Legal Services Corporation

Established in 1974, the Legal Services Corporation promotes equal access to justice and provides grants for high-quality civil legal assistance to low-income Americans. It distributes more than 90% of its funding to 132 independent nonprofit legal aid programs with more than 800 offices. This grant will support the Civil Court Data Initiative, in which the Legal Services Corporation will build a comprehensive court record database that could ultimately integrate data from all U.S. states and territories into its database to monitor the civil legal issues that most impact low-income Americans.

Legal Services Corporation is the single largest funder of civil legal assistance to low-income Americans. In 2005 the Corporation published its Justice Gap report, documenting the difference between the need for civil legal services and the resources available to meet that need. The study found that "for every client taken on by a civil legal aid provider, one other was turned away for lack of resources." An updated report in 2009 showed similar results. This grant will enable the Corporation to update its 2009 report, and to compare states, urban versus rural needs, and areas of the law that are most underserved in order to inform resource investment and advocacy priorities for state Access to Justice commissions, Congress, state and local legislatures, pro bono advocates, and private funders.

Legal Services Corporation (LSC) was established in 1974 and operates as an independent nonprofit that promotes equal access to justice and provides grants for high-quality civil legal assistance to low-income Americans. In 2017, LSC produced "The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans" report. It found that low-income Americans would likely not get their legal needs fully met for between 907,000 and 1.2 million civil legal problems that they brought to LSC-funded legal aid programs because of a lack of resources. This grant will support LSC’s plan to conduct another, more comprehensive five-year follow-up to the 2017 Justice Gap study that will surface sound data about the scope of legal need. It will offer actionable data for LSC, its grantees, and other access to justice stakeholders and advocates to use when providing services and seeking resources to close the justice gap.