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For more than 50 years, AAJ has been committed to the advancement
of the civil justice system. This commitment is shared by a worldwide
membership of nearly 60,000 who today benefit from AAJ's educational
and advocacy programs and who are concerned for the rights of people.
Yet those rights are increasingly jeopardized by forces sympathetic
to society's most powerful economic interests and their desire to
avoid accountability for the injuries they cause through negligence,
product defects, and corporate irresponsibility.
In the face of a concerted campaign against the rights of injured
people, the future of our civil justice system depends on a public
that understands and supports the ideals represented by the common
law and the constitutional principles of access to justice, trial
by jury and the right to a remedy. An extensive and ongoing public
education program is necessary to create public understanding and
support for the civil justice system. It will also have the effect
of reversing existing trends in anti-consumer juror bias.
As important as the need is for public education, it is equally important
to communicate with the judiciary and legal academy, both of which
have been lobbied in cost-benefit terms by large corporate interests
for at least two decades. Widely disseminated misinformation and slanted
versions of anecdotes have entrenched the idea that the civil justice
system is in serious disrepair and is undermining the nation's economy.
The need for essential public service and educational programs to
counter this trend has never been more dramatic and will only grow
in the future, especially as efforts to undermine the civil justice
system multiply. Beyond education, indeed fundamental to it, is the
need to reinvigorate the jurisprudence of consumer law and individual
rights. A think-tank operation is needed to provide the research and
generate the ideas that will carry the civil justice system into the
21st century.
To address this need in a systematic and sustainable way, AAJ established
permanent funding through the Robert L. Habush AAJ Endowment,
a 501(c)(3) nonprofit tax exempt entity. The Robert L. Habush AAJ
Endowment will provide a permanent funding base to support and
carry out a thoughtful, comprehensive, and well targeted strategy
that reaches out to crucial segments of the public, judiciary, and
legal academia.
To learn more or to make a contribution, please contact:
Endowment Coordinator
Rachael Taylor
Phone 202- 944-2889
Toll Free 800-424-2725 Ext. 208
Fax 202-965-4689
Email rachael.taylor@justice.org
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