ALAN W. HOUSEMAN

The system of providing civil legal assistance in the United States is in transition. The structure and funding of the system are changing and the services provided through the system are expanding. More private attorneys are being used to provide more services. However, unlike most of the other civil legal aid systems in Europe, Canada, Australia and other advanced industrialized societies, the US civil system continues to rely on legal aid and pro bono organizations to deliver assistance and has not, and is not, moving toward a judicare or paid private attorney approach.

The civil legal assistance system includes legal aid societies delivering services in a discrete geographic area, pro bono programs and speciality civil legal assistance programs focusing on specific client groups (such as persons with disabilities, prisoners, family farmers, migrant farmworkers, Native Americans, women, ethnic groups) or specific issues (such as education, employment, environmental issues, family law and health care.) In addition, there have been civil rights and civil liberties organizations, public interest law firms and other legal assistance providers that provide civil legal assistance.

Within the last several years, the landscape of staff attorney legal aid providers has undergone substantial change. Just three years ago the civil legal assistance system funded by the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) consisted primarily of full-service providers, each serving one geographic area, with the responsibility and capacity to provide high-quality legal assistance in all forums and to ensure access of all clients and client groups to the legal system. Today, instead of one full-service provider, there are two newly organized direct service providers each operating statewide in the same geographic areas in 16 states and two direct service providers in over 20 large or medium size cities. Moreover, because of the new restrictions on advocacy and who can be represented (described below), LSC-funded legal services programs cannot operate fully in all forums.

In addition, the network of federally funded entities that linked all of the LSC-funded providers into a single national legal services program has been substantially reduced and some components dismantled. At the state level, these have been replaced by a separate group of non-LSC funded entities engaged in state advocacy in over 25 states.

Another emerging pattern involves pro bono efforts. It appears that the number of independent pro bono programs are increasing while the in-house efforts are decreasing. If this trend continues, it too will reflect a changing world from that of the 1980s and 1990s where many LSC-funded programs resisted funding independent pro bono programs, but instead conducted their own in-house pro bono programs and hired as staff pro bono coordinators to refer cases to the private bar.

Finally, we are beginning to see the emergence of comprehensive, integrated statewide systems of delivery that are managed by a broadly representative board, involve a single point of entry for all clients, integrate all institutional and individual providers and partners, allocate resources among providers to ensure that representation can occur in all forums for all low-income persons and seek to provide access to a range of services for all eligible clients no matter where the live, the language they speak or the ethnic or cultural group of which they are a member. LSC has required all of its grantees to engage in state planning to achieve such a system, the Project for the Future of Equal Justice is promoting such a system and the American Bar Association has joined the effort to encourage bar leaders to participate in state planning and promote statewide, integrated systems.

Historically, civil legal assistance programs have provided a range of services to low-income persons including advice and brief services, legal representation in the courts and before administrative adjudicatory agencies and representation before legislative bodies and in administrative rulemaking proceedings. Such programs have also engaged in community legal education and a host of outreach activities to inform potential clients about the rights and the services which the program provides. Recently, the range of services has expanded. Many programs are developing new brief advice systems, such as telephone hot lines, and new approaches to client intake whereby intake and referral and most of the advice and brief service is done over the phone. While telephone "hotlines" for the elderly have been in existence for a number of years because of the efforts of the American Association of Retired Persons and its Legal Counsel for the Elderly, what is now emerging are new regional and statewide hotlines serving all categories of the poor. Such statewide hotlines have developed in seven states and plans for another ten or so are in various stages of implementation.

In addition, civil legal assistance programs are expanding efforts to assist those who are proceeding to represent themselves pro se through clinics, workshops and one on one assistance. And many programs are beginning to experiment with "unbundled" legal assistance that provides only some of the legal assistance activities that a client may need.

The formal civil legal assistance system of nonprofit staff and pro bono providers receives over $700 million in funds. As the graph in the appendix shows, LSC is no longer the primary funder of civil legal assistance in the national as a whole although there are considerable state variations. As the colored chart (in the appendix) indicates, in a number of states, LSC is a relatively small funder; in others, LSC remains a primary funder; in a few, LSC is the principal funder.

In addition to IOLTA and LSC, the other funding sources include:

• other federal agencies (whose funding is not routed through LSC and over which LSC has no control),
• state general revenue, filing fee and other state government or quasi-government sources;
• local government sources;
• foundations and Corporations;
• bar association and law firm contributions;
• United Way and other organized charitable funders;
• individual contributions;
• attorneys’ fee awards from defendants

Unlike many other industrialized countries, civil legal assistance programs in the US do not use co-payments or sliding fee schedules and funding generated from these sources is far less than 1% and perhaps as small as .01%.

