This comprehensive literature review takes stock of the current research on civil legal aid and domestic violence. It finds that civil legal aid is promising, but underexplored.
National
Bridging Health Disparity Gaps through the Use of Medical Legal Partnerships in Patient Care: A Systematic Review
They conducted a systematic literature review on how medical-legal partnerships impact individuals and implications for individuals living with HIV. They find that MLPs can address the social and environmental threats to an individual’s health.
Battered Women’s Multitude of Needs: Evidence Supporting the Need for Comprehensive Advocacy
Researchers interviewed participants within the first week of leaving a shelter program. After the first interview, some of those involved were randomly selected to work with an advocate. They compared the effect of the advocacy intervention between those who received the service and those who did not. In their cluster analysis and found that DV victims present three groups of needs: those related to housing, education and employment, and legal issues. They found that of those leaving a domestic violence shelter, 59 percent reported unmet legal needs.
The Challenges of Calculating the Benefits of Providing Access to Legal Services
This essay explores how policymakers and other public-interested actors have empirically calculated the benefits of providing low-income access to legal services in the past, and how they might improve upon existing methods going forward. The author reviews, criticizes, and tries to build on two major civil justice needs studies, one published by LSC in 2005 and the other by the ABA in 1994.
Explaining the Recent Decline in Domestic Violence
The decline in intimate partner abuse from 1993 to 1998 has three significant causes, one of which is the increased provision of legal services for victims of intimate partner abuse. This is a widely cited study.
The Delivery Systems Study: A Policy Report to the Congress and the President of the United States
As required by the LSC Act, LSC produced this report detailing results of 38 demonstration project testing various delivery systems for legal services.
Documenting the Justice Gap In America: The Current Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-Income Americans
This 2007 report is the second edition of the LSC report originally released in 2005 showing a substantial justice gap for low-income persons seeking legal help with civil legal problems.
Civil Legal Aid in the United States: An Update for 2017
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.
2017 LSC Justice Gap Report
The Legal Services Corporation (LSC) contracted with NORC at the University of Chicago to help measure the justice gap among low-income Americans in 2017. LSC defines the justice gap as the difference between the civil legal needs of low-income Americans and the resources available to meet those needs.
The 2016 Biennial Report to Congress on the Effectiveness of Grant Programs Under the Violence Against Women Act
In response to the reporting requirements authorized by VAWA 2000, the 2016 biennial Report to Congress on the effectiveness of Grant funds under the Violence against Women act (2016 biennial Report) presents aggregate qualitative and quantitative data submitted by grantees of 23 currently and formerly authorized discretionary grant programs administered by the Office on Violence against Women (OVW). This report also presents current research on best practices to respond to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, sex trafficking, and stalking, which OVW uses to invest in proven strategies and solutions to further the common goal of ending domestic and sexual violence.
Legal Aid Research 