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.
How Provided
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.
Final Report on the Assessment of Telephone-Based Legal Assistance Provided by Pennsylvania Legal Aid Programs Funded Under the Access to Justice Act
This report presents the principal findings and conclusions from a comprehensive evaluation of telephone-based legal assistance being provided by Pennsylvania legal aid programs.
Documenting the Justice Gap In America: The Current Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-Income Americans (2009)
This report updates and expands LSC’s 2005 report “Documenting the Justice Gap in America: The Current Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-Income Americans”. This report, completed in September 2009, shows that a continuing, major justice gap exists in our nation: for every person helped by LSC-funded legal aid programs, another is turned away. This report adds data on self-represented litigants.
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.
Statewide Action Plan for Serving Self-Represented Litigants
The plan states that court-based staffed self-help centers, supervised by attorneys, are the optimum way for courts to facilitate the timely and cost-effective processing of cases involving self-represented litigants, to increase access to the courts and improve delivery of justice to the public. Well-designed strategies to serve self-represented litigants, and to effectively manage their cases at all stages, must be incorporated and budgeted as core court functions.
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.
Civil Legal Aid Yields Economic Benefits to Clients and to the Commonwealth FY12
MLAC conducted a study on the economic benefits and impact of legal aid in Massachusetts during FY 2012. They found that the provision of legal assistance led to a positive total economic impact of approximately $48 million.
The National Self-Represented Litigants Project: Identifying and Meeting the Needs of Self-Represented Litigants, Final Report
This major report is the result of research conducted by Dr. Julie Macfarlane in three Canadian provinces from 2011-2013 on self-represented litigants (SRL’s) in family and civil court. It aims to dispel myths about SRLs including the perception that they choose to self represent because they believe themselves as capable as lawyers. It contains extensive recommendations.
Legal Aid Research 