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.
General/Unspecified Clients
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.
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.
Documenting the Justice Gap in Pennsylvania
This report from the PA IOLTA Board and the Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network (PLAN) documents the unmet need for civil legal aid in Pennsylvania in 2017. It was compiled in response to a recommendation of the Pennsylvania General Assembly that the IOLTA Board, working through PLAN, should collect data from the legal services programs on clients rejected for services to determine the actual unmet need for civil legal aid in Pennsylvania in order to better inform funding decisions.
Addressing Social Determinants Of Health Through Medical-Legal Partnerships
Researchers at the National Center for Medical Legal Partnerships published a primer on the components of medical-legal partnerships and how they can address the intersections between health, social, and environmental issues. There are more than 300 MLPs nationally and they analyze the shared components of each.
The Future of Legal Services in Oregon
In the advent of online access to limited legal services, Oregon examines its civil legal aid system and assembled two task forces — the Legal Innovations Committee and the Regulations Committee — to create recommendations of how the state can incorporate online resources and the provision of limited-legal services into its civil legal aid system.
2017 Opinion Survey: The State of the Courts
The National Council for State Courts conducted a telephone study in 2017 in which they asked 1,000 respondents about their feelings towards the court system, access to equal justice, and the need for legal aid when navigating the courts.
Economic and Other Benefits Associated with the Provision of Civil Legal Aid
This article gathers the results of the existing studies of the financial and other societal benefits of the work of civil legal aid programs, which provide free or low-cost legal assistance to low-income individuals. It also identifies ongoing or planned research projects.
Legal Aid Research 