. This concern has theoretical merit, but it, too, is limited in ways that are often unappreciated.

COinS