Section X: Low-Income Americans’ Experience with Civil Legal Problems
1The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
June 2017
The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet
Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
About the Legal Services Corporation
The Legal Services Corporation (LSC) was established by Congress in 1974 to promote equal
access to justice. LSC operates as an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation and
currently serves as the single largest funder of civil legal aid for low-income Americans. More
than 93% of LSC’s total funding is currently distributed to 133 independent non-profit legal
aid programs with more than 800 offices across America. LSC’s mission is to help provide
high-quality civil legal aid to low-income people. To learn more about LSC, please visit
www.lsc.gov.
Project Team
Lewis Creekmore
Ronké Hughes
Lynn Jennings
Sarah John
Janet LaBella
C. Arturo Manjarrez
Michelle Oh
Zoe Osterman
Marta Woldu
Report design
Dino Stoneking, Stoneking Studios
Suggested Citation
Legal Services Corporation. 2017. The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of
Low-income Americans. Prepared by NORC at the University of Chicago for Legal Services
Corporation. Washington, DC.
Unless specifically noted, all information contained herein is in the public domain and may be
used and reprinted without special permission. Citation of this source is required.
Acknowledgements
LSC acknowledges the generous support of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and
the Kresge Foundation for funding for this study. Funders do not determine the research
findings of LSC research projects.
LSC acknowledges NORC at the University of Chicago for its contributions to the 2017 Justice
Gap Measurement Survey and The Justice Gap report, and in particular, the work of Becky
Reimer and Mary C. Slosar. NORC is an objective and independent research organization,
which conducts work for a variety of federal agencies, foundations, associations, and other
organizations. Under contract with LSC, NORC conducted survey data collection using its
probability-based AmeriSpeak® Panel and also conducted the data analysis that informs this
report. NORC does not take a position on the policy implications of this research.
LSC would also like to acknowledge the contributions of the Justice Gap Advisory
Committee:
James Bamberger
Director, Washington State Office of Civil Legal Aid
Terry Brooks
Director, American Bar Association Division for Legal
Services, and Chief Counsel, ABA Standing Committee
on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants
Colleen Cotter
Executive Director, Legal Aid Society of Cleveland
Alex Gulotta
Executive Director, Bay Area Legal Aid
Scott Keeter
Senior Survey Advisor, Pew Research Center
Edward Montgomery
Dean, McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown
University
Lillian Moy
Executive Director, Legal Aid Society of Northeastern
New York
Rebecca Sandefur
Associate Professor of Sociology and Law, University of
Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
William (Bill) Sabol
Ph.D., Former Director, Bureau of Justice Statistics
Don Saunders
Vice President, Civil Legal Services, National Legal Aid
and Defender Association
Betty Balli Torres
Executive Director, Texas Access to Justice Foundation
5The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
6 Executive Summary
9 Introduction
SECTION I
15 Low-income America
SECTION 2
20 Experience with Civil Legal Problems
SECTION 3
28 Seeking Civil Legal Help
SECTION 4
37 Reports from the Field
46 Special Focus
53 Endnotes
57 Appendices
| Contents |
86% of the civil legal problems reported by
low-income Americans in the past year received
inadequate or no legal help.
In the past year, 71% of low-income
households experienced at least one civil legal
problem, including problems with
domestic violence, veterans’ benefits, disability
access, housing conditions, and health care.
In 2017, low-income Americans will approach
LSC-funded legal aid organizations for support
with an estimated 1.7 million
problems. They will receive only limited or
no legal help for more than half of these
problems because of a lack of resources.
More than 60 million Americans have family incomes at or below 125% of FPL, including:
| Executive Summary |
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. NORC conducted a
survey of approximately 2,000 adults living in households at or below 125% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL)
using its nationally representative, probability-based AmeriSpeak® Panel. This report presents findings based
on this survey and additional data LSC collected from the legal aid organizations it funds.
About 6.4 million
seniors
More than 11.1 million
persons with
disabilities
Data Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, American Community Survey, 2015 1-year estimates
More than 1.7 million
veterans
About 10 million
rural residents
6 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
Key Findings: Seeking Legal Help
Data Source: 2017 Justice Gap Measurement Survey
Key Findings: Experience with Civil Legal Problems
Data Source: 2017 Justice Gap Measurement Survey
71% of low-income
households have
experienced a civil legal
problem in the past year.
The rate is even higher
for some: households
with survivors of domestic
violence or sexual assault
(97%), with parents/
guardians of kids under 18
(80%), and with disabled
persons (80%).
1 in 4 low-income
households has experienced
6+ civil legal problems in the
past year, including 67% of
households with survivors
of domestic violence or
sexual assault.
7 in 10 low-income Americans with recent personal experience of a civil
legal problem say a problem has significantly affected their lives.
71% of households with veterans or other military personnel have
experienced a civil legal problem in the past year. They face the same types
of problems as others, but 13% also report problems specific to veterans.
Low-income Americans seek professional legal help for only 20%
of the civil legal problems they face.
Top reasons for not seeking professional legal help are:
• Deciding to deal with a problem on one’s own
• Not knowing where to look for help or what resources might exist
• Not being sure whether their problem is “legal”
Low-income Americans are
most likely to seek
professional legal help on
problems that are more
obviously “legal,” like
custody issues
and
wills/estates.
Health
Consumer & Finance
Rental Housing
Children & Custody
Education
Disability
Income Maintenance
0 10 20 30 40 50
41%
37%
29%
27%
26%
23%
22%
Common Civil Legal Problem Areas
Percent of households experiencing at least one issue-related problem in the past year
Base sizes vary.
7| The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
Section X: Low-Income Americans’ Experience with Civil Legal Problems
Seniors
56% of seniors’
households had
at least 1 civil legal
problem in past year.
Rural Residents
75% of households
in rural areas had
at least 1 civil legal
problem in past year.
Veterans
71% of households
with veterans or
other military
personnel had at
least 1 civil legal
problem in past year.
Persons with
Disabilities
80% of households
with persons with
disabilities had at
least 1 civil legal
problem in past year.
Parents of
Children under 18
80% of households
with parents or
guardians of minor
children had at least
1 civil legal problem
in past year.
Survivors of
Domestic
Violence or
Sexual Assault
97% of households
with survivors of
domestic violence
or sexual assault
had at least 1 civil
legal problem in past
year in addition to
domestic violence or
sexual assault.
Special Focus
The Special Focus section of this report presents key findings for several groups of interest.
Key Findings: Reports from the Field
Data Source: LSC 2017 Intake Census and LSC 2016 Grantee Activity Reports
The 133 LSC-funded legal aid organizations across the United States, Puerto Rico, and territories will serve
an estimated 1 million low-income Americans in 2017, but will be able to fully address the civil
legal needs of only about half of them.
Among the low-income Americans receiving help from LSC-funded legal aid organizations, the top three types
of civil legal problems relate to family, housing, and income maintenance.
In 2017, low-income Americans will receive limited or no legal help for an estimated 1.1 million
eligible problems after seeking help from LSC-funded legal aid organizations.
A lack of available resources accounts for the vast majority (85% - 97%) of civil legal
problems that LSC-funded organizations do not fully address.
65+
8 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low income Americans
9The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
The phrase “with liberty and justice for all” in the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance represents
the idea that everyone should have access to justice, not just those who can afford legal
representation. In criminal cases, legal assistance is a right. Americans accused of a crime
are appointed legal counsel if they cannot afford it. As a general matter, however, there is
no right to counsel in civil matters. As a result, many low-income Americans “go it alone”
without legal representation in disputes where they risk losing their job, their livelihood,
their home, or their children, or seek a restraining order against an abuser.
This “justice gap” – the difference between the civil legal needs of low-income Americans
and the resources available to meet those needs – has stretched into a gulf.
1
State courts
across the country are overwhelmed with unrepresented litigants. In 2015, for example,
an estimated 1.8 million people appeared in the New York State courts without a lawyer.
2
And we know that 98% of tenants in eviction cases and 95% of parents in child support
cases were unrepresented in these courts in 2013.
3
Comparable numbers can be found
in courts across the United States.
This study explores the extent of the justice gap in 2017, describing the volume of civil
legal needs faced by low-income Americans, assessing the extent to which they seek and
receive help, and measuring the size of the gap between their civil legal needs and the
resources available to address these needs.
Background
The Legal Services Corporation (LSC) was created by Congress in 1974 with the mission
to expand access to the civil justice system for low-income Americans. LSC supports
civil legal aid organizations across the country, which in turn provide legal assistance to
low-income Americans grappling with civil legal issues relating to essential human needs,
such as safe housing and work environments, access to health care, safeguards against
financial exploitation, and assistance with family issues such as protection from abusive
relationships, child support, and custody.
The justice gap is the difference between the civil legal
needs of low-income Americans and the resources available
to meet those needs.
| Introduction |
10 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
In 2005 and 2009, LSC published studies measuring the justice gap.
4
Both were
consistent in finding that about 50% of people who approached LSC-funded legal aid
organizations for help did not receive help because of insufficient resources. The 2009
Report, Documenting the Justice Gap in America, also found that many courts were
seeing increased numbers of unrepresented litigants.
LSC’s two previous reports on the justice gap used three approaches to describe the gap:
• An intake census – a count of people seeking assistance from LSC grantees who
were not served because of a lack of resources;
• A review of state-level studies about access to civil justice and about unrepresented
litigants in state and local courts; and
• A comparison of the ratio of legal aid attorneys per capita for low-income Americans
with the ratio of all private attorneys per capita for all Americans.
These approaches permitted analysis that shed light on the scarcity of resources and the
expressed needs that go unmet. But they left key questions unanswered about the civil
legal needs experienced by low-income Americans who do not seek professional legal
help and about the paths they take when facing a civil legal problem (with or without the
help of LSC-funded legal aid organizations).
The 2017 Justice Gap report seeks to answer these questions. It includes analysis of data
from the 2017 Justice Gap Measurement Survey, which is the first national household
survey on the justice gap in over 20 years. The most recent national study that assessed
the justice gap with a household survey was conducted by the Institute for Survey
Research at Temple University in 1994, with funding from the American Bar Association.
5
Since that time, a number of individual states have also conducted justice gap studies.
6
Notably, the Washington State Supreme Court conducted a study in 2014 (refreshing
work completed in 2003), which took a comprehensive look at the civil legal needs of
the state’s low-income households.
7
The Washington State work served as a point of
departure for the 2017 Justice Gap Measurement Survey, which is described in more
detail below.
This report also presents analysis of data from LSC’s 2017 Intake Census. LSC asked
its 133 grantee programs to participate in an “intake census” during a six-week period
spanning March and April 2017. As part of this census, grantees tracked the number of
individuals approaching them for help with a civil legal problem whom they were unable
to serve, able to serve to some extent (but not fully), and able to serve fully. Grantees
recorded the type of assistance individuals received and categorized the reasons
11The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
individuals were not fully served where applicable. LSC sent the resulting data to NORC for
analysis. The findings presented in this report are based on data from the LSC grantees
that receive Basic Field Grants. See Appendix B4 for more information about the LSC 2017
Intake Census and how the data are used in this report.
In addition to the 2017 Justice Gap Measurement Survey and LSC’s 2017 Intake Census,
this report uses data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS).
More information about the ACS data used can be found in Appendix B1. Finally, this
report uses data from LSC’s 2016 Grantee Activity Reports, and more information about
these data can be found in Appendix B4. Where the report relies on other data sources,
this is referenced in endnotes as appropriate.