Civil legal assistance for poor people in the United States began in New York City in 1876 with the founding of the Legal Aid Society of New York, a private and charitable program created largely by lawyers. The legal aid movement caught on in the urban areas of the United States. By 1965, virtually very major city had some kind of program. One-hundred-and-fifty-seven (157) organizations employed over 400 full-time lawyers with an aggregate budget of nearly $4.5 million.

The world of legal aid was heterogeneous. There was of course no national program. Many legal aid programs were private corporations. Others were parts of bar associations, relying primarily on donated time of lawyers. Some were part of governmental units, usually municipalities. Some were part of other social agencies. Still others were run by law schools or clinics.

Partially because of limited resources and a high number of eligibles, legal aid generally gave perfunctory service to a high volume of clients. Going to court was rare. Appeals were nonexistent. Administrative representation, lobbying, and community legal educations were not contemplated. Legal aid had little effect on those it served and no effect on the client population as a whole.

Services were viewed as a form of charity. Pressures from members of the boards of directors of legal aid societies, particularly those with traditional moralistic or religious backgrounds, were successful in prohibiting legal assistance for many types of cases. Those not "deserving" were excluded. Various legal services, often including divorces, were considered luxuries and not offered.

Although many legal aid societies were created by some sort of reform movement that saw legal services as contributing to specific changes in the situation of the poor, the reform orientation was eliminated in order to maintain funding and support in the established parts of the bar. Thus, legal aid societies did not identify problems of the poor that could be addressed with legal action. The common concerns and needs of the poor were largely irrelevant to legal aid societies. The purpose of the societies was individual service to clients who happened to be indigent.

Even if the philosophical approach had been different, high staff turnover and low salaries made it difficult, if not impossible, for the programs to develop any continuity, sense of purpose or analysis of legal and structural factors which contributed to the experience of poverty.

The federal Legal Services Program began in the Office of Economic Opportunity in 1965. OEO created a unique structure, building on the civil legal aid model and on the demonstration projects at New Haven, New York, Boston and Washington, DC funded by the Ford Foundation in the early 60s.

The architects of the new federal program recognized that civil legal assistance did not exist in many parts of the country and realized two fundamental propositions: First, that "something new" was needed—well-funded legal aid would not do. Second, the architects realized that the law could be used as an instrument for orderly and constructive social change as was being done by lawyers for the civil rights and civil liberties movements.

The "something new" for legal services involved five elements:

The first was the notion of responsibility to all poor people as a "client community." Legal services programs served, as a whole, the poor people who resided in their geographic service area, not just individual clients who happened to be indigent.

Second, legal services emphasized the right of clients to control decisions about the solutions pursued for their problems. Legal services was an advocate whose use was to be determined by poor people rather than an agency to give services to poor people.

The third was a commitment to redress historic inadequacies in the enforcement of legal rights of poor people caused by lack of access to the institutions that created those rights. Legal services pursued "law reform," a phrase coined by Justice Johnson to create a goal for the legal services program during the early years.

The fourth element was a responsiveness to legal need rather than to demand. Probably the greatest deficiency of the legal aid societies was that they responded only to uninformed demand—to those who walked into the office—so that large parts of the legal needs of the poor legal services were not addressed while resources legal services were committed to the generally narrow range of legal problems that poor people recognized. Through community education, outreach efforts and physical presence in the community, legal services programs were able to assist clients to identify critical needs and fashion legal responses.

The fifth and final element was a full range of service and advocacy tools, as full a range as that offered by private attorneys for the affluent.

Unlike other legal aid systems, the US system utilized staff attorneys working for nonprofit entities, not private attorneys participating in judicare programs. OEO funded full-service providers, each serving one geographic area, which had the obligation to ensure access of all clients and client groups to the legal system. The only national earmarking of funds within the OEO Office of Legal Services was for Native Americans and migrant farmworkers, for which OEO created separate funding and a somewhat separate delivery system. Legal services also developed a unique infrastructure —found nowhere else in the world—that, through national and state support, training programs and a national clearinghouse, provided both leadership and support on substantive poverty law issues. State and national support centers also engaged in major litigation and undertook representation before State and Federal legislative and administrative bodies.

The structure put in place by OEO was carried over fundamentally unchanged by the Legal Services Corporation when it began to function in 1975. Moreover, LSC expanded to reach every county in the country by using the OEO model and expanded representation to Native Americans and migrant farmworkers by continuing those separately funded and structured delivery systems.

