Reports / Studies

1. All of the state-specific legal aid cost/benefit studies and reports can be found on the ABA SCLAID page devoted to such reports.

2. Also, a collection of summaries of various studies can be found at the website of the Justice in Government Project Toolkit.

3. ABA Coalition for Justice, Report on the Survey of Judges on the Impact of the Economic Downturn on Representation in the Courts (July 12, 2010), available at https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publishing/abanews/1279030087coalition_for_justice_report_on_survey.authcheckdam.pdf.

4. ABA Commission on the Future of Legal Services, Report (2016), available at http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/images/abanews/2016FLSReport_FNL_WEB.pdf.

5. Laura Abel and Susan Vignola, Economic and Other Benefits Associated with the Provision of Civil Legal Aid, 9 Seattle J. for Soc. Just. 139 (Fall/Winter 2010) available at http://www.law.seattleu.edu/Documents/sjsj/2010fall/Abel.pdf.

6. Laura Abel, Evidence-Based Access to Justice, 13 U. Pa. J. Law & Soc. Change 295 (2010) available at https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1099&context=jlasc.

7. Laura Abel, Pressing Questions Encountered by the Access to Justice and Civil Right to Counsel Movements (July 7, 2006) (on file with the National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel).

8. Laura K. Abel, Toward a Right to Counsel in Civil Cases in NY State: A Report of the NY State Bar Ass'n., 25 Touro L. Rev. 31 (2010), available at https://www.tourolaw.edu/LawReview/uploads/pdfs/_5_WWW_State%20Bar%20Report%2011-4-08_SM_Final_12.23.08_.pdf.

9. American Academy for Arts and Sciences, Civil Justice for All: A Report and Recommendations from the Making Justice Accessible Initiative (2020), available at https://www.amacad.org/publication/civil-justice-for-all.

10. Naomi Biden, Marla Spindel and Erin Torres, The Civil Gideon: The Case for a Civil RIght to Counsel, D.C. Volunteer Lawyers Project (Jan. 2017), available at http://www.dcvlp.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Civil-Gideon-Jan-2016.pdf.

11. Richard Block and Jack Stieber, The Impact of Attorneys and Arbitrators on Arbitration Awards, 40 Industrial and Labor Relations Review 543 (1987), available with free jstor account at http://www.jstor.org/pss/2524057.

12. Boston Bar Association Task Force on Expanding the Civil Right to Counsel, Gideon's New Trumpet: Expanding the Civil Right to Counsel in Massachusetts (Sept. 2008), available at http://www.bostonbar.org/prs/reports/GideonsNewTrumpet.pdf.

13. Center for Community Solutions, Securing Stability: Legal Aid's Lasting Impact (June 2018), available at https://www.legalaidimpact.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Securing-Stability-FINAL-061019.pdf.

14. Civil Legal Justice Coalition to the PA State Senate Judiciary Committee, Toward Equal Justice for All (April 2014), available at http://www.philadelphiabar.org/WebObjects/PBA.woa/Contents/WebServerResources/CMSResources/ReportoftheCivilLegalJusticeCoalition.pdf.

15. Consortium on Legal Services and the Public, American Bar Association, Legal Needs and Civil Justice: A Survey of Americans (1994), available at https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/legal_aid_indigent_defendants/downloads/legalneedstudy.authcheckdam.pdf.

16. Robert Echols, State Legal Needs Studies Point to "Justice Gap": Recent Studies Validate Findings of 1993 ABA Study Regarding Lack of Access by Low-Income People, Dialogue at 32 (Summer 2005), available at https://legalaidresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/nlada-state-legal-needs-justice-gap-2005.pdf.

17. Russell Engler, Connecting Self-Representation to Civil Gideon: What Existing Data Reveal about When Counsel is Most Needed, 37 Fordham Urb. L.J. 37 (2010), available at http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2321&context=ulj.

18. Kia Franklin, Election '08: A Pro-Civil Justice Presidential Platform, Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, executive summary available at http://www.tortdeform.com/archives/2007/11/opening_page.html.

19. James Greiner and Cassandra Wolos Pattanayak, Randomized Evaluation in Legal Assistance: What Difference Does Representation (Offer and Actual Use) Make?, 121 Yale L. J. 2118 (2012), available at http://www.yalelawjournal.org/article/randomized-evaluation-in-legal-assistance-what-difference-does-representation-offer-and-actual-use-make.

    • Concurring Opinions, Symposium (various authors analyzing James Greiner paper) (2011), available at http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/category/representation-symposium. 
    • Jeffrey Selbin, Jeanne Charn, Anthony Alfieri & Stephen Wizner, Service Delivery, Resource Allocation and Access to Justice: Greiner and Pattanayak and the Research Imperative, Harvard Law School Public Law & Legal Theory Working Paper Series Paper No. 12-17 (2012), available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2003960. 

20. John Gross & Jerry Cox, The Cost of Representation Compared to the Cost of Incarceration, 37-Mar Champion 22 (Mar. 2013).

21. Gillian K. Hadfield, Higher Demand, Lower Supply?: A Comparative Assessment of the Legal Resource Landscape for Ordinary Americans, University of Southern California Law School Law and Economics Working Paper Series (2009), available at http://works.bepress.com/ghadfield/31.

22. Alan Houseman, Civil Legal Aid in the United States: An Overview of the Program and Developments in 2005, Center for Law and Social Policy (March 2005), available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265422487_CIVIL_LEGAL_AID_IN_THE_UNITED_STATES_AN_OVERVIEW_OF_THE_PROGRAM_AND_DEVELOPMENTS_IN_2005_BY.