The 2017 Justice Gap Measurement Survey
LSC contracted with NORC at the University of Chicago to conduct a survey of more
than 2,000 adults living in low-income households using its nationally representative,
probability-based AmeriSpeak® Panel. For the purposes of the survey, “low-income
households” are households at or below 125% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), the
income eligibility standard for people seeking assistance from an LSC-funded legal aid
program. The survey was administered using telephone and web interview modes, which
allowed a flexible survey logic to gather detailed information about low-income Americans’
civil legal needs at the individual level, household level, and level of specific civil legal
problems.
The survey was designed to accomplish the following goals:
• Measure the prevalence of civil legal problems in low-income households in the past
12 months;
• Assess the degree to which individuals with civil legal problems sought help for those
problems;
• Describe the types and sources of help that low-income individuals sought for their
civil legal problems;
• Evaluate low-income Americans’ attitudes and perceptions about the fairness and
efficacy of the civil legal system; and
• Permit analysis of how experiences with civil legal issues, help-seeking behavior, and
perceptions vary with demographic characteristics.
12 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
This report uses data from the 2017 Justice Gap Measurement Survey to provide insight
into the extent of the justice gap in 2017. It does not present or discuss all of the findings
from the survey. Readers are encouraged to see the accompanying survey report that
presents results from the entire 2017 Justice Gap Measurement Survey. Additionally, the
survey instrument and data will be made publicly available.
More details on the survey and the AmeriSpeak® Panel can be found in Appendix A and
also at www.lsc.gov/justicegap2017.
The units of analysis and the base sizes for the survey results presented throughout
this report vary. Some results are based on respondents (or their households), some
are based on their civil legal problems, and others are based on subsets of respondents,
households, or problems. Readers are encouraged to pay close attention to information
describing the units of analysis and which sets of observations comprise the relevant
bases for results. Wherever a result is based on a variable containing a small number
of observations (n < 100), we indicate this with a special endnote, “SB-X” (where “SB”
stands for “small base” and “X” corresponds to the endnote number in this series).
Report Overview
The core findings of this report are organized in four sections:
Section 1: Low-income America | Using current data from the U.S. Census Bureau
and other sources, this section describes the low-income population in America.
More specifically, it explores how many people live in households below 125% of
the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), how they are distributed across the U.S., and how
key demographics like education and racial and ethnic background are distributed
among them.
Section 2: Experience with Civil Legal Problems | Using data from the 2017
Justice Gap Measurement Survey, this section presents findings on the prevalence of
civil legal problems among low-income households, the types of problems they face,
and the degree to which civil legal problems affect their lives.
Section 3: Seeking Legal Help | Using data from the 2017 Justice Gap
Measurement Survey, this section presents findings on which types of problems are
most likely to receive legal attention, where people turn for legal help, what types of
legal assistance they receive, and the reasons why people do not seek legal help.
13The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
Section 4: Reports from the Field | Using data from LSC’s 2017 Intake Census
and 2016 Grantee Activity Reports, this section presents findings on the assistance
low-income Americans receive after seeking help from a legal aid organization
funded by LSC.
The report concludes with a “Special Focus” section. This section presents key findings
for six groups that are highlighted throughout the report. These groups include seniors,
persons with disabilities, veterans, parents and guardians of minor children, rural residents,
and survivors of domestic violence or sexual assault. At the end of Sections 1, 2, and 3,
we include a page that presents related findings for these groups.
8
The findings for these
highlighted groups are then summarized in this final “Special Focus” section of the report.
Client stories are presented throughout the report. These are meant to help readers
understand the types of problems faced by low-income Americans. The stories were
collected by LSC, primarily through searches of grantees’ annual reports and websites,
but also through specific requests to grantees for such stories. These stories were
first edited by LSC’s Government Relations and Public Affairs unit and vetted by the
corresponding grantees for accuracy. NORC later completed additional minor edits
to the stories in an effort to shorten them for inclusion in this report. In this report,
the names have been changed to protect the identity of individuals. Likewise, the
accompanying photos are not of the actual clients.
Study Findings in Brief
The findings presented in this report add important, new insights to the growing body of
literature on the justice gap. We find that seven of every 10 low-income households have
experienced at least one civil legal problem in the past year. A full 70% of low-income
Americans with civil legal problems reported that at least one of their problems affected
them very much or severely. They seek legal help, however, for only 20% of their civil legal
problems. Many who do not seek legal help report concerns about the cost of such help,
not being sure if their issues are legal in nature, and not knowing where to look for help.
In 2017, low-income Americans will approach LSC-funded legal aid organizations for help
with an estimated 1.7 million civil legal problems. They will receive legal help of some kind
for 59% of these problems, but are expected to receive enough help to fully address their
legal needs for only 28% to 38% of them. More than half (53% to 70%) of the problems
that low-income Americans bring to LSC grantees will receive limited legal help or no
legal help at all because of a lack of resources to serve them.
14 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
Based on the analysis presented in this report, we have three key findings relating to the
magnitude of the justice gap in 2017:
• Eighty-six percent of the civil legal problems faced by low-income Americans in a
given year receive inadequate or no legal help (see Section 3);
• Of the estimated 1.7 million civil legal problems for which low-income Americans
seek LSC-funded legal aid, 1.0 to 1.2 million (62% to 72%) receive inadequate or no
legal assistance (see Section 4),
9
• In 2017, low-income Americans will likely not get their legal needs fully met for
between 907,000 and 1.2 million civil legal problems that they bring to LSC-funded
legal aid programs, due to limited resources among LSC grantees. This represents
the vast majority (85% to 97%) of all of the problems receiving limited or no legal
assistance from LSC grantees (see Section 4).
Section X: Low-Income Americans’ Experience with Civil Legal Problems
15The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
| Section 1 |
Low-income America
As a general rule, LSC funds may be used only to serve the
legal needs of people with family incomes at or below 125%
of the Federal Poverty Level.
10
This section describes this population
of Americans. It explores how many people have family incomes at
this level, how they are distributed across the U.S., and some key
demographics of this population.
16 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
Section 1: Low-income America
More than 60 million Americans have family incomes below 125% of the
Federal Poverty Level.
A family income below 125% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) corresponds to $30,750
per year or less for a family of four.
12
Based on recent estimates from the Census Bureau,
nearly one in five Americans (19%) have family incomes below 125% of FPL. This comes
to about 60 million people, including approximately 19 million children (0-17 years), 35
million adults aged 18-64 years old, and 6.4 million seniors (65+ years).
13, 14
As Figure 1 shows, some states have higher proportions of people with family incomes
below 125% of FPL. The states with the highest proportions of people in low-income
families include Mississippi (28%), New Mexico (26%), Arkansas (25%), and Louisiana
(24%). Looking at population counts, a few other states stand out. For example, California
alone has 7.7 million people with family incomes below 125% of FPL and Texas has 5.7
million people.
15
Appendix B1 presents the population counts and proportions for all
states in the U.S.
About the Data
Most of the population estimates presented in this section come from the 2015 American Community Survey
(ACS) Single Year Estimates.
11
Note that the ACS reports on people with family incomes below 125% of the
Federal Poverty Level rather than at or below this income level (which is how income eligibility for LSC-funded
services is defined). Occasionally, other data sources are also used and are noted accordingly. The unit of
analysis in this section is individuals.
Section 1: Low-income America
Overview
FL
NM
DE
MD
TX
OK
KS
NE
SD
ND
MT
WY
CO
UT
ID
AZ
NV
HI
WA
AK
CA
OR
KY
ME
NY
PA
MI
VT
NH
MA
RI
CT
VA
WV
OH
IN
IL
NC
TN
SC
AL
MS
AR
LA
MO
IA
MN
WI
NJ
GA
DC
.
Percent of state population below
125% of FPL
less than 15%
15%- 20%
more than 20%
Figure 1: Percentage of Each State’s Population Below 125% of the Federal Poverty Level, 2015
16
Mary | Ohio | Health | Mary lives in an assisted-living community. When a health condition required
rehabilitation, she entered a skilled nursing facility for what she expected would be a short-term stay. Once therapy
was completed, however, the nursing home refused to begin discharge, insisting she required 24-hour care and
demanding payment for her continued stay. Mary could not afford to pay for both the nursing home and her
assisted living residence. Legal aid attorneys got involved, advocating for her right to make an informed decision
about her living situation. They also helped Mary work with her primary care physician to arrange for the necessary
home health services she needed to return to her home.
Source: LSC Client Success Stories.
17The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
18 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
Section 1: Low-income America
Most American adults with family incomes below 125% of FPL do not
have any college education.
There is great disparity in education levels by income. About 62% of low-income
Americans aged 25 years or older have no more than a high school education. Americans
of the same age with higher family incomes are nearly three times more likely to have
graduated from college (34% vs. 12%).
17
Existing literature on the justice gap suggests
that educational background is important for understanding access to justice.
18
While low-income Americans come from very diverse racial and ethnic
backgrounds, a plurality identify as white (with no Hispanic origin).
Forty-four percent of Americans with family incomes below 125% of FPL identify
themselves as white and claim no Hispanic origin. Another 28% identify as Hispanic,
and 21% identify as black with no Hispanic origin. Four percent identify as Asian,
1% as American Indian, 8% as another race, and 4% as two or more races.
19
The life
experiences of people with different racial and ethnic backgrounds are thought to be
important for understanding people’s likelihood to trust institutions and to seek civil legal
assistance.
20
88% of low-income adults do not have a college
degree, including 62% who have no more than a high
school education.
19The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
Section 1: Low-income America
Persons with Disabilities
Survivors of Domestic Violence/Sexual Assault
Seniors
Veterans
Rural Residents
More than 11.1 million people
with a disability have family incomes
below 125% of FPL.
24
Rates of intimate partner
violence among people with
family incomes at or below 100%
of FPL are about four times the
rates among people with incomes
at or above 400% of FPL.
26
Approximately
6.4 million
seniors have family incomes
below 125% of FPL.
21
More than an estimated
1.7 million veterans have
family incomes below 125% of
FPL.
23
Approximately 10 million
people living in rural areas of the
U.S. have family incomes below
125% of FPL.
22
Parents/Guardians of Children under 18
Approximately 18 million
families with related children under
18 have incomes below 125% FPL.
25
| Special Focus | Millions of Americans from the various groups highlighted in this report have family
incomes below 125% of FPL. This page presents population estimates for the number of low-income people for each group
wherever such estimates are available. No such estimates are available for recent survivors of domestic violence or sexual
assault, but we cite other information that speaks to rates of such violence among low-income Americans.
65+
Section X: Low-Income Americans’ Experience with Civil Legal Problems
20 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
Experience with Civil Legal Problems
A large majority of low-income American households face
civil legal problems in their everyday lives. These problems
are most often related to basic needs like health care, safety,
making ends meet, and housing. Using data from the 2017 Justice
Gap Measurement Survey of low-income households, this chapter
presents findings on the prevalence of civil legal problems among
these households, the types of problems they face, and how civil legal
problems affect their lives.
| Section 2 |
21The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
Section 2: Experience with Civil Legal Problems
A large majority of low-income American households face civil legal
problems.
The 2017 Justice Gap Measurement Survey assessed the prevalence of various types
of problems that typically raise “justiciable civil legal issues,” that is, issues that could
be addressed through civil legal action. This is consistent with standard practice in
the literature for measuring the prevalence of civil legal problems. While an in-depth
interview with a legal professional would reveal that some of the problems reported by
respondents are not actually justiciable, most will be. For ease of reporting, and to be
consistent with established literature, we refer to these problems as “civil legal problems”
throughout this and the next section.
Seventy-one percent of low-income households have experienced at least one civil legal
problem in the past year. Many of these households have had to deal with several issues.