Given the political environment in which LSC operates, it is quite remarkable what it has accomplished. LSC expanded civil legal aid to reach all areas of the country with some type of program. Federal funding through LSC grew to $415 million in early 1995. Today, the LSC funding level through LSC is $300 million and total funding for LSC-funded programs is approximately $530 million and there is roughly another $300 million provided to non-LSC funded civil programs. The staff attorney model remains the primary means of subsidized delivery of civil legal assistance, although, since 1981, there has been a substantial growth of pro bono programs and private attorney involvement in the organized delivery system. Over 130,000 lawyers provide civil representation to the poor under pro bono programs. The support structure remained in place until 1996.

While the national legal services program did not end poverty, legal services representation did improve the lives of the poor and prevented other low-income persons from becoming poor.

First, legal services representation successfully created new legal rights through judicial decisions and representation before legislative and administrative bodies.

For example: legal services attorneys won landmark decisions such as Shapiro v. Thompson which ensured that legal welfare recipients legal services were not arbitrarily denied benefits. Perhaps the greatest victory was Goldberg v. Kelley, which led to the due process revolution. Goldberg required the government to follow due process when seeking to terminate benefits. A series of latter cases expanded due process to large areas of public and private spheres. Escalero v. New York City Housing Authority required public housing authorities to provide hearings before evictions from public housing; and later decisions such as Fuentes v. Shevin ensured that private parties must follow due process when seeking to recover possessions such as automobiles.

Equally significant were judicial decisions stimulated by creative advocacy by lawyers which expanded common law theories on retaliatory evictions and implied warranty of habitability. These insured that the poor could not be evicted from housing when the landlord failed to meet statutory and common law obligations

Legal services attorneys also effectively enforced rights that were theoretically in existence but honored in the breach. Legal services representation ensured that federal law benefitting the poor was enforced on behalf of the poor. King v. Smith led to the enforcement of federal statutory law not only in the legal welfare area but, until recently, set the framework for enforcement of federal law across the board. And, more recently, legal services programs won Sullivan v. Zebley, the case providing SSI benefits to hundreds of thousands of families with disabled kids.

Perhaps most important, through sustained and effective legal services representation, public and private agencies and entities dealing with the poor were fundamentally changed. Legal services representation altered the court system by simplifying court procedures and rules so that they could be understood by, and made more accessible to, the poor. Legal services representation also forced the welfare and public housing bureaucracies, schools and hospitals to act according to a set of rules and laws and to treat the poor equitably and in a manner sensitive to their needs. And legal services programs have been on the forefront of the efforts to assist women subject to domestic violence.

There are significant problems within the federal legal services program that require substantial changes in how both individual grantees and the civil legal assistance system as a whole operates. I have detailed these problems in an earlier article, and will here only summarize the key points.

First, in many states and within many civil legal assistance providers, directors, board and staff do not have a shared long-term vision of what the civil legal assistance system should be and where it should be heading. Nor have many providers, individually or collectively, developed a common sense of vision and mission with the low-income community. Underlying the lack of shared vision and mission may be more fundamental differences over basic values between staff and board members or between the providers and client groups. Developing a shared vision within particular providers with any real substantive content will be difficult today, not only because of fears about going public with a genuine vision, but also because of the varying perspectives within legal services today about what the overall system is and should be. Nonetheless, having a clear mission and a shared vision among local providers staff and management and their partners would help individual providers focus their scarce resources effectively, develop appropriate strategies and delivery approaches and attract advocates with energy, commitment and competence to carry out those strategies.

In addition, the civil legal assistance delivery system has, in many ways, become a social services bureaucracy that shares many characteristics with other social services bureaucracies. This development was inevitable in an organization as large and complex as legal services. There has been a change in culture of the legal services office from the early days of aggressive, individual lawyering and group advocacy by young law graduates who often acted with little supervision and accountability to the more complex and demanding culture of today with very structured administrative systems and considerable policy and legal constraints. The administrative and fiscal requirements on legal services programs today can sometimes result in focusing too much on internal organizational matters and too little on changing client legal needs, new and improved techniques of advocacy, new substantive strategies and innovation. The concern is that some legal services programs may have become bureaucratized to such an extent that they do too little and they cannot effectively respond to the problems of low-income persons in their service areas.

