In an essay published in Law.com, Hank Greenberg, attorney and former counsel to the office of the New York state attorney general, discussed five drivers of change to the court system and argued it’s imperative leaders plan for the future by anticipating trends and being proactive, rather than reactive.

In the article, he touches on several issues, including one that we’ve contemplated on Capital Tonight: threats to judicial independence. Earlier this year, the New York State Senate’s one-house budget included a variety of new oversight proposals for the state’s judicial branch.

One section added language that would have required the chief administrator to “collect and compile data on legal training programs." Another required the chief administrator to “prepare an annual report on the performance of judges and justices of the unified court system."

Both proposed reports would then be shared with the executive and/or legislative branches of government.

The proposals drew pushback from the court system and the New York State Bar Association.

Greenberg said these measures aren’t unusual.

“It’s a national phenomenon. In 2021, the Brennan Center for Social Justice at NYU produced a study that in just that year, in 21 states, bills were introduced that had the effect of reducing the independence of the judiciary,” he said.

Greenberg, who is a past president of New York State Bar Association and current counsel to the New York State Commission on Judicial Nomination, is a shareholder in the firm Greenberg Traurig.

The other four challenges he presents include the rise of alternative dispute resolution, or ADR, vanishing jury trials, the expansion of online courts and the lack of access to justice.

“The legal system over the last several decades, but accelerated by the pandemic, COVID-19, has been, in significant ways, changed from what popular culture thinks,” Greenberg said.

For example, Greenberg cited a study showing that, for people of limited means, 92% of their legal problems are resolved without a legal representative.

“What many people call a justice gap, I call a justice chasm that’s turning into an abyss for which millions of people are suffering,” he told Capital Tonight.