Indeed, more than half (54%) faced at least two civil legal problems and about one in
four (24%) has faced six or more in the past year alone. The civil legal problems these
Americans face are most often related to basic needs like getting access to health care,
staying in their homes, and securing safe living conditions for their families.
71% of low-income households have experienced at
least one civil legal problem in the past year.
About the Data
The findings presented in this section come from the 2017 Justice Gap Measurement Survey. Respondents
were presented with an extensive list of specific problems that typically raise civil legal issues. They were asked
whether they had experienced any of these problems in the past 12 months and whether anyone else in their
household had. While not all of the reported problems would be able to be addressed through civil legal action,
the resulting data make it possible to estimate how common various civil legal problems are at the household
level. A total of 88 distinct problems (divided into 12 main categories) were explored in the survey. The primary
unit of analysis in this section is households.
Section 2: Experience with Civil Legal Problems
Ronald | Louisiana | Consumer and Finance | Ronald needed legal help when FEMA filed a claim
against him for repayment of disaster funds issued after Hurricane Katrina. He had never even applied for, much
less received, any FEMA funds. FEMA seized his income tax refund and told him he had to pay an additional $8,000.
With the help of legal aid, Ronald was able to demonstrate that the funds in question had been issued to someone
else. FEMA dismissed the claim and returned the money wrongfully seized from Ronald’s accounts.
Common civil legal problems among low-income households relate
to issues of health, finances, rental housing, children and custody,
education, income maintenance, and disability.
As Figure 2 shows, civil legal problems related to health and to consumer and finance
issues affect more households than any other type of issue. Health issues, for example,
affect more than two in five (41%) low-income households. The most common problems
in this area include having trouble with debt collection for health procedures (affecting
17% of households), having health insurance that would not cover medically needed care
or medications (17%), and being billed incorrectly for medical services (14%).
Over one-third (37%) of low-income households have experienced consumer and
finance problems in the past year. These issues typically follow from not being able to
make payments for debt or utilities on time. The most common issues in this area include
difficulties with creditors or collection agencies (affecting 16% of households), having utilities
disconnected due to nonpayment or a billing dispute (14%), and having problems buying or
paying for a car, including repossession (8%).
Other common categories of civil legal problems include rental housing, children and
custody, and education. Each of these problem categories affects more than one in four
low-income households in which the issue is relevant (e.g., rental housing problems affect
29% of households living in a rented home). Income maintenance and disability issues affect
one in five issue-relevant households.
22 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
23The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
Section 2: Experience with Civil Legal Problems
Rental Housing | A full 29% of households living in a rented home have experienced a related
civil legal problem in the past year. Such problems include having a landlord fail to provide basic
services or repairs (affecting 16% of rental households), having a dispute with a landlord or public
housing authority over rules or terms of a lease (11%), and living in unsafe rental housing (9%).
Children and Custody | Twenty-seven percent of households with parents or guardians of
children under the age of 18 have experienced a civil legal problem related to children or custody
in the past year. Related problems include difficulty collecting child support payments or setting
up a child support obligation (affecting 13% of these households), being investigated by Child
Protective Services (9%), and having trouble with custody or visitation arrangements (8%).
Education | Twenty-six percent of households with someone who is in school or someone
who has a child in school have experienced at least one civil legal problem related to education
in the past year. Problems in this area include being denied access to special education services
or problems with access to learning accommodations (affecting 15% of these households),
attending a school that was unsafe or had problems with bullying (9%), and being suspended
from school (7%).
Health
Consumer & Finance
Rental Housing
Children & Custody
Education
Disability
Income Maintenance
0 10 20 30 40 50
41%
37%
29%
27%
26%
23%
22%
Figure 2: Common Civil Legal Problem Categories
27
Percent of households experiencing at least one issue-related problem in the past year
Base sizes vary.
28
24 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
Section 2: Experience with Civil Legal Problems
Disability | Twenty-three percent of low-income households where someone lives with
disability report at least one civil legal problem related to disability in the past year. The
most common problems are being denied state or federal disability benefits or services or
having them reduced or terminated (affecting 14% of these households) and being denied or
experiencing limited access to public programs, activities, or services because no reasonable
accommodation was made (8%).
Income Maintenance | Twenty-two percent of low-income households have experienced
at least one problem related to income maintenance in the past year. Related problems
include not being approved for state government assistance or having that assistance
reduced or terminated (affecting 15% of households), being denied or terminated from
Social Security Disability income (SSDI) or Social Security Survivors benefit (6%), and being
denied or terminated from Supplemental Security Income (SSI) (6%).
Other Types of Civil Legal Problems
Other areas where low-income Americans report civil legal problems include the following:
Employment. Civil legal problems related to employment affect 19% of all low-income
households. Problems include being terminated from a job for unfair reasons (8%), having
a workplace grievance not taken seriously or not adequately addressed (7%), and being
exposed to working conditions that were physically unsafe or unhealthy (7%).
Family. Civil legal problems related to family affect 17% of all low-income households.
Problems include experiencing domestic violence or sexual assault (8%), filing for divorce or
legal separation (5%), and situations where a vulnerable adult has been taken advantage of or
abused (4%).
Homeownership. Civil legal problems related to homeownership affect 14% of low-income
homeowners. Problems include falling several payments behind on a mortgage (9%) and
having a home go into foreclosure (5%).
Veterans’ Issues. Civil legal problems related to veterans’ issues affect 13% of low-income
households with veterans or other military personnel. Problems include difficulty getting
medical care for service-related health conditions (9%), being denied service-related benefits
(8%), and problems with discharge status (4%).
Wills and Estates. Civil legal problems related to wills and estates affect 9% of all low-income
households. Problems include needing help drawing up a legal document like a will or advance
directive (7%) and needing help with probate or administering an estate, trust, or will (5%).
$
Section 2: Experience with Civil Legal Problems
25The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
Jill | Indiana | Housing | Jill, a senior and legal guardian of two young granddaughters, faced possible
homelessness. Jill’s sole income came from Social Security Disability benefits, which qualified her for Section 8 subsidized
housing. When Jill’s apartment was cited for not meeting Section 8 standards, the landlord refused to make the repairs,
and the housing authority stopped its payments. The landlord filed an eviction notice for failure to pay rent despite Jill’s
attempts to continue paying her portion of the rent. A legal aid attorney represented Jill in small claims court, and Jill
and her two granddaughters were allowed to stay in the apartment while she searched for another suitable place to live.
Without an eviction on her record, Jill retained her Section 8 eligibility and found a new, safe home for her granddaughters.
Source: LSC Client Success Stories.
Civil legal problems affect people’s lives.
Civil legal problems can have a substantial impact on people’s lives. Many of the civil legal
problems low-income Americans face relate to life-essential matters like losing a home,
dealing with debt, or managing a health issue. There are also less direct, yet important,
ways these problems affect people’s lives. For example, other research has shown that the
stress of dealing with civil legal issues can lead to mental health conditions like anxiety and
depression, which further complicate the situations of the families affected.
29
Many civil legal
problems, like having unsafe housing and losing benefits to buy food, can also pose a threat
to physical health.
For each issue that respondents indicated they had personally experienced within the last 12
months, the survey asked them to rate the effect the problem had on them on a five-point
scale from “not at all” to “severe.” Seventy percent of low-income Americans who personally
experienced a civil legal problem in the past year, say at least one of the problems has affected
them “very much” or “severely.” This amounts to more than half (55%) of all the problems
personally experienced by low-income Americans. The types of problems most likely to have
a substantial impact are those related to veterans’ issues (85%),
SB-1
income maintenance
(65%), employment (65%), rental housing (63%), and family (62%). See Figure 3 below.
Misty | Nebraska | Income Maintenance | While giving birth to her third child, Misty, 32, went into
cardiac arrest and was left with a serious heart condition that made her eligible for Social Security Disability benefits.
She filed for benefits to help make ends meet and take care of her family, but was denied two times. With the help of
legal aid attorneys, Misty’s third application for disability benefits was expedited and shortly thereafter, she received
a favorable decision. The decision, which granted her $700 per month, also granted her Medicaid, which allowed her
to secure a Ventricular Assist Device that has allowed her to live a more full life with her family again.
Source: LSC Client Success Stories.
Section 2: Experience with Civil Legal Problems
26 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
70% say at least one of their civil legal problems has
“very much” or “severely” affected their lives.
!
Percent of personally experienced problems affecting individuals “very much” or “severely”
85%
Veterans’
Issues
SB-1
65%
Income
Maintenance
65%
Employment
63%
Rental
Housing
62%
Family
60%
Children &
Custody
58%
Disability
58%
Consumer &
Finance
51%
Home-
Ownership
SB-2
45%
Health
35%
Education
25%
Wills &
Estates
Figure 3: Civil Legal Problems Substantially Affecting People’s Lives
30
27The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
Section 2: Experience with Civil Legal Problems
Households with Persons with Disabilities
(n=950)
Households with Recent Survivors of Domestic
Violence/Sexual Assault (DV/SA) (n=194)
Seniors’ Households (n=286)
Households with Veterans or Other Military
Personnel (n=297)
Households in Rural Areas (n=285)
80% had at least 1 civil legal
problem in past year
32% had 6+ problems in past year
Common problem areas: Health (51%), Consumer/
Finance (44%), Income Maintenance (28%), and
Disability (23%)
97% had at least 1 civil legal
problem in past year in addition to DV/SA
67% had 6+ problems
Common problem areas: Consumer/Finance (66%),
Health (62%), Employment (46%), Rental Housing
(45%), Income Maintenance (44%), and
Family (40%) (in addition to DV/SA)
56% had at least 1 civil legal
problem in past year
10% had 6+ problems in past year
Common problem areas: Health (33%), and Consumer
/Finance (23%), and Income Maintenance (13%)
71% had at least 1 civil legal
problem in past year
21% had 6+ problems in past year
Common problem areas: Health (38%), Consumer/
Finance (36%), and Employment (20%)
75% had at least 1 civil legal
problem in past year
23% had 6+ problems in past year
Common problem areas: Health (43%), Consumer/
Finance (40%), and Employment (25%)
Households with Parents/Guardians of
children under 18 (n=874)
80% had at least 1 civil legal
problem in past year
35% had 6+ problems in past year
Common problem areas: Health (46%), Consumer/
Finance (45%), and Income Maintenance (28%),
Custody (27%), Family (26%), Employment (26%),
and Education (25%)
| Special Focus | Civil legal problems are common among the groups highlighted in this report, and
many have experienced multiple problems. Households with survivors of domestic violence or sexual assault are particularly
likely to experience civil legal problems. Ninety-seven percent have experienced at least one problem in addition to their
problems related to violence. Additionally, compared to other households, households with survivors tend to face more
problems in a year and are more likely to experience problems in most of the issue areas covered in the survey.
65+
Section X: Low-Income Americans’ Experience with Civil Legal Problems
28 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
| Section 3 |
Seeking Legal Help
While most low-income Americans face at least one civil legal
problem in a given year, only one in five seeks help from a legal
professional. Using data from the 2017 Justice Gap Measurement
Survey, this section presents findings on which types of problems
are most likely to receive legal attention, where people turn for legal
help, what types of legal assistance they receive, and reasons why so
many people do not seek legal help. One noteworthy finding from this
section is that 86% of the civil legal problems faced by low-income
Americans in a given year receive inadequate or no legal help.
29The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
Section 3: Seeking Legal Help
Low-income Americans do not seek the help of legal professionals for
most of their civil legal problems.
Low-income Americans report seeking the help of a legal professional for only 20% of
their problems. Interestingly, people are only slightly more likely to seek professional
legal help for problems that substantially affect them (24% of problems that affect them
very much or severely) compared to problems that do not affect them much (17% of
problems that affect them moderately or slightly).
