In this article, John Pollock discusses three recent studies comparing full representation to limited assistance in the eviction context, and cautions there is still much to learn.
How Provided
The Quest for the Best: Attorney Recruitment and Retention Challenges for Florida Civil Legal Aid
The report provides a comprehensive look at the financial and workplace issues legal aid attorneys are facing and provides recommendations for how to address them. It examines attorneys’ salaries, educational debt, when and why attorneys were leaving programs, and what attorneys needed and wanted in order to have a satisfying career in Florida civil legal aid.
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.
The Limits of Unbundled Legal Assistance: A Randomized Study in a Massachusetts District Court and Prospects for the Future
In a District Court in Massachusetts, researchers randomly selected tenants facing eviction to receive full representation or limited, unbundled assistance. They find there are better results if tenants were offered full representation. Further, the offer did not increase court burdens.
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.
Hotline Outcomes Assessment Study – Phase I (1999)
Phase I of the Hotline Outcomes Assessment Study involved detailed qualitative interviews with managers and directors of 44 legal hotlines and an analysis of caseload patterns for 16 programs that appear to have relatively stable pre- and post-hotline environments.
Legal Services to the Poor and Disadvantaged in the 1980s: The Issue for Research
Contains a great synopsis of LSC research done up to 1982, and outlines research issues for the future.
Service Delivery, Resource Allocation, and Access to Justice: Greiner and Pattanayak and the Research Imperative
This article is a response to the study “Randomized Evaluation in Legal Assistance: What Difference Does Representation (Offer and Actual Use) Make?” by Greiner and Pattanayak in Yale Law Journal on July 29, 2011. The authors seek to reaffirm the study’s importance in light of critiques from the legal community.
Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation Economic Benefits Statement FY 2011
MLAC estimated that its services in FY2011 resulted in at least $27,730,837 in new federal revenue coming into Massachusetts and credits its grantees with winning an additional $25,486,914 in income and savings for clients and Massachusetts, for a total of $53,217,751.
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.
Legal Aid Research 