Moreover, many legal services programs and staff are isolated from the communities they are supposed to assist. Many program offices have been centralized outside of low-income neighborhoods. Many staff members and directors go to and from their offices (whether they are downtown or in a poor neighborhood) with little real involvement in community institutions or participation in community activities. Few legal services staff actually live in the communities they serve. Many do not relate to community efforts that are directed toward addressing systemic community problems. Others have not established effective working relationships with a wide variety of community groups working on issues that affect the poor. Still other staff members never venture beyond their offices; many never visit housing projects, welfare offices, nursing homes, homeless shelters, inner-city schools, churches and similar institutions. Only a few programs undertake intake at institutions serving community members, such as hospitals, welfare offices, churches and the like. Rarely do legal services programs utilize community activists in their work or hire them on their staffs. Some programs do little effective community education; only a few attempt to conduct self-help initiatives outside of their offices.

Isolation from the client community and the internal focus that some providers may have is exacerbated by the insularity in which some legal assistance providers operate. These providers have remained insulated from the work of other advocacy organizations, nonprofit providers of other services and community efforts that are going on in the communities in which they work. Moreover, in many communities where there is an active law school clinical program, legal services has not sought to effectively utilize law school clinics and law students that are interested in poverty legal work.

A similar resource issue involves effective utilization of private attorneys (PAI). Some LSC-funded legal assistance providers have failed to fully incorporate PAI into their existing structures and effectively utilize private attorneys for the range of legal problems they could handle. Others have been reluctant to form alliances with major law firms to handle major litigation or assist in economic development work, fearing that such alliances will deprive staff of interesting or glamorous legal work or limit the number of pro bono attorneys available for individual case work. Still others have hired weak PAI coordinators who have little respect within the program; many programs treat the PAI issue solely in terms of how to meet the LSC accounting requirements. Even many of the good legal services programs do not "own" their PAI program, and have not fully incorporated them into their overall service delivery plan.

Finally, even prior to the elimination of $25 million in LSC funding for support, which fundamentally altered the support infrastructure that had been developed in the early years of the federal program, it was clear that there were deficiencies in national and state advocacy and research capacities. The legal services system did not have sufficient capacities to identify and address new and emerging needs that do not fall within the expertise or work of existing organizations or to undertake effective thinking about new substantive developments and strategies. There was no national research capacity and no central coordination for training and technical assistance and substantial problems of communication and information sharing among and between all levels of the support structure. Similarly, many states lacked an effective capacity to undertake representation, coordination and support at the state level.

For the last 30 years, the legal services program has been a national program whose principal, and in some places, sole funder was the Federal government. The structure and principal directions of the program were set by Congressional legislation and the regulations, policies and oversight provided by LSC. While the preeminence of the LSC role began to change during the 1980s and into the 1990s, as States and other non-LSC funding sources began to provide a greater share of overall legal services resources, the program remained essentially national in scope and direction, and local program directors and staff all shared the view that the legal services program was to help people in poverty address their most pressing legal needs.

Beginning in 1995, this national delivery system and its sense of shared values has been undermined by well-organized, well-financed and successful efforts by critics of legal services, many of whom do not believe in government-funded civil legal assistance. The leadership of the 104th Congress attempted to eliminate the Legal Services Corporation and federal funding for civil legal services because many key Congressional leaders do not see legal services as a federal responsibility and believe that it is infused with social activist lawyers who can effectively stop welfare and other reforms they now seek to enact. Congress failed to eliminate LSC only because an effective lobbying and media effort made it possible for a loose bi-partisan coalition of "moderate" Republicans and "blue dog" Democrats to come together and join with other traditional Democrats to preserve funding for the program. However, the moderate support from both parties that was needed to form a majority to preserve the program was premised on substantial "reforms," and the national legal services program paid a huge price. Federal funding for legal services was cut by 30% from $415 million in FY 95 to $283 million in FY 97 and FY 98 and $300 million in FY 99; 12.9% of program staff left and 12.7% of legal services local offices legal services were closed. In addition, state and national institutions that made up the legal services support and infrastructure lost all of their LSC funds. As a result, many of those institutions were initially in disarray and financial turmoil, although much of the infrastructure and many of these programs are still in existence because of other funding.

Equally significant were the restrictions in the 1996 and subsequent appropriations legislation on the work of programs that receive LSC funds. No longer will programs be able to use funds available from non-LSC sources to undertake activities that are restricted with the use of LSC Funds. Under the new legislation, all of a program's funds, from whatever source, will be restricted.