23. Alan W. Houseman, Civil Legal Aid in the United States: An Update for 2013, Center for Law and Social Policy (Nov. 2013), available at http://www.clasp.org/resources-and-publications/publication-1/CIVIL-LEGAL-AID-IN-THE-UNITED-STATES-3.pdf.

24. Alan W. Houseman, Civil Legal Aid in the United States: An Update for 2015 (Dec. 2015), available at https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/bitstream/handle/10822/761858/Houseman_Civil_Legal_Aid_US_2015.pdf.

25. Alan Houseman, Civil Legal Aid in the United States: An Update for 2017 (Apr. 2017 ), available at http://legalaidresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/CIVIL-LEGAL-AID-IN-THE-UNITED-STATES-2017-5.pdf.

26. Alan W. Houseman, Civil Legal Aid in the United States: An Update for 2019, Center for Law and Social Policy (Nov. 2013), available at https://cnejl.org/wp-content/uploads/us-civil-legal-aid-biennial-update-2019.pdf.

27. Alan W. Houseman & Linda E. Perle, Securing Equal Justice for All: A Brief History of Civil Legal Assistance in the United States, Center for Law and Social Policy (Nov. 2003), available at http://www.clasp.org/admin/site/publications/files/Securing-Equal-Justice-for-All-2013-Revision.pdf.

28. Herbert Kritzer, Examining the Real Demand for Legal Services, William Mitchell Legal Studies Research Paper No. 102, (Oct. 2008) available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1289828.

29. Herbert Kritzer, Legal Advocacy: Lawyers and Nonlawyers at Work (University of Michigan Press) (1998).

30. Legal Services Corporation, Documenting the Justice Gap In America: The Current Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-Income Americans (Sept. 2009), available at http://www.lsc.gov/sites/default/files/LSC/pdfs/documenting_the_justice_gap_in_america_2009.pdf.

31. Legal Services Corporation, The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-Income Americans (June 2017), available at http://www.lsc.gov/media-center/publications/2017-justice-gap-report.

32. Legal Services Corporation, Documenting the Justice Gap In America: The Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-Income Americans (April 2022), available at https://lsc-live.box.com/s/xl2v2uraiotbbzrhuwtjlgi0emp3myz1.  

33. Kathryn Grant Madigan, Advocating for a Civil Right to Counsel in New York State, 25 Touro L. Rev. 9 (2009), available at http://www.tourolaw.edu/LawReview/uploads/pdfs/_3_WWW_Madigan_CivRgtCounsel_SM_Final_12.23.08_.pdf.

34. Maryland Access to Justice Commission, Implementing a Civil Right to Counsel in Maryland (2011), available at http://mdcourts.gov/mdatjc/pdfs/implementingacivilrighttocounselinmd2011.pdf.

35. Maryland Task Force to Study Implementing a Right to Counsel in Maryland, Report (Oct. 1, 2014), available at http://www.mdcourts.gov/mdatjc/taskforcecivilcounsel/pdfs/finalreport201410.pdf.

36. Minnesota State Bar Association, Civil Gideon Task Force, Access to Justice: Assessing Implementation of Civil Gideon in Minnesota (Dec. 2, 2011), available at http://www.mnbar.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/access-to-justice-assessing-implementation-of-civil-gideon-in-minnesota.pdf?sfvrsn=0.

37. National Center for Access to Justice, Taking Stock of the Civil Legal Aid Movement in 2015: the Year the Pieces Came Together to Increase Access to Justice in the United States (Dec. 31, 2015), available at http://ncforaj.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Taking-Stock-of-CLA-Movement-in-the-US-12-31-15.pdf.

38. National Center for State Courts, Virginia Self-Represented Litigant Study: Outcomes of Civil Cases in General District Court, Juvenile & Domestic Relations Court, and Circuit Court (Dec. 2017), available at http://brls.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Outcome-Report.pdf.

39. Philadelphia Bar Association, Chancellor's Task Force on Civil Gideon, Reports, available at http://www.philadelphiabar.org/page/CivilGideonReports?appNum=1.

40. Rebecca Sandefur, Elements of Professional Expertise: Understanding Relational and Substantive Expertise through Lawyers' Impact, American Sociological Review, vol. 80, 5: pp. 909-933 (Oct. 2015), available for purchase at http://asr.sagepub.com/content/80/5/909.abstract.

41. Rebecca Sandefur, The Impact of Counsel: An Analysis of Empirical Evidence, Seattle J. for Soc. Just. (Fall/Winter 2010), available at http://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/sjsj/vol9/iss1/3/.

42. Ken Smith and Kelly Thayer, Economic Impacts of Legal Aid: Civil Justice for Low-Income People Creates Ripple Effects That Benefit Every Segment of the Communities We Serve, MIE Journal (Fall 2011), available at http://www.greatprograms.org/mie_article/mie_article.htm.

43. Richard Startz and Albert Yoon, Litigant Resources and the Evolution of Legal Precedent, Draft Version (September 8, 2009), available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1475350.

44. Emily S. Taylor Poppe and Jeffrey Rachlinski, Do Lawyers Matter?  The Effect of Legal Representation on Civil Disputes, 43 Pepp. L. Rev. 881 (2016), available at http://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/plr/vol43/iss4/1/.

45. Stephen Weller & David A. Price, Representing Indigent Parties in Civil Cases: An Analysis of State Practice (Nov 30, 1994), available at http://www.centerforpublicpolicy.org/file.php/52182/Indigent+Representation+in+Civil+Cases.pdf.

46. Roselle L. Wissler, Representation in Mediation: What We Know from Empirical Research, 37 Fordham Urb. L. J. 419 (2010) available at http://www.karlbayer.com/blog/?p=12115.