Proyecto ACCESO

Proyecto ACCESO is promoting the rule of law throughout the Americas.

The ACCESO team works with all the sectors in the administration of justice. We are judges, prosecutors, public defenders, legal educators, and journalists. We are building new systems for conflict resolution that are fair, efficient and transparent.

By training legal innovators, together we are srengthening the rule of law in our Hemisphere.

For more information contact us

[email protected]

Web Update from the Director

ACCESO Director’s Message – 2006

Dear Friends:

What a year! 2005 was filled with wonderful events for ACCESO as we expanded our product line and our programs throughout Latin America.

Please come in here and have a look at our current programs and events.

Pan-American Program

Our Project

Proyecto ACCESO is the Pan-American judicial innovation and rule of law training program headquartered at California Western School of Law in San Diego. Founded in 1998, Proyecto ACCESO has trained over 1,500 judges, prosecutors, public defenders, justice ministry and other law enforcement officials from fifteen countries in Central and South America.

With funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Organization of American States, United Nations Development Programme, the United States Department of State, and various Latin American national bar associations, Proyecto ACCESO develops curricula and facilitates workshops to educate the new legal professionals of the Americas. Proyecto ACCESO empowers judicial innovators with a vast array of skills to assist them in bringing about sustainable reform in their respective countries.

ACCESO is an acronym for "Abogados Creativos Colaborando para Encontrar Soluciones Optimas."The name of our project aptly describes our approach to the rule of law. Proyecto ACCESO equips lawyers with essential skillsets in the drive towards the rule of law. We provide advocacy courses for newly established oral trial procedures so that judicial proceedings are fairer and more transparent. We empower the bearers of the rule of law with new juridical skills and teach them how to negotiate across cultures. With our legal design studios, we build problem-solving mechanisms to integrate indigenous peoples into the judicial reform process. Together with the participants in our program, we are providing access to justice and assisting in the consolidation of sustainable democracy.

At the conclusion of the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City, the leaders of the thirty-four states of the Americas supported "public and private initiatives and programs to educate people about their rights relating to access to justice, and promote measures that ensure prompt, equal and universal access to justice."

Methodology

Proyecto ACCESO training programs are based on learning-by-doing exercises, complete with practice sets and simulations that have proven particularly successful for adult learners. In a typical workshop, ACCESO faculty members demonstrate specific skills and techniques geared to the promotion and protection of the rule of law. In ACCESO workshops participants practice skills with real expert witnesses and real judges.

Faculty critique students in the performance room and then work individually with each participant by reviewing his/her performance videotape, and providing personal feedback on technique, style and strategy in a non-threatening environment.

Each program also formally and informally addresses issues of professionalism and ethical behavior in the legal profession, with special segments on professional responsibility. The respective codes of professional conduct are utilized in this process and discussion groups are organized for brainstorming and sharing of ideas. It is because of our interactive programs, that our participants are raving about ACCESO.