With a few narrow exceptions, recipients are precluded from advocacy and representation before legislative bodies and in administrative rulemaking proceedings. In addition, recipients cannot initiate, participate or engage in any new class actions and were required to discontinue work on pending class actions by August 1, 1996. Recipients cannot claim, collect or retain attorneys’ fees from adverse parties on cases initiated after April 25, 1996, even when the fees are otherwise permitted by statute. Moreover, recipients can no longer challenge State or Federal welfare reform laws or formally adopted regulations.

Recipients are prohibited from representation in redistricting cases, participating in any litigation with regard to abortion, representing certain aliens, participating in litigation on behalf of a person incarcerated in a Federal, State or local prison, including pre-trial detainees, and representing persons convicted of, or charged with, drug crimes in public housing evictions when the evictions are based on alleged threats to health or safety of public housing residents or employees.

In addition, recipients have to identify potential client plaintiffs by name and obtain a written statement of facts from any plaintiff client before they can engage in precomplaint settlement negotiations or file suit on the client’s behalf. Recipients cannot conduct training programs to advocate particular public policies or political activities and cannot do training on prohibited cases or advocacy activities (e.g., lobbying, rulemaking, attorneys’ fees).

The FY98 appropriations bill included three new provisions. One provided LSC with new authority to debar recipients from future grants if they were determined to have substantially violated the LSC Act or appropriation provisions or if they sued LSC because of the restrictions. Another eliminated procedural rights to a hearing before an independent hearing officer when LSC sought to terminate or deny refunding. The other required LSC programs to disclose to LSC and the general public for cases initiated by the program the name and address of all parties, the cause of action and the case number and address of the court in which the case was filed. The FY 99 appropriations legislation included all of the FY96 and FY98 restrictions.

The same forces which dominated the 104th and 105th Congress on the issue of legal services continue to dominate the 106th Congress. Key leaders in the House and Senate remain unequivocally opposed to a Federal legal services program. The "moderate" forces will continue to play the pivotal role. While the Administration is committed to continue to fight for modest increases in funding, it is not likely to insist upon significant changes in the types of programs that can be funded or the removal of the restrictions on recipients of those funds. Thus, what is at stake in the 106th Congress is still the overall survival of a Federal legal services program.

In response to these funding cuts and restrictions, fundamental changes are being made in the legal services delivery system at the State level, and many current or former LSC recipients have given up LSC funds or are heading in new directions not followed in the past. In only a few States were the providers of civil legal assistance and the delivery system they operated unchanged. In addition, new efforts to raise public funds, such as expanding IOLTA funding and earmarking State general revenue appropriations and filing fee surcharges for civil legal services, are being pursued in virtually all of the States. Similarly, in at least 40 jurisdictions new bar initiatives, including expanding pro bono efforts, have begun. Furthermore, in a number of States new and increased efforts have been undertaken to raise private funds from local foundations, private law firms, United Way campaigns and individual contributors.

Thus, what is emerging in many states is a new delivery system that includes both programs funded with LSC funds but restricted in its activities, as well as programs funded with substantial non-LSC funds. The non-LSC providers are free to engage in class actions, welfare reform advocacy, policy representation, and assistance to aliens and prisoners so long as their public and private funding sources permit their resources to be used for those activities. Moreover, in a number of jurisdictions, the private bar is becoming significantly more involved in delivering basic legal services as well as undertaking those activities that LSC recipients are restricted from handling.

One fundamental consequence of these developments is that state-level funding has become a primary focal point for the future of civil legal assistance. Moreover, as more programs operate without LSC funding and greater resources are provided by other funders, LSC will have far less ability to set directions for the overall civil legal assistance system. Thus, how programs are structured, how various providers are coordinated and integrated into an effective whole, and ultimately how civil legal assistance for low-income persons are provided, will be dependent as much on actions taken at the state as on the national level.

The civil legal assistance system of the future will be state-based, with some funding and overall coordination coming from LSC. The state provides the basic legal framework in which most representation occurs. Moreover, as a result of the policies of devolution, in the future, the state will have even a larger role in determining policies affecting the poor. There are two critical challenges which this new system will face: (1) expanding of funding and resources, both personal and financial; and how to develop and perfect an integrated state system of civil legal assistance that includes an interconnected system of local and statewide providers, working together as a community of advocates to achieve equal justice for all.