Additionally, while we might expect to see differences in help-seeking behavior across
education levels, low-income Americans with less education are only slightly less likely to
seek professional legal help for their civil legal problems. Those with no more than a high
school education seek professional legal help for 19% of their civil legal problems, and
people with more education seek it for 22% of their civil legal problems. In fact, none of
the differences observed by educational attainment are statistically significant.
Low-income Americans seek professional legal help for only
20%
of the civil legal problems they face.
About the Data
The findings presented in this section come from a section of the 2017 Justice Gap Measurement Survey
that asked detailed questions about a subset of the civil legal problems reported by respondents. For each
respondent, the survey randomly selected up to four personally-experienced problems affecting them more
than “not at all.” Due to the low incidence of problems relating to veterans’ issues and disabilities, these
problems were always selected if they met the other criteria. Respondents answered questions about what, if
any, help they sought to address each of these problems. The unit of analysis in this section is problems.
30 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
Section 3: Seeking Legal Help
Low-income Americans get inadequate or no professional legal help for
most of the civil legal problems they face.
Low-income Americans say they have received or expect to receive as much legal help as
they need for 69% of the problems where they sought professional legal help. While this
is a promising result, it is important to remember that they seek professional legal help
for only 20% of their problems. Additionally, some respondents indicate that they tried
to get professional legal help but were unable to do so.
31
Taking all of this together, we find
that low-income Americans receive inadequate or no professional legal help for 86% of
their civil legal problems in a given year.
32
People are more likely to seek professional legal help for problems that
are more plainly “legal” in nature.
People are most likely to seek professional legal help for problems related to children and
custodial issues and wills and estates. Low-income Americans seek such help for 48% of
their civil legal problems related to children and custody and for 39% of their problems
related to wills and estates.
SB-3
Of all the civil legal problems explored in the survey, the
ones in these categories are more obviously “legal.” Issues relating to children and child
custody, for example, usually have to be decided or approved by a judge. Similarly, issues
dealing with wills and estates involve legal paperwork and often lawyers as well.
While civil legal problems related to health issues and consumer and finance issues are
the most commonly experienced problems among low-income Americans, they are
not the problem areas most likely to get attention from a legal professional. As Figure
4 shows, people seek professional legal help for only 18% of their civil legal problems
related to consumer and finance and for only 11% of those related to health.
Low-income Americans receive inadequate or no professional
legal help for
86%
of the civil legal problems they face in
a given year.
!
31The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
Section 3: Seeking Legal Help
Low-income Americans who seek professional legal help rely on a variety
of sources and most often receive help in the form of legal advice.
People who seek the help of a legal professional rely on various sources. They most often
turn to legal aid organizations (30% of problems), paid private attorneys (29%), and
social or human services organizations (24%). They go to volunteer attorneys 11% of the
time and to disability service providers 10% of the time. Finally, low-income Americans
reach out for help through legal hotlines for 8% of their civil legal problems.
As Figure 5 shows, when people get help from legal professionals, they are most likely to
receive this help in the form of legal advice. Two in five (40%) problems receiving some
sort of professional legal help are addressed with legal advice. People report receiving
assistance filling out legal documents or forms for 21% of these problems, being
represented by a legal professional in court for 20% of them, and getting help negotiating
a legal case for 14% of them.
48%
Children & Custody
39%
Wills & Estates
SB-3
31%
Veterans’ Issues
SB-4
31%
Family
31%
Disability
21%
Income Maintenance
19%
Homeownership
SB-5
19%
Employment
18%
Consumer & Finance
17%
Rental Housing
11%
Health
8%
Education
Figure 4: Civil Legal Problems for which Professional Legal Help Is Sought
33
Percent of issue-related problems for which professional legal help is sought
Base sizes vary.
Section 3: Seeking Legal Help
The legal services that people receive vary for at least two reasons. Of course, different
types of problems require different types of help and to varying degrees. The help people
receive also varies according to what resources might be available to help them address
their specific civil legal needs. In the next section, discussion about the work of LSC
grantees sheds light on how limited resources means that some cases receive more
attention from legal aid professionals than others.
40%
21%
20%
14%
9%
5%
Figure 5: Types of Services Received from Legal Professionals
34
Percent of problems for which legal professional
help is sought
0 10 20 30 40 50
Michaela | New Jersey | Veterans | Michaela is a lifelong New Jersey resident, always living there except
for six years serving in the armed forces in the 1990s. While stationed in Alabama, she divorced, but a name change
was not included in the divorce. As a result, when she returned to New Jersey after her service ended, she was
compelled to obtain a driver’s license using her married name. Michaela used her maiden name in all other matters,
causing issues in the various aspects of her life that involve identification (e.g., finances, utilities, leases, etc.). A
legal aid attorney represented Michaela in a name change, permitting her to resume use of her maiden name and to
once and for all clarify her identification in all aspects of her life.
Got legal advice
Got assistance filling out legal documents or forms
Was represented by a legal professional in court
A legal professional helped negotiate a legal case
Referred to legal information online
Other kind of legal help
Source: LSC Client Success Stories.
32 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
33The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
Section 3: Seeking Legal Help
When people do not seek professional legal help, they often turn to other
resources.
Low-income Americans do not seek professional legal help for 78% of the civil legal
problems they face in a given year. When someone does not seek such help, they turn to
other resources about half of the time (for 54% of problems for which professional legal
help is not sought). They speak with others who are not legal professionals (commonly
friends and family members) for 33% of these problems, search for information online
for 13% of these problems, or take both of these actions for 8% of these problems.
When people search for information online, they often search for legal information about
procedures to resolve a specific civil legal problem, legal rights on specific issues, or how
to get legal assistance.
35
Many people do not seek legal help because they think they can handle
their problems on their own or because they do not know where to turn
for help.
Combining the survey results on seeking professional legal help with those on searching
for legal information online, we find that low-income Americans do not seek either type
of legal help for 72% of the civil legal problems they face in a given year. Their reasons
for not seeking either type of legal help or information are varied. See Figure 6. The most
common reason is that they decide to deal with the problem on their own. This is cited
24% of the time. This is consistent with previous studies that find that many people are
inclined to believe they can take care of their civil legal problems on their own.
36
The
next most common type of reason relates to not knowing where to look for help or what
resources might be available. People cite this type of reason 22% of the time.
Not seeing their problem as a “legal” problem is another major barrier to
seeking legal help.
We know from other studies related to the justice gap that a major reason people do not
seek legal help is because they do not perceive their civil legal problems to be legal.
37
We
find that low-income Americans cite this reason for one in five (20%) civil legal problems
where no legal help was sought. This is also consistent with the findings above showing
that people are more likely to seek professional legal help for issues that are more plainly
legal in nature like custody issues and wills, and less likely to do so for problems like health
and finances, which are not as obviously legal.
34 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
Section 3: Seeking Legal Help
Other reasons people give for not seeking legal help are being concerned about the
cost of seeking such help (14%), not having time (13%), and being afraid to pursue legal
action (12%). See Figure 6.
Percent of problems for which no legal help or info is sought
Decided to just deal with it without help
Didn’t know where to look
Wasn’t sure if it was a legal issue
Worried about the cost
Haven’t had time
Afraid to pursue legal action
Other reason
0 10 20 30 40 50
24%
22%
20%
14%
13%
12%
12%
Figure 6: Reasons for Not Seeking Legal Help
38
Views of the justice system do not seem to influence whether or not one
seeks legal help.
The survey asked respondents the following three questions to assess their perceptions
of the civil legal system:
• To what extent do you think people like you have the ability to use the courts to
protect yourself and your family or to enforce your rights?
• To what extent do you think people like you are treated fairly in the civil legal system?
• To what extent do you think the civil legal system can help people like you solve
important problems such as those you identified in this survey?
35The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
Section 3: Seeking Legal Help
We compared people offering more positive views with those offering more negative
views to see if there are any noteworthy differences in their patterns of seeking legal help.
More specifically, we compared people to see if those holding certain perceptions would
be more or less likely than others to seek legal help for at least one of their civil legal
problems explored in depth in the survey. They are not. Low-income Americans who view
the system in a more negative light are no more or less likely to seek professional legal
help or to search for legal information online. See Figure 7.
Percent of people with a given perception that seek legal help for at least one problem
All/Most of the time Some of the time Rarely/Not at all
Figure 7: Seeking Legal Help by Perceptions of the Civil Legal System
39
Can use the courts to
protect self/family and
enforce rights
Treated fairly in the civil
legal system
Civil legal system can
help solve important
problems
50
40
30
20
10
0
30%
32%
26%
31%
26%
29%
30%
30%
26%
36 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
Section 3: Seeking Legal Help
Persons with Disabilities (n=1986 problems)
Survivors of Domestic Violence/Sexual Assault
(n=621 problems)
Seniors (n=306 problems)
Veterans (n=511 problems)
Rural Residents (n=558 problems)
Seek professional legal help for
20%
of problems
Top reasons for not seeking legal help: decided to deal
with problem on own (25%), didn’t know where to
look (21%), and wasn’t sure if legal (19%)
Seek professional legal help for
23%
of problems
Top reasons for not seeking legal help: wasn’t sure if
legal (31%), didn’t know where to look (23%), and
decided to deal with problem on own (20%)
Seek professional legal help for
19%
of problems]
Top reasons for not seeking legal help: didn’t know
where to look (22%), decided to deal with problem
on own (21%), and didn’t have time (19%)
Seek professional legal help for
21%
of problems
Top reasons for not seeking legal help: didn’t know
where to look (29%), decided to deal with problem
on own (25%), and wasn’t sure if legal (18%)
Seek professional legal help for
22%
of problems
Top reasons for not seeking legal help: decided to
deal with problem on own (26%), wasn’t sure if
legal (21%), and didn’t know where to look (18%)
Parents/Guardians of Children under 18
(n=1758 problems)
Seek professional legal help for
21%
of problems
Top reasons for not seeking legal help: decided to deal
with problem on own (25%), didn’t know where to look
(21%), and wasn’t sure if legal (20%)
| Special Focus | Rates of seeking professional legal help do not vary much across the groups highlighted in
this report.
40
All seek such help for only about one in five of their civil legal problems. For most, the two most common reasons
for not seeking legal help are not knowing where to look and deciding to deal with the problem on their own. The only exception
is recent survivors of domestic violence or sexual assault, who cite not being sure if a problem was a legal issue 31% of the time.
Also noteworthy is that seniors are more likely than others to cite not having time as a reason for not seeking legal help.
65+
Section X: Low-Income Americans’ Experience with Civil Legal Problems
37The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
| Section 4 |
Reports from the Field
The previous section explored the demand side of the justice
gap. This section explores the supply side. Using data from
LSC’s 2017 Intake Census, this section presents findings on the
assistance low-income Americans receive after seeking help from an
LSC-funded legal aid organization. One key finding is that, given the
number of low-income Americans who are expected to seek help in
2017, LSC grantees will not be able to provide adequate legal assistance
for an estimated 1 million civil legal problems due to a lack of resources.
38 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
Section 4: Reports from the Field
More than half of the problems receiving legal case services from
LSC-funded legal aid programs involve family and housing issues.
As a general rule, to be eligible for LSC-funded legal assistance, an individual must have
a family income at or below 125% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), and their civil legal
problem cannot be related to issues for which use of LSC funds is prohibited, like abortion,
euthanasia or class-action litigation.
43
We will refer to civil legal problems that meet these
criteria as “eligible problems” or “eligible civil legal problems” throughout this section.
