This article presents an overview of civil legal aid and three reforms to improve delivery of services: 1) comprehensive triage system; 2) using business process improvements; and 3) creating legal information exchange organizations.
Researchers and Academics
The Social, Geographic, and Organizational Determinants of Access to Civil Legal Aid Services: An Argument for an Integrated Access to Justice Model
This article proposes an accessibility model that matches supply and demand for civil legal services spatially.
Optimizing the Health Impacts of Civil Legal Aid Interventions: The Public Health Framework of Medical-Legal Partnerships
This article shows how medical-legal partnerships, a healthcare delivery model, can address the social determinants of health — how one’s social conditions (like neighborhood, job, and access to resources) affect health.
Medical-Legal Partnership and Healthy Start: Integrating Civil Legal Aid Services into Public Health Advocacy
This article looks at the medical-legal partnership model and how it can improve health outcomes by addressing the underlying social determinants of health.
Passion, Caution, and Evolution: The Legal Aid Movement and Empirical Studies of Legal Assistance
This article responds to D. James Greiner, Cassandra Wolos Pattanayak, and Jonathan Hennessy, The Limits of Unbundled Legal Assistance: A Randomized Study in a Massachusetts District Court and Prospects for the Future, 126 Harv. L. Rev. 901 (2013).
A Test of Unbundled Legal Services in the New York City Housing Court
The study finds that the Volunteer Lawyer for the Day Program is a feasible and useful approach to alleviate the overwhelming unmet legal needs of New York City Housing Court litigants.
A More Detailed Look at Legal Services by Older Americans Act Funded Providers
Among states with sufficient data to form a full sample, this study reports the distribution percentages representing the needs of the people using the legal assistance offered under the Older Americans Act.
Examining the Real Demand for Legal Services
This study asks whether affordability is the actual reason why low and moderate income households frequently do not seek representation when facing a legal problem. The study finds that whether legal advice was sought depended heavily upon the nature of the problem.
Pro Se Phenomenon
The article reviews the causes of the increase in pro se litigation in the US. Inability to pay is only one of many reasons a litigant will end up going to court pro se. The current state of legal services in the US is failing the people who need help the most. Most clients receive only advice on how to proceed on their own.
Family Law Information Centers: An Evaluation of Three Pilot Programs
This study looked at the impact of pilot programs which established information centers for litigants in family law cases who did not have attorneys. The survey was taken from 1364 customers at the three Family Law Information Centers and 24 judges who oversee family law cases.
Legal Aid Research 