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This site allows you to access civil legal aid research in one location. The Search & Filter page is a powerful way to focus on exactly what you want. Please feel free to give us feedback. We welcome suggestions for additional research to include.
NLADA wishes to thank the Public Welfare Foundation for its generous support to help create this site.
Elsewhere on the Web

Scientific Polling: How to Talk About Legal Aid
In November 2013, Pollster Celinda Lake presented findings and recommendations for building awareness of the role of civil legal aid. Above is the 9-second soundbite. Read the powerpoint. Watch the video.
Featured
Civil Legal Aid in the United States: An Update for 2017
Alan W. HousemanConsortium for the National Equal Justice Library
March 1, 2018
This report by Alan W. Houseman outlines the history of civil legal aid in the United States and highlights major developments in the field, including increases in funding and improvements in access to services between July 2015 and December 2017.
The Opioid Crisis In America & the Role Medical-Legal Partnership Can Play In Recovery
Jay Chaudhary, Kate Marple, Jillian BajemaNational Center for Medical-Legal Partnership (NCMLP)
March 1, 2018
This issue brief by the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership supports the need for legal services in addressing the non-medical issues for legal clients with substance use disorders(SUD)on their road to recovery. Citing case studies of existing recovery-based MLPs in Ohio, Indiana,and Nevada, this paper provides a well-supported argument for the impact of lawyers as significant actors in combating the ongoing opioid crisis.
The Value of Research
“In the long run, legal aid programs’ investment in randomized study will not only improve services and help direct scarce resources, but will also build public support.
The willingness of the legal aid movement to question itself and change in response will demonstrate to the wider world that our work is, in the end, focused on doing the best we can to help very poor people, in often-desperate circumstances, to improve their lives.”
--Steven Eppler-Epstein, Executive Director of Connecticut Legal Services
Harvard Law Review, 2013