Not all income-eligible individuals with a legal problem receive the legal assistance they
need. To maximize the use of available legal aid resources, LSC grantees develop guidelines
on the types of legal problems they prioritize for service. LSC requires grantees to conduct
comprehensive legal needs assessments in their communities on a regular basis to inform
these guidelines. Some income-eligible individuals have problems that fall within these
priority guidelines, but still do not receive the assistance they need for other reasons. We
examine these instances throughout this section, trying to assess the extent to which they
are shaped by a lack of resources.
The types of problems for which LSC grantees provided case services in 2016 are
summarized in Figure 8.
44
Family problems, including child custody, as well as housing
problems like evictions and rental repairs, form the bulk of LSC grantees’ casework.
The reader will notice that the distribution across the problem categories reported by
LSC grantees is different from the distribution of problems experienced by low-income
Americans that was presented in Section 2 (see Figure 2). This is due in large part to the
types of problems LSC grantees prioritize as well as the fact that people are more likely to
seek legal help for certain types of problems, as was discussed in Section 3.
About the Data
Most of the findings in this section are based on analysis of the data collected during LSC’s 2017 Intake Census.
For six weeks in March and April 2017, LSC grantees tracked the individuals who contacted them seeking
assistance with civil legal problems. Individuals coming to LSC grantees with problems were grouped into three
main categories: unable to serve, able to serve to some extent (but not fully), and able to serve fully.
41
The
resulting data permit estimates of the rates at which people seeking legal help for a problem from LSC-funded
legal aid organizations receive the legal assistance necessary to meet their needs. The unit of analysis in this
section is problems.
42
39The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
Section 4: Reports from the Field
Figure 8: Civil Legal Case Services by Problem Category, 2016
45,46
Percent of total case services provided by LSC grantees in 2016
Family
Housing
Income Maintenance
Consumer & Finance
Miscellaneous
Health
Employment
Juvenile
Individual Rights
Education
26%
12%
10%
6%
4%
4%
3%
3%
1%
31%
(including Veterans’ benefits)
(including Wills & Estates)
0 10 20 30 40 50
(including custody)
In 2017, low-income Americans are expected to approach LSC-funded
legal aid organizations for help with more than 1.7 million civil legal
problems.
During LSC’s six-week-long Intake Census, low-income Americans approached grantees
for assistance to address nearly 196,000 eligible civil legal problems. Based on this, we
project that low-income Americans will approach LSC grantees with an estimated 1.7
million eligible civil legal problems in 2017.
Our projection likely underestimates the number of eligible problems that will be brought
to LSC grantees. While the vast majority (89%) of reporting grantees said their intake
during this six-week period was typical in terms of the number and type of problems
brought to them, 12 grantees reported they processed fewer problems than normal due
to staff shortages, office closures, or other reasons. Three other grantees reported it
was atypical in other ways, including one who says they experienced more traffic than
usual. Additionally, one grantee (out of a 133 total grantees) did not report any data for
40 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
Section 4: Reports from the Field
the Intake Census and, thus, the problems they processed during the six-week period
are not accounted for in the sample counts nor in the 12-month projections. Finally, LSC
grantees counted individuals (not problems or case services) during the Intake Census,
and it is possible that one person could seek assistance for more than one civil legal
problem.
It is important to keep in mind that these estimated 1.7 million civil legal problems
represent less than 6% of the total civil legal problems faced by low-income Americans.
Recall from Section 3 that low-income Americans seek professional legal help for
only 20% of their civil legal programs, and they turn to legal aid organizations for only
30% of the problems for which they seek such help. Taken together, this means they
seek professional legal help from legal aid organizations 6% of the time. Note that this
corresponds to help sought from the set of all legal aid organizations in the U.S., not just
those funded by LSC.
Low-income Americans likely seek the help of legal aid organizations for
even more problems that do not get processed for intake.
The estimated 1.7 million problems low-income Americans will bring to LSC grantees
in 2017 is more accurately described as the number of problems that LSC grantees will
process for intake in 2017. There are likely other problems that people consider bringing
or try to bring to an LSC grantee, but are unable to get to or through the point of intake.
These situations are not captured in the Intake Census data. It is difficult to know how
often this happens, but because legal aid organizations can only offer intake for so many
hours and in so many ways, it is bound to happen. The types and availability of various
intake modes varies across LSC grantees, depending on the resources they have at their
disposal (e.g., staffing, technology, and other resources).
There are three primary intake modes currently offered by LSC-funded legal aid
organizations:
• In-person: This a face-to-face interview that takes place at the legal aid program’s
office. This can happen on a walk-in basis or as the result of an appointment.
• Phone: This involves conducting the screening process over the phone. This often
involves a mix of going through an automated process (e.g., “press two if you…”) and
speaking with a legal aid staff member directly.
• Online: This method involves submitting interview information via an online form or
web application.
Donna | New York | Domestic Violence | Donna, a rural resident of New York State, suffered from severe
mental health problems resulting from domestic violence and the sexual abuse of one of her children. She did not
feel comfortable speaking about her situation before contacting an LSC grantee, who helped her address various
civil legal problems she was facing. Specifically, the legal aid attorney helped Donna avoid a workfare sanction by
the local Department of Social Services and won her SSI appeal, permanently removing her from the county welfare
rolls. Donna received over $40,000 in retroactive SSI benefits, which has allowed her to establish her own home and
provide a college education for her child.
Section 4: Reports from the Field
Most legal aid organizations have set hours for intake, which are scheduled times when new
requests for assistance are received. Intake hours can vary for a variety of reasons, including
program resources and community needs. Online options are the exception; these screening
tools are usually available continuously and monitored regularly by staff during business hours.
When grantees submitted their Intake Census data to LSC, they also indicated how many hours
per week they offered various intake modes (on average). Figure 9 presents the percent of LSC
grantees that offer various intake modes for at least 30 hours per week and that offer online
intake. Sixty-five percent of grantees offer in-person intake on a walk-in basis for at least 30
hours per week; 53% offer in-person intake by appointment for at least 30 hours per week; and
55% offer intake by phone for at least 30 hours per week. About half (51%) of LSC grantees offer
online modes of intake.
41The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
Figure 9: Intake Modes Offered by LSC-funded Legal Aid Programs
47
Percent of grantees offering intake modes for
at least 30 hours/week
Percent offering
online intake
Phone In-person,
walk-in
In-person,
appointment
100
80
60
40
20
0
55%
53%
51%
65%
42 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
Section 4: Reports from the Field
Low-income Americans receive some kind of legal help for 59% of the
eligible civil legal problems they bring to LSC-funded organizations.
In 2017, LSC grantees will provide some form of legal assistance for an estimated 999,600,
or 59%, of eligible problems presented by low-income Americans. The type and extent
of help vary, depending on the requirements and complexity of a given problem and the
resources available. From the Intake Census data, we can group eligible problems for which
LSC grantees provide assistance into three main categories: “fully served”; “served, but not
fully”; and “served, but extent of service pending” (or, for short, “served, extent pending”). This
information is summarized in Table 1 along with corresponding 12-month projections for 2017.
Problems fully served
LSC grantees reported they will able to “fully serve” at least 28% of all the eligible
problems low-income Americans presented during the intake census (see Table 1 above).
In these instances, people receive legal assistance expected to fully address their legal
needs. This can take the form of providing legal information or self-help resources (12%
of fully-served problems) or of “limited services” like providing legal advice, speaking with
third parties on behalf of a client, or helping to prepare legal documents (45% of fully-
served problems).
49
Another 43% of fully-served problems receive “extended service,”
which includes cases in which a legal aid attorney represents a client in negotiated
settlements (with or without litigation), in administrative agency hearings or other
administrative processes, or in a court proceeding.
50
See Figure 10.
Table 1: Distribution of Eligible Problems by Extent of Service
48
Total eligible problems
Total served to some extent
Served fully
Served, but not fully
Served, but extent of service is pending
Not served
Total problems not served or not served fully
(excluding pending)
Total problems not served or not served fully
(including pending)
100%
59%
28%
21%
10%
41%
62%
72%
195,776
115,024
54,657
41,371
18,996
80,752
122,123
141,119
1,701,400
999,600
475,000
359,500
165,100
701,800
1,061,300
1,226,400
Percent of total
eligible problems
Total from 2017
Intake Census
sample
Total 12-month
projection
43The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
Section 4: Reports from the Field
Problems served, but not fully
Of all the eligible problems low-income Americans presented to LSC grantees during
the intake census, at least 21% will receive some legal assistance, but not to the extent
necessary to fully address the clients’ legal needs (see Table 1 above). Help for people
with these “served, not fully” problems takes the form of providing legal information or
self-help resources (36% of problems served, but not fully) and “limited service” like
providing legal advice, speaking with third parties on behalf of a client, or help preparing
legal documents (64% of problems served, but not fully).
51
See Figure 10.
Problems served, but extent of service pending
At the conclusion of the Intake Census, LSC grantees had not yet determined the level of
legal assistance for 10% of eligible problems presented to them.
After seeking legal assistance from LSC grantees, low-income Americans
will not receive any legal assistance for an estimated 700,000 eligible
problems in 2017.
Forty-one percent of the eligible problems low-income Americans presented to LSC
grantees during the intake census will not receive any legal help from grantees. This
corresponds to slightly more than an estimated 700,000 problems for 2017. There are
many reasons why an individual with an eligible civil legal problem might not receive
legal assistance. More than half (54%) of these problems are not served because they
fall outside of the guidelines grantees use to prioritize eligible problems due to limited
resources. About one in four (24%) eligible problems falls within grantees’ priorities, but
is not served due to insufficient resources. A small portion (6%) are not served because
Figure 10: Types of Legal Assistance Provided
52
Percent of eligible problems
served fully
Percent of eligible problems
served, but not fully
Legal information or
self-help resources
Limited
services
Extended
service
Legal information or
self-help resources
Limited
services
100
80
60
40
20
0
12%
45%
43%
36%
64%
44 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
Section 4: Reports from the Field
the grantee has identified a conflict of interest. For example, the organization might
already be representing another party to the dispute. Finally, 16% do not receive legal
assistance for other reasons, often involving situations where contact with a client is lost.
Low-income Americans will receive insufficient or no legal help for an
estimated 1.1 million eligible problems this year alone.
Estimating the number of eligible problems for which low-income Americans will receive
insufficient legal help (“underserved”) or no legal help (“unserved”) requires making some
assumptions. Because the extent of legal assistance provided for the problems currently
categorized as “served, but extent pending” is not known, we cannot provide a simple estimate
for the percent of eligible problems that receive insufficient or no legal assistance. However,
by making some assumptions about the extent to which these problems will be served, we
can arrive at a range of estimates. We find that between 62% and 72% of all eligible problems
brought to LSC grantees either receive no legal assistance or receive a level of assistance that
is not expected to fully address the client’s legal needs. That corresponds to an estimated 1.1 to
1.2 million eligible civil legal problems expected to go unserved or underserved in 2017 alone.
The 62% figure underestimates the problems unserved or underserved. It treats “served,
but extent pending” problems as being “served fully.” Conversely, the 72% figure is an
overestimation, treating “served, but extent pending” problems as “served, but not fully.” In
reality, the rate will fall somewhere in between. See Table 1 above.
A lack of available resources accounts for the vast majority of eligible civil
legal problems that go unserved or underserved.
Civil legal problems that are unserved or underserved due to limited resources account for
the vast majority of the problems that do not receive the assistance necessary to fully address
the client’s needs. Table 2 presents two estimates of the number of eligible problems that
go unserved or underserved for this reason. Overall, we estimate that insufficient resources
account for between 85% and 97% of all unserved or underserved eligible problems,
representing 53% to 70% of all eligible problems. This corresponds to an estimated range of
about 900,000 to 1.2 million problems for which the assistance necessary to meet the legal
needs of low-income Americans cannot be provided due to a lack of resources. See Table 2.
