Mauro Cappelletti (1927-2004) was one of the giants of 20th Century comparative law. His work in comparative civil procedure, comparative constitutional law, Access to Justice, the sociology of law and European integration have left an indelible mark on their respective fields.[1] While working on the Florence Access-to-Justice Project, Cappelletti authored a four volume book namely Access to Justice. Cappelletti uses a "wave" metaphor to describe the access to justice movement, especially its experience in the United States.[2]

During the project, a discussion took place in order to understand the meaning of Access to Justice and the subjects affected by the issue. It was observed as follows:

        “If access to justice means in part this political, redistributive trend, which of course derives from complex social and economic forces, then we must ask the further question of whether a focus merely on the law and legal institutions pays too little attention to the political power and influence of the groups whom changes in the legal system were supposed to benefit.”

The First Wave: Legal Aid for the Poor. This wave involved the reform of institutions for delivering legal services to the poor. Activism is the primary recognition given to this wave wherein there was massive outrage of institutionalizing the legal assistance that is required to be given to public.

The Second Wave: Representation for Diffuse Interests. This wave tied a knot to the first wave and continued with indeed a better force. This wave basically dealt with the strengthening of Public Interest Litigation. This was meant to protect the interests of a class of people seeking justice through representation. Although representation is typically visualized as culminating in judgment and trial, it more frequently proceeds by informal negotiation and/or a truncated invocation of the formal legal process

The Third Wave: From Access to Legal Representation to a Broader Conception of Access to Justice: The "Access-to-Justice Approach". This wave dealt majorly with community paralegals and alternative dispute resolution and referred to these as the less formal alternatives to courts and the traditional institutions of justice delivery system.