To achieve increased access for low-income persons and to implement the civil legal assistance system for the future additional funding will be needed. Increased funding will come primarily from state and local governmental and private resources. Since 1982, funding from state and local governments has increased a few million dollars to over $200 million. Until recently, this increase has been primarily through IOLTA funding which has now be implemented in every state. While IOLTA funding is in some jeopardy because of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, the funding will continue for the next several years without any question and will likely continue even if the ultimate judicial resolution is adverse to IOLTA. In fact, in many states, there are new initiatives that expand revenue from IOLTA programs. Within the last three years, substantial new state funding has come from general state or local governmental appropriations, filing fee surcharges, state abandoned property funds, punitive damage awards, and other governmental initiatives. In addition, there has been substantial increases in funding from private sources including foundation and corporate gifts, United Way funding, special events, funding from religious institutions, fee for service projects, lawyer fund drives, attorney registration fee increase or deus assessment, dues check-off or add-ons, bar association appropriations, funds from cy pres awards, and from awards from attorneys’ fees pursuant to fee-shifting statutes.

Even though new funding will come primarily from non-LSC sources, funding from the federal government will also be essential for two reasons: first, civil legal services is a federal responsibility and LSC continues to be the primary single funder and standard setter. Second, there are many parts of the country—the South, Southwest and Rocky Mountain states—that have not yet developed sufficient non-LSC funds to operate civil legal assistance including pro bono programs without federal support. Abandoning a federal commitment to civil legal assistance would mean that in many states—and thus in the nation as a whole—the principle of equal justice would be a fiction.

However, federal funding is not going to fill the huge gaps between need for civil legal assistance and the capacity of the system to meet that need Not since the expansion days of the late 1970s did the civil legal assistance system achieve significant increases in federal funding and today’s funding buys far less service than it bought before much of the expansion occurred. Even with the hopefully successful efforts of LSC's new funding initiatives, federal funding is not likely to be where substantial growth will occur. In part this is because the political leadership of the US remains totally divided about whether there should be a federal program, and, if there should be one, how it should be structured. For example, many key congressional leaders continue to seek the total elimination of LSC funding, while other Members of Congress continue to support block grants to states. Congress controls LSC funding, to an even greater degree than funding of other Federal entities, because the LSC Act limits control of the President to appointment of a board and to commenting upon the LSC budget request. As a practical matter, a supportive President, LSC Board and Justice Department can not overcome a hostile or neutral Congress. At most, a supportive Administration can achieve small, Incremental increases. Since this political situation is not likely to change over the next decade, the growth in the civil legal assistance system will come primarily from state and local sources, including both governmental and private sources.

The newly emerging state systems are being designed to reach three fundamental objectives:

1. Increase awareness of rights, options and services through coordinated, systematic and comprehensive outreach and community legal education.
2. Facilitate access to legal assistance through a coordinated system of service delivery, coordinated advice and brief services, and accessible, flexible, responsive and coordinated intake systems.
3. Provide a full range of civil legal assistance and related services to enable low-income persons to anticipate and prevent legal problems from arising, resolve their legal problems efficiently and effectively, protect their legal rights, promote their legal interests, enforce and reform laws and improve their opportunities and quality of life.

Virtually every legal needs study that has been done over the last ten years tells us that the current system is meeting at most 20% of the legal needs of the population legal services are supposed to be serving. To achieve full access to civil legal assistance will involve increased financial resources to be sure. But, it is now generally recognized within the bar and among providers of civil legal assistance, achieving access will require new methods of delivery. States are now beginning to develop and implement plans to achieve access which include four fundamental elements.

Under pressure from LSC, IOLTA commissions, the bar and national organizations (Project for the Future of Equal Justice),states are beginning to create new providers and redeploy existing providers into, a coordinated system of service providers which uses both institutional providers and individuals in order to ensure that services are accessible from all parts of the state, including remote rural areas and low income urban neighborhoods. These state systems identify and allocate resources and make available specialized expertise in all major substantive areas of the law affecting low income persons in order to provide an appropriate service for every major legal problem and address the highest priority legal needs of low income persons within the state. In addition, the coordinated systems are designed to provide legal information and assistance in all of the languages spoken by a significant number of low-income persons. Finally, the state system are begin designed to serve all segments of low-income and vulnerable households, including those constituencies with distinct, unique or disproportionately experienced legal needs.

The state systems are developing advice and brief services system to enable low-income persons who believe they have a legal problem to speak by telephone or in person to a skilled attorney or paralegal for accurate legal advice and brief services to help resolve that problem.

Telephone hotlines are now being used in a number of locations to address the problem with program case review systems and intake procedures that created barriers between attorneys and advocates with expertise and the clients who need immediate advice, assistance or referral. Some focus on particular client groups such as the elderly. Others focus on all client groups. A few have been developed for special targeting efforts, such as changes in welfare reform. In states where one centralized system do not make sense, regional systems are being developed.