The upper-bound estimate of 97% is likely an overestimation. Only problems that involve
a conflict of interest between parties are not included, corresponding to 3% of unserved
or underserved problems. In this case, we assume the worst-case scenario and count all
of the “served, but extent pending” problems as served but not to the full extent necessary
and attribute this to a lack of resources.
45The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
Section 4: Reports from the Field
In 2107, an estimated 1 million civil legal problems brought
to LSC grantees by low-income Americans will not receive
the legal assistance required to fully address their needs
due to a lack of available resources.
Additionally, this 97% estimate treats eligible problems that go unserved due to “other
reasons” as unserved due to a lack of resources, because many of the underlying
reasons could potentially be resolved or avoided if there were more resources. For
example, these reasons often involve situations where legal aid staff lose touch with
clients. If there were more resources to facilitate follow-up by legal aid staff or to help
clients with transportation to and from meetings, for example, many of these problems
would receive the legal assistance needed. To create a simple upper-bound estimate, we
assume all of these problems would have received the necessary legal assistance had
more resources been available.
The lower-bound estimate of 85% is likely an underestimation. In this case, we assume
that all of the “served, but extent pending” problems will be served to the full extent
necessary and that none of the problems that are unserved for “other reasons” could
have been successfully served had more resources been available.
See Appendix B4 for a detailed explanation of how these estimates were calculated.
!
Table 2: Estimates of Eligible Problems that are Unserved or Underserved Due to a Lack of Resources
53
Intake Census sample count
12-month projection count
Percent of all eligible problems
Percent of all eligible problems that are
unserved or underserved
104, 364
907,000
53%
85%
136,278
1,184,300
70%
97%
Lower-bound Upper-bound
Section X: Low-Income Americans’ Experience with Civil Legal Problems
46 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
Special Focus
This section presents key findings for the six groups of
low-income Americans highlighted throughout this report.
These groups include seniors, persons with disabilities, veterans,
parents and guardians of children under 18, rural residents, and
survivors of domestic violence or sexual assualt.
| Special Focus |
47The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
Special Focus
Seniors
65+
Helen | Pennsylvania | Income Maintenance | Helen is a 68-year-old widow whose only income is a
monthly Social Security Administration (SSA) widow’s benefit. When she sought help from an LSC grantee, she was
scared, vulnerable and overwhelmed. She had just received a letter from the SSA indicating they had overpaid her
$47,000 and notifying her that they would stop her monthly benefit payment until the debt was repaid. The legal aid
attorney found that the overpayment was caused by fraudulent conduct by Helen’s late ex-husband that occurred
after their divorce and long after they had separated. The attorney helped Helen resolve the situation, and she
continued to receive her SSA widow’s benefit.
Source: LSC Client Success Stories.
a
U.S. Bureau of the Census, American Community Survey, 2015 1-year estimates, S1703: Selected Characteristics Of People At Specified Levels Of Poverty In The Past
12 Months. Senior is defined as ages 65+.
b
2017 Justice Gap Measurement Survey.
c
2016 Legal Services Corporation Grantee Activity Report.
Key findings related to the civil legal needs and experiences of low-income seniors include the
following:
• Approximately 6.4 million seniors have family incomes below 125% of FPL.
a
• 56% of low-income seniors’ households experienced a civil legal problem in the past year, including 10% that
have experienced 6+ problems.
b
• LSC-funded legal aid organizations provided legal services to low-income Americans aged 60+ years old for
about 135,000 cases in 2016.
c
• The most common types of civil legal problems for low-income seniors’ households include: health (33%),
consumer and finance (23%), income maintenance (13%), and wills and estates (12%).
b
• Low-income seniors seek professional legal help for 19% of their civil legal problems, receiving inadequate or no
professional legal help for an estimated 87% of all their problems.
b
• The top reasons low-income seniors give for not seeking legal help include the following:
b
• Not knowing where to look or what resources were available (22%)
• Deciding to deal with problem on their own (21%)
• Not having time (19%)
• Wasn’t sure if it was a legal issue (17%)
Low-income seniors received inadequate or no professional legal help for
87%
of their civil legal problems in 2017.
48 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
Special Focus
Rural Residents
Charles | California | Housing | Charles and his wife care for their elderly parents and grandchildren in their
home in rural California. They first experienced financial problems when Charles’s employer reduced his work hours.
Then he became ill from a life-threatening disease. He and his wife asked their lending bank for help. When the bank
did not respond to their modification request, they sought help from an LSC grantee. The legal aid staff succeeded in
obtaining a modification that lowered their monthly mortgage payment and established a fixed payment for principal
and interest.
Source: LSC Client Success Stories.
a
U.S. Bureau of the Census, American Community Survey, 2015 1-year estimates, S1703: Selected Characteristics Of People At Specified Levels Of Poverty In The Past
12 Months. Senior is defined as ages 65+.
b
2017 Justice Gap Measurement Survey.
Key findings related to the civil legal needs and experiences of low-income, rural residents
include the following:
• Approximately 10 million rural residents have family incomes below 125% of FPL.
a
• 75% of low-income rural households experienced a civil legal problem in the past year, including 23% that have
experienced 6+ problems.
b
• The most common types of civil legal problems among low-income, rural households include: health (43%),
consumer and finance (40%), and employment (25%).
b
• Low-income rural residents seek professional legal help for 22% of their civil legal problems, receiving
inadequate or no professional legal help for an estimated 86% of all their problems.
b
• The top reasons low-income, rural residents give for not seeking legal help include the following:
b
• Deciding to deal with problem on their own (26%)
• Wasn’t sure if it was a legal issue (21%)
• Not knowing where to look or what resources were available (18%)
Low-income rural residents received inadequate or no professional legal help
for
86%
of their civil legal problems in 2017.
49The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
Special Focus
Veterans
Bud | West Virginia | Veteran Benefits | Bud is a 68 year-old Vietnam veteran who had been receiving his
Marine pension benefits for the past eight years. After a government clerk keyed in the wrong social security number, his
benefits were suspended. Moreover, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) deemed the money he had been receiving
as overpayment and threatened action against him. Bud tried to correct his record, but he was having a difficult time and,
meanwhile, his savings were being depleted. An attorney with an LSC grantee’s Veteran’s Assistance Program worked
with the Social Security office, the VA, and the Internal Revenue Service, and was eventually able to establish Bud’s
identity, win reinstatement of his pension, and resolve the false overpayment issue.
Source: LSC Client Success Stories.
a
U.S. Bureau of the Census, American Community Survey, 2015 1-year estimates, S1703: Selected Characteristics Of People At Specified Levels Of Poverty In The Past
12 Months. Senior is defined as ages 65+.
b
2017 Justice Gap Measurement Survey.
c
2016 Legal Services Corporation Grantee Activity Report.
Key findings related to the civil legal needs and experiences of low-income veterans and other
military personnel include the following:
• More than 1.7 million veterans have family incomes below 125% of FPL.
a
• 71% of low-income households with veterans or other military personnel experienced a civil legal problem in the
past year, including 21% that have experienced 6+ problems.
b
• LSC-funded legal aid organizations provided legal services to low-income households with veterans for about
41,000 cases in 2016.
c
• The most common types of civil legal problems for low-income households with veterans and other military
personnel include: health (38%), consumer and finance (36%), and employment (20%).
b
• Low-income veterans and other military personnel seek professional legal help for 21% of their civil legal
problems, receiving inadequate or no professional legal help for an estimated 88% of all their problems.
b
• The top reasons low-income veterans and other military personnel give for not seeking legal help include the
following:
b
• Not knowing where to look or what resources were available (29%)
• Deciding to deal with problem on their own (25%)
• Wasn’t sure if it was a legal issue (18%)
Low-income veterans and other military personnel received inadequate or
no professional legal help for
88%
of their civil legal problems in 2017.
50 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
Special Focus
Persons with Disabilities
Elinor | New York | Housing | Elinor has a daughter with a disability who had to crawl four flights of stairs
each day to their apartment. Her daughter spent about 30 minutes sliding down the steps to reach the wheelchair
stashed under the stairwell alcove and more than an hour getting in and out of her building to attend school five
days a week. When there was a vacancy on the ground floor, Elinor sought to move there, but the landlord told them
“transfers” weren’t allowed. Represented by an LSC grantee lawyer, the family was able to acquire the apartment on
the ground floor and maintain their $700 rent for their three-bedroom, rent-controlled apartment.
Source: LSC Client Success Stories.
a
U.S. Bureau of the Census, American Community Survey, 2015 1-year estimates, S1703: Selected Characteristics Of People At Specified Levels Of Poverty In The Past
12 Months.
b
2017 Justice Gap Measurement Survey.
Key findings related to the civil legal needs and experiences of low-income persons with
disabilities include the following:
• More than 11.1 million people with a disability have family incomes below 125% of FPL.
a
• 80% of low-income households with someone with a disability experienced a civil legal problem in the past year,
including 32% that have experienced 6+ problems.
b
• The most common types of civil legal problems among low-income households with someone with a disability
include: health (51%), consumer and finance (44%), income maintenance (28%), and disability (23%).
b
• Low-income persons with a disability seek professional legal help for 20% of their civil legal problems, receiving
inadequate or no professional legal help for an estimated 87% of all their problems.
b
• The top reasons low-income persons with a disability give for not seeking legal help include the following:
b
• Deciding to deal with problem on their own (25%)
• Not knowing where to look or what resources were available (21%)
• Wasn’t sure if it was a legal issue (19%)
Low-income persons with a disability received inadequate or no professional
legal help for
87%
of their civil legal problems in 2017.
51The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
Special Focus
Parents of Children under 18
Patricia | Georgia | Education | Patricia was worried about her 13-year-old daughter, a middle-schooler
diagnosed with leukemia. She was being bullied at school and, because she was often ill or hospitalized, she needed help
with academics and extra time to complete assignments. After speaking with school officials, Patricia did not feel her
concerns were being heard. LSC grantee lawyers worked with the school to develop a special education plan, bringing in
an education specialist from the hospital where her daughter was being treated. An individual education plan (IEP) was
developed, giving Patricia’s daughter the extra support she needed and permission to wear a hat to cover her bald head.
School officials also addressed the bullying, making her time in school safer and more productive.
Source: LSC Client Success Stories.
a
CPS Table Creator, Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement, US Census Bureau, 2016.
https://www.census.gov/cps/data/cpstablecreator.html.
b
2017 Justice Gap Measurement Survey.
Key findings related to the civil legal needs and experiences of low-income parents and
guardians of minor children include the following:
• Approximately 18 million families with related children under 18 have incomes below 125% of FPL.
a
• 80% of low-income households with parents or guardians of minor children experienced a civil legal problem in
the past year, including 35% that have experienced 6+ problems.
b
• Common types of civil legal problems among low-income households with parents or guardians of minor
children include: health (46%), consumer and finance (45%), income maintenance (28%), children and
custody (27%), family (26%), employment (26%), and education (25%).
b
• Low-income parents and guardians of minor children seek professional legal help for 21% of their civil legal
problems, receiving inadequate or no professional legal help for an estimated 87% of all their problems.
b
• The top reasons low-income parents and guardians of minor children give for not seeking legal help include the
following:
b
• Deciding to deal with problem on their own (25%)
• Not knowing where to look or what resources were available (21%)
• Wasn’t sure if it was a legal issue (20%)
Low-income parents and guardians of minor children received inadequate or
no professional legal help for
87%
of their civil legal problems in 2017.