To facilitate and enhance access, state systems are developing and implementing accessible, flexible and responsive intake systems which include telephone screening, case evaluation and referral systems. These systems are able to effectively diagnose legal problems and identify legal interests to determine the level of service that each applicant needs. They also have the capacity to make referral to the system of legal providers including pro bono advice and referral panels, evening legal workshops and clinics, law school clinics, high-volume automated document assembly systems and pro se assistance programs. They also make referral to alternative dispute resolution (ADR) providers or community based organizations and to other appropriate non-legal organizations.

States are also developing plans and moving toward the use of new and innovative electronic and video technologies to improve access and address unique and distinct unmet legal problems, to ensure efficiency and effective communication, coordination and collaboration, and to access a broader base of knowledge, work more efficiently, and reach more clients. These technologies are being used to(1) improve program management over the delivery of legal services to clients; (2) providing support and information for attorneys and other advocates; and (3) assisting individuals who choose to or must attempt to access the legal system without an attorney or other advocate. For example, states are creating state-of-the-art information dissemination networks which provide statewide e-mail access for institutional providers of civil legal assistance, such as legal services programs, pro bono programs, law school clinical and related programs, specialized legal advocacy programs and staff working in community-based organizations. Some states have established a statewide civil legal assistance web site and other methods of communication to provide up-to-date information about state legislative, regulatory and policy developments affecting low-income persons as well as other information relevant to the delivery of civil legal assistance. A few states have established a statewide electronic library of briefs, forms, best practices and proprietary texts and client information materials, which are accessible by all institutional providers and private attorneys providing civil legal assistance. States are also developing coordinated statewide research strategies that integrate Internet usage, on-line services, proprietary sources, and other resources and develop a coordinated data management systems to facilitate information sharing and case file transfers.

A number of states are combing statewide advice and brief services systems with statewide intake systems to serve as a client friendly gateway into the civil legal assistance system for those low income persons and groups who can navigate such a system. Several new programs have even devoted significant resources to statewide hotlines and have all but abandoned using staff to provide direct representation, leaving such representation to non-LSC funded providers. LSC has strongly encouraged these efforts both through its funding decisions and by disseminating information about what programs have been doing. . Such combined systems not only provide critical services that are used by a majority of low-income persons now accessing the current system, but they offer clients who need a fuller range of legal advice and/or representation easy access to such legal assistance. In addition, such combined systems also serve as a clearinghouse of information for staff, low income persons, courts, pro bono programs, law school clinics and other providers and partners.

States are designing their civil legal assistance delivery systems to ensure the collective capacity to provide a full range of civil legal assistance services to all clients regardless of their location or the forum within which their legal problem is best resolved. Such systems enable low-income persons and groups to address some legal problems without legal representation, receive advice and brief services in appropriate situations, and receive representation from an attorney or paralegal when necessary.

Services that are available include:

• Legal advice and referral;
• Brief legal services;
• Representation in negotiation;
• Representation in the judicial system and in administrative adjudicatory processes using all forms of representation appropriate for the individual or group being represented;
• Transactional assistance (including community economic development, job creation, housing development, and the like);
• Representation before state and local legislative, administrative and other governmental or private bodies that make law or policies affecting legal rights and responsibilities;
• Assistance to clients using mediation and dispute resolution programs, including community-based dispute resolution services (where they exist), and development of linkages with such programs;
• Assistance to individuals representing themselves pro se;
• Advocacy to help make the legal system more approachable, receptive and responsive to low-income persons, including those with special needs.

In all state systems, civil legal assistance will continue to be delivered by staff attorneys and para-legals. However, there is an increasing use of other advocates including:

• private Attorneys who work for a small fee or pro bono;
• law students working in clinical and other programs;
• staff from other community-based organizations;
• lawyers, para-legals or staff working for other entities (including governmental entities such as attorney general offices, corporations, labour unions, civil rights and civil liberties organizations, human services providers and other non-profit institutions);
• non-lawyers and lay advocates; and
• others involved in or relating to the civil justice system such as clerks, law librarians and other court personnel.

These all are beginning to work as a community of advocates. Moreover, it is now recognized that solving problems of individual and group clients involves more than lawyers, law students and para-legals. Like the modern law firm which has many non-lawyer specialists and activities, to solve some legal problems of the poor requires utilizing skills of people from a variety of different disciplines and developing interdisciplinary and holistic approaches to advocacy in order to focus on clients' problems and to look beyond narrow legal conceptions or approaches.