52 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
Special Focus
Survivors of Domestic Violence or Sexual Assault
Frida | Washington | Domestic Violence | Frida, a domestic violence survivor, and her four children,
fled abuse at the hands of her husband. The children were sexually molested by their father, confined to the house,
and repeatedly threatened with weapons. During the subsequent divorce, the husband was granted unsupervised
telephone contact with the children. When one child became suicidal, a legal aid attorney helped Frida secure an order
to stop the phone calls. The grantee was able to secure a lifetime protection order and child support. Frida has since
started her own business, and her children are doing well in therapy.
Source: LSC Client Success Stories.
a
Erika Harrell, Ph.D., and Lynn Langton, Ph.D., BJS Statisticians, Marcus Berzofsky, Dr.P.H., Lance Couzens, and Hope Smiley-McDonald, Ph.D., RTI International,
Household Poverty and Nonfatal Violent Victimization, 2008–2012, Table 2, Rate of violent victimization, by victim–offender relationship and poverty level, 2008–2012,
b
2017 Justice Gap Measurement Survey.
Key findings related to the civil legal needs and experiences of low-income survivors of domestic
violence or sexual assault include the following:
• Rates of intimate partner violence among people with family incomes at or below 100% of FPL are about four
times higher than the rates among people with incomes at or above 400% of FPL.
a
• 97% of low-income households with survivors of recent domestic violence or sexual assault (DV/SA)
experienced a civil legal problem in the past year (in addition to problems related to DV/SA), including 67% that
have experienced 6+ problems.
b
• Common types of civil legal problems among low-income households with recent survivors include: consumer
and finance (66%), health (62%), employment (46%), rental housing (45%), income maintenance (44%), and
family (40%) (in addition to DV/SA-related problems).
b
• Low-income survivors seek professional legal help for 23% of their civil legal problems, receiving inadequate or
no professional legal help for an estimated 86% of all their problems.
b
• The top reasons low-income survivors give for not seeking legal help include the following:
b
• Wasn’t sure if it was a legal issue (31%)
• Not knowing where to look or what resources were available (23%)
• Deciding to deal with problem on their own (20%)
Low-income survivors of recent domestic violence or sexual assault received
inadequate or no professional legal help for
86%
of their civil legal
problems in 2017.
53The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
1`
This is how the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) defines the justice gap and is consistent with the way
others in the literature on the topic use the term.
2
New York State Courts Access to Justice Program, “Report to the Chief Judge and the Chief Administrative
Judge of the State of New York,” 2015. www.nycourts.gov/ip/nya2j/pdfs/NYA2J_2015report.pdf.
3
James J. Sandman, “Rethinking Access to Justice”, Hawaii Access to Justice Conference, June 20, 2014.
http://www.lsc.gov/rethinking-access-justice-james-j-sandman-hawaii-access-justice-conference.
4
Legal Services Corporation, Documenting the Justice Gap In America: The Current Unmet Civil Legal Needs
of Low-Income Americans. September 2005 (Updated June 2007 and September 2009). http://www.lsc.
gov/sites/default/files/LSC/images/justicegap.pdf; and http://www.lsc.gov/sites/default/files/LSC/pdfs/
documenting_the_justice_gap_in_america_2009.pdf.
5
American Bar Association. 1994. Legal Needs and Civil Justice: A Survey of Americans, Major Findings from
the Comprehensive Legal Needs Study. http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/
legal_aid_indigent_defendants/downloads/legalneedstudy.authcheckdam.pdf.
6
See, for example: Documenting the Justice Gap in Michigan, State Bar of Michigan in Collaboration with
Michigan’s Legal Services Corporation Funded Providers, Spring 2012 (Updated Spring 2015). http://www.
michbar.org/file/programs/atj/pdfs/JusticeGap.pdf;
Florida Commission on Access to Civil Justice Interim Report, October 1, 2015. http://devlamp2.flabar.org/
wordpress/flaccesstojustice/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/10/CivilLegalNeedsstudy_October2015_
V21_Final10_14_15.pdf.
7
Washington State Supreme Court’s Civil Legal Needs Study Update Committee. 2015. 2015 Washington
State Civil Legal Needs Study Update. http://ocla.wa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/
CivilLegalNeedsStudy_October2015_V21_Final10_14_15.pdf.
8
Unfortunately, given the nature of the data analyzed in Section 4, it was not possible to present findings
specific to these groups in that section.
9
These figures include only problems for which LSC funds may be used to help an individual based on the
person’s income and the type of problem they are facing. LSC eligibility is discussed in further detail in
Section 4.
10
See 45 CFR part 1611.3 (October 2015 Edition): https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2015-title45-vol4/
pdf/CFR-2015-title45-vol4-subtitleB-chapXVI.pdf. In limited circumstances, an LSC grantee can provide
legal assistance to individual up to an income of 200% of the federal poverty level: 45 CFR Part 1611.5.
11
See Appendix B1 for details on the data used and estimates made.
12
U.S. Federal Poverty Guidelines used to Determine Financial Eligibility for Certain Federal Programs, Office
of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
January 2017. https://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty-guidelines. Note that these guidelines are estimated by
household size for households in the 48 contiguous states, with higher guidelines issued for households in
Hawaii and Alaska, where Americans face higher prices on average for basic household necessities.
13
U.S. Bureau of the Census, American Community Survey, 2015 1-year estimates, Table S1701, Poverty
Status in the Past 12 Months. The base for this estimate is the entire population for whom poverty status is
determined.
14
U.S. Bureau of the Census, American Community Survey, 2015 1-year estimates, S1703: Selected
Characteristics Of People At Specified Levels Of Poverty In The Past 12 Months. The base for this estimate is
the entire population for whom poverty status is determined.
| Endnotes |
54 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
Endnotes
15
U.S. Bureau of the Census, American Community Survey, 2015 1-year estimates, S1703: Selected
Characteristics Of People At Specified Levels Of Poverty In The Past 12 Months. The base for this estimate is
the total number of people for whom poverty status is determined in the state.
16
This map is based on the map presented in the Legal Services Corporation FY2018 Budget Request,
available at http://www.lsc.gov/media-center/publications/fiscal-year-2018-budget-request. The data are
from the U.S. Census Bureau, 2015 American Community Survey 1-year estimates, Table S1701, Poverty
Status in the Past 12 Months.
17
U.S. Bureau of the Census, American Community Survey, 2015 1-year estimates, S1703: Selected
Characteristics Of People At Specified Levels Of Poverty In The Past 12 Months. The base for this estimate is
the total number of people for whom poverty status is determined in the U.S who are age 25+.
18
Charn, Jeanne. “Celebrating the ‘Null’ Finding: Evidence-Based Strategies for Improving Access to Legal
Services,” 122 The Yale Law Journal, 2206-2234 (2013).
19
U.S. Bureau of the Census, American Community Survey, 2015 1-year estimates, S1703: Selected
Characteristics Of People At Specified Levels Of Poverty In The Past 12 Months. The base for this estimate is
the estimated number of people below 125% FPL.
20
Greene, Sara Sternberg. “Race, Class, and Access to Civil Justice,” 101 Iowa Law Review 1234-1322
(2016).
21
U.S. Bureau of the Census, American Community Survey, 2015 1-year estimates, S1703: Selected
Characteristics Of People At Specified Levels Of Poverty In The Past 12 Months. Senior is defined as ages 65+.
22
American Community Survey Single Year Estimates, 2015. Table C17024: Age by Ratio of Income to Poverty
Level in the Past 12 Months. Geography: United States – Rural. The ACS defines rural as ‘Territory, population
and housing units not classified as urban. ‘Rural’ classification cuts across other hierarchies and can be in
metropolitan or non-metropolitan areas.” See https://factfinder.census.gov/help/en/index.htm#rural.htm.
23
Calculated from U.S. Bureau of the Census, American Community Survey 2015 1-Year Estimates, Table
S1701: Poverty Status In The Past 12 Months and Table S2101: Veteran Status. To compute this estimate, the
ratio of the estimated number of persons with incomes less than 125% of FPL to Persons with incomes less
than 100% FPL was applied to the total number of veterans below 100% FPL to estimate the number of
veterans below 125% FPL.
24
U.S. Bureau of the Census, American Community Survey, 2015 1-year estimates, S1703: Selected
Characteristics Of People At Specified Levels Of Poverty In The Past 12 Months.
25
CPS Table Creator, Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement, US Census Bureau,
2016. https://www.census.gov/cps/data/cpstablecreator.html.
26
Erika Harrell, Ph.D., and Lynn Langton, Ph.D., BJS Statisticians, Marcus Berzofsky, Dr.P.H., Lance Couzens,
and Hope Smiley-McDonald, Ph.D., RTI International, Household Poverty and Nonfatal Violent Victimization,
2008–2012, Table 2, Rate of violent victimization, by victim–offender relationship and poverty level, 2008–
2012, see https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/hpnvv0812.pdf.
27
2017 Justice Gap Measurement Survey, 2017, computed variables indicating whether households and
individuals experienced at least one civil legal problem in each category in the past 12 months, based on
several questionnaire items.
28
Base sizes vary and can be referenced in the supporting Justice Gap Appendix B2 Tables at www.lsc.gov/
justicegap2017.
55The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
Endnotes
29
Rebecca L. Sandefur, “Accessing Justice in the Contemporary United States. Findings from the Community
Needs and Services Study,” American Bar Foundation and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
August 2014; Megan Sandel, Mark Hansen, Robert Kahn, Ellen Lawton, Edward Paul, Victoria Parker,
Samantha Morton, and Barry Zuckerman, “Medical-Legal Partnerships: Transforming Primary Care by
Addressing the Legal Needs of Needs of Vulnerable Populations,” 29 Health Affairs 9, 1697-1705.
30
2017 Justice Gap Measurement Survey, 2017, computed variable indicating the severity of each civil legal
problem that was personally experienced, based on responses to questionnaire items asking: How much did
the following issue(s) personally affect you? Response options: not at all, slightly, moderately, very much,
and severely.
SB-1
Note small base size of n=56 for personally experienced problems relating to veterans’ issues; this statistic
has a large standard error. See Justice Gap Appendix B2 Tables at www.lsc.gov/justicegap2017.
SB-2
Note small base size of n=84 for personally experienced problems relating to homeownership; this statistic
has a large standard error. See Justice Gap Appendix B2
31
At certain points in the survey, some respondents were able to indicate that they had sought help but did not
receive it. Unfortunately, not all respondents who sought help had the opportunity to explicitly indicate this
so it is not possible to give an estimate of how often this occurs.
32
This figure includes problems for which respondents indicated (1) they sought no help of any kind, (2) they
sought some sort of assistance from others and/or information online, but they did not seek the help of a
legal professional, (3) they sought help from a legal professional, but were unable to get it, or (4) they sought
and received help from a legal professional, but felt that they did not or would not be able to get as much
legal help with the issue as they felt they needed.
SB-3
Note small base size of n=69 for problems relating to wills and estates; this statistic has a large standard
error. See Justice Gap Appendix B3 Tables at www.lsc.gov/justicegap2017.
33
2017 Justice Gap Measurement Survey, 2017, computed variable summarizing legal help-seeking behavior
for civil legal issues, based on multiple questionnaire responses.
SB-4
Note small base size of n=32 for problems relating to veterans’ issues; this statistic has a large standard
error. See Justice Gap Appendix B3 Tables at www.lsc.gov/justicegap2017.
SB-5
Note small base size of n=45 for problems relating to issues of homeownership; this statistic has a large
standard error. See Justice Gap Appendix B3 Tables at www.lsc.gov/justicegap2017.