State civil assistance system are making increasing use of private attorneys and utilizing their expertise and the resources they bring for a variety of functions.

Complex litigation. Private attorneys are more involved in complex cases because there are many cases with solid legal position which LSC-funded legal services programs cannot take on either because the cases involve prohibited activities like class actions or challenges to welfare reform laws or require resources that legal services programs do not have.

New Partnerships. Civil legal assistance providers are forming unique partnerships with private law firms and pro bono programs to augment the representation of clients who need assistance. Instead of referring clients to a pro bono lawyer, law firms and pro bono programs are taking on a whole category of cases or a set of legal problems. For example, the American Bar Association created the Children in SSI Project which has mobilized the private bar in virtually every State to prepare volunteer attorneys to represent affected families with many law firms o behalf of parents of severely disabled children denied SSI by the changes in the SSI program.

Training and mentoring legal assistance staff lawyers and paralegals. Private lawyers and law firms are providing training and mentoring to staff lawyers and paralegals on trial advocacy skills, transactional work and other skills.

Lobbying and policy advocacy before legislative and administrative rulemaking bodies. Private lawyers and law firms engaging in policy advocacy and bringing the power of the large firm to bear on problems of low-income persons by forming effective partnerships with advocates who are in daily contact with client problems as well as with key state and national advocacy groups. In conjunction with such advocacy, private lawyers are helping legal services and other advocates who are engaged in policy advocacy garner the support of the business community on issues of mutual interest, such as welfare-to-work and job training.

Transactional assistance to job creation, welfare to work and community revitalization efforts. Using transactional legal skills and expertise, private lawyers and law firms are assisting legal services and undertaking directly legal work necessary to help community organizations and even governments create jobs, including creating community services employment opportunities; improve welfare to work services, such as new means of transporting workers to jobs; and revitalize low-income communities.

To create a true community of advocates, legal providers are coordinating and collaborating with human services providers, community based organizations, low-income groups and other entities in order to deliver holistic and interdisciplinary services and to enable non-legal services providers to provide their clients with accurate and relevant information about legal rights and options and how to access the system.

Developing partnerships and collaborations with a variety of providers and community entities, including local and State governmental agencies, has proven to be a very effective way of providing critical services and maximizing assistance to low-income clients. Often, more clients can be reached through such collaborations than by working in isolation. There are other advantages as well from such partnerships and collaborations. These groups can directly influence policy, often more effectively than the legal services program. Moreover, joining in partnerships with other human services providers has resulted in increased funding for the legal services program, either directly or as a line item in the human services agencies budget. Finally, such partnerships have created a greater awareness of the substantive challenges facing low income persons, increased understanding of the role of civil legal assistance and facilitate the creation of new grass roots, community based organizations of low-income persons.

For example, the Legal Aid Society of Cincinnati has developed a partnership with Cincinnati Works, a collaborative entity founded by a successful businessman to help poor people escape poverty by obtaining and retaining self-support jobs. Not only does Legal Aid work on addressing employment barriers such as transportation and child care, but Legal Aid also provided direct legal assistance to Cincinnati Works participants on referral from the program. This successful partnership not only has helped clients address barriers to employment that necessitated legal assistance but also helped Legal Aid develop important relationships within the business and civil community.

Collaborations and partnerships have also provided opportunities for holistic service delivery innovations that involve legal services working in conjunction with other human services delivery programs to deliver integrated services. Such partnerships not only have enhanced a legal services program role as an integral part of a community’s delivery of services, but enabled the program "to become a part of a bigger solution for our client’s problems." For example, West Tennessee Legal Services has set up one stop shopping for victims of domestic violence by sharing space with a domestic violence organizations in two of its rural offices. Similarly, Bay Area Legal Services in Tampa, Florida created partnerships with local domestic violence shelters, including placing a full-time attorney at one of the shelters.

For the first time in three decades, the civil legal assistance system in the United States is in transition. It is developing new techniques of advocacy, new substantive strategies, new capacities, a broader range of services and new forms of inter-professional cooperation. More and more the private bar is becoming a central partner and key collaborator in the delivery of a full range of legal services to the poor. This new state-based system is also being redesigned to provide increased access to larger numbers of low-income persons through an integrated, comprehensive state delivery system addressing changing legal needs in new and innovate ways. The architects of this new system—LSC, the ABA and the national legal services organizations—believe they have found the necessary approach for the United States to ensure an improved civil justice system for low-income persons.