34
2017 Justice Gap Measurement Survey, question 30: What kind of legal help [have you received so far / did
you receive]? (multiple response).
35
Due to limited survey data on online searches for legal information, we cannot present detailed findings on
this topic.
36
Sarah Sternberg Greene, “Race, Class, and Access to Civil Justice,” 101 Iowa Law Review, 1263-1321 (2016);
Rebecca L. Sandefur, “Accessing Justice in the Contemporary United States. Findings from the Community
Needs and Services Study,” American Bar Foundation and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
August 2014.
37
Rebecca L. Sandefur, “Bridging the Gap. Rethinking Outreach for Greater Access to Justice,” University of
Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review 4, 721-740, 2015.
38
2017 Justice Gap Measurement Survey, questions 35 and 37: Why [haven’t you talked / didn’t you talk] to a
legal professional for this issue? Why [haven’t you talked / didn’t you] talk to anyone else for help or looked
for information online about this issue? (multiple response).
56 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
Endnotes
39
2017 Justice Gap Measurement Survey, questions 41, 42, and 43: To what extent do you think people like you
have the ability to use the courts to protect yourself and your family or enforce your rights?, To what extent
do you think people like you are treated fairly in the civil legal system?, To what extent do you think the civil
legal system can help people like you solve important problems such as those you identified in this survey?
40
We present the total number of problems examined in this section of the survey for each group listed. Please
see the Justice Gap Appendix B3 Tables at www.lsc.gov/justicegap2017 for the number of corresponding
respondents as well as other supporting statistical information on these findings.
41
See Appendix B4 for more information about LSC’s 2017 Intake Census and the resulting data analysis.
42
The Intake Census tracked the number of individuals, not the number of problems, but it is fair to assume
that the number of individuals approaching LSC grantees is very close to the number of problems presented
to them in this six-week period of time. It is possible that an individual had more than one problem, but this is
not likely a common occurrence given the short span of time. For the remainder of this section, we assume
that the number of individuals and the number of problems tracked during the Intake Census are equivalent,
referring to the number of problems for the purposes of analysis. Our estimates are therefore conservative:
to the extent individuals and problems are not equivalent, we are underestimating the number of legal
problems for which low-income Americans will seek help from LSC grantees in 2017.
43
For more information on the rules governing the use of LSC funds, see: http://www.lsc.gov/lsc-restrictions-
and-funding-sources.
44
Case services incorporate eligible problems for which LSC grantees provide legal advice and/or
representation. Case services do not include problems for which LSC grantees provide pro se assistance if
only legal information or referrals to resources is provided. Case services correspond with “cases closed”
and “cases open” in the Grant Activity Reports submitted to LSC.
45
Grant Activity Reports, Calendar Years 2014-2016, Legal Service Corporation. Note that the proportions
calculated are based on both open and closed cases in a given calendar year.
46
Note that the distribution of case services presented for 2016 is consistent with for other recent years,
including 2013, 2014, and 2015.
47
2017 LSC Intake Census. Note, LSC grantees also regularly engage in outreach intake. The numbers for this
are not represented in Figure 9.
48
LSC 2017 Intake Census. See Appendix B4 for details on calculations.
49
The problems coded as fully served with “limited services” include cases that are expected to be fully
resolved with the legal assistance provided and have been closed with the following LSC Case Service Report
(CSR) Closure categories: A “Counsel and Advice”, B “Limited Action”, and L “Extensive Service (not resulting
in settlement or court or administrative action). See the LSC 2017 Case Service Report (CSR) Handbook for
more information on these definitions: http://www.lsc.gov/csr-handbook-2017.
50
The problems coded as fully served with “extended services” include cases that have been closed with the
following LSC Case Service Report (CSR) Closure categories: F “Negotiated Settlement without Litigation”,
G “Negotiated Settlement with Litigation”, H Administrative Agency Decision, and I “Court Decision.” See LSC
2017 CSR Handbook referenced above for more information: http://www.lsc.gov/csr-handbook-2017.
51
The types of cases counted as receiving more involved assistance like providing legal advice, speaking
with third parties on behalf of a client, or help preparing legal documents include cases that have been
closed with the following LSC CSR Closure categories AND are expected to be fully resolved with the legal
assistance provided: A “Counsel and Advice”, B “Limited Action”, and L “Extensive Service (not resulting in
settlement or court or administrative action). See the LSC 2017 Case Service Report (CSR) Handbook for
more information on these definitions: http://www.lsc.gov/csr-handbook-2017.
52
LSC 2017 Intake Census. See Appendix B4 for details.
53
LSC 2017 Intake Census. See Appendix B4 for details on calculations.
57The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
| Appendices |
Appendix A: 2017 Justice Gap Measurement Survey Methodology
Readers are encouraged to visit www.lsc.gov/justicegap2017, where they can find the full technical survey
report, the questionnaire, and the codebook corresponding to the 2017 Justice Gap Measurement Survey. In
this appendix, we present some important methodological information about the survey, including information
about sampling, survey structure, survey administration, statistical weighting, and the demographic profile of
the sample. Additional methodology details can be found in the full technical survey report.
Sampling
For this study, LSC was specifically interested in surveying approximately 2,000 adults living in households
with incomes at or below 125% of the federal poverty threshold. Identifying and interviewing a large number
of respondents meeting this criterion via many traditional survey methods would be logistically challenging
and costly due to the amount of outreach and screening that would be necessary. To efficiently identify
individuals residing in such households and interview them in a cost-effective manner, LSC contracted with
NORC to conduct the survey using AmeriSpeak®, which is NORC’s probability-based panel designed to
be representative of the entire U.S. household population. The AmeriSpeak Panel is designed to provide a
nationally representative sample of US households for public opinion research. AmeriSpeak was built using
a rigorous sampling and recruitment methodology based on probability sampling techniques employed by
federally sponsored research.
There are three principal design elements responsible for the scientific integrity of AmeriSpeak. First, it is
probability-based, meaning that randomly selected households are sampled with a known, non-zero
probability of selection from a documented sample frame. (Almost all other commercially available household
panels are based on non-probability, convenience sampling.) AmeriSpeak’s sample source is the NORC
National Frame, which is an area probability sample designed to provide at least 97% sample coverage of the
U.S. population, and allows for increased sample coverage for rural and low-income households. The NORC
National Frame is the sample source for landmark NORC surveys such as the General Social Survey and the
Survey of Consumer Finance.
Second, AmeriSpeak has the highest American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) response
rate – a key measure of sample quality – among commercially available household panels. The industry-
leading response rate for AmeriSpeak is attributable to the extraordinary contact and gaining cooperation
techniques used by AmeriSpeak in recruiting randomly sampled US households. The gaining-cooperation
techniques rely on traditional methodologies employed in federally sponsored research for decades.
Households selected for AmeriSpeak are contacted in English and Spanish, by a series of U.S. mailings and
by NORC telephone and field interviewers. Use of field interviewers for in-person recruitment (i.e., face-to-
face interviewing) enhances response rates and representativeness for young adults, lower socio-economic
households, and non-internet households.
Third, AmeriSpeak in its design facilitates the representation of US households that are commonly under-
represented in online panel research. While many panels conduct surveys via the web only, AmeriSpeak
recruits households using a combination of telephone and face-to-face methodologies in order to assure that
non-internet, “net averse” households, and persons with low literacy levels are represented in AmeriSpeak.
Moreover, after joining AmeriSpeak, panelists have the option to participate in the survey program via web or
58 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
Appendices
telephone (speaking with NORC’s professional telephone interviewers). Because AmeriSpeak conducts its
surveys in both the telephone and web modes of data collection, AmeriSpeak provides data collections for
panelists whether they are comfortable or uncomfortable with web-based surveys.
While NORC keeps recently updated income information on file for all AmeriSpeak panelists, it was important
to verify each household’s income level relative to the federal poverty guidelines for this study. NORC drew a
sample of roughly 10,500 adults age 18 and older who had previously indicated that their household earnings
were at or below 200% of the federal poverty level, with the plan to screen these panelists and select only those
with current household incomes at or below 125% of the federal poverty threshold as eligible to complete the
survey. The 2016 federal poverty guidelines set by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services were
used to determine income thresholds for screening households of various sizes.
a
Survey Structure
The household screening portion of the survey consisted of only two questions, which assessed current
household size and income level. Following the screening questions, eligible respondents proceeded to a
section containing questions about household characteristics. This was followed by the largest portion of the
main survey instrument, which contained questions assessing the prevalence of various types of civil legal
needs. LSC and NORC worked to refine a list of common civil legal issues to include in this portion of the survey,
arriving at a final list of 88 distinct issues. These issues were divided into 12 categories.
Some of the categories of civil legal problems were issues that might affect any low-income family, including
employment, health, consumer and finance, income maintenance, family and custodial issues, as well as
assistance with wills and estates. Other categories of problems only applied to certain subpopulations –
survivors of domestic violence, homeowners, renters, households with children, individuals with disabilities,
and veterans, so the survey was structured in a way that used earlier answers about household characteristics
to selectively present questions related to those characteristics. For example, survey respondents were asked
about their living situations, and those who indicated that they owned their homes were presented with a
section covering civil legal problems experienced by homeowners, while those who indicated that their homes
were rented were presented with a battery of questions about issues with rental housing instead. In addition,
only those respondents who indicated that someone in the household was in school (or had children in school)
received the section about civil legal issues related to education, while others did not. Finally, sections about
disability issues and veterans’ issues were only presented to respondents who indicated that at least one
member of their household had a disability, or were military personnel or veterans, respectively.
Within each section of the survey assessing the prevalence of civil legal problems, respondents were presented
with a number of specific issues and asked to indicate for each one whether they personally had experienced
the issue and whether someone else in their household had experienced the issue within the last 12 months.
Each of these questions allowed for multiple selections, so it was possible for respondents to indicate that the
issue had been experienced both by themselves and by others. There was also an option to indicate that no one
in the household had experienced the problem in the last 12 months.
To delve further into the problems affecting individual respondents, the survey dynamically presented
questions about problem severity at the conclusion of each battery of problems. For each issue that
a
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 2016. https://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty-guidelines
59The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
Appendices
respondents indicated they had personally experienced within the last 12 months, they were asked to rate the
effect the problem had on them on a five-point scale from “not at all” to “severe.”
Following the problem prevalence and severity sections, respondents who had reported that they were
personally affected by at least one civil legal issue were presented with a section related to help-seeking
behaviors. The first item in this section was a multi-part question covering each relevant civil legal problem
and asking respondents to indicate whether they had talked to someone about the problem, had looked for
information online, both talked to someone and gone online, or not engaged in either of these behaviors.
This question covered all personally experienced problems, except for those that were rated as affecting
respondents “not at all”.
Next, the survey included detailed questions about help-seeking behaviors for a subset of the problems
reported. As to not overburden respondents who had reported a large number of issues, the survey randomly
selected a maximum of four problems for follow-up questions. Each respondent looped through this section
up to four times, depending on the number of issues he or she had reported earlier in the survey. The detailed
questions included items about the current state of each problem, who (if anyone) the respondent had talked
to about the problem (including legal professionals), the type of information sought online (if any), the type of
legal assistance received (if any), and reasons why help was not sought (if appropriate). The final section of the
survey included three questions assessing perceptions about the fairness and efficacy of the civil legal system.
Survey Administration
A total of 2,028 respondents completed the survey between the dates of January 5, and February 10, 2017,
including 1,736 who completed via the web and 292 who completed via telephone. Interviews were completed
in both English and Spanish, depending on respondent preference. The screener completion rate for this study
was 38.5%. The incidence or eligibility rate was 56.4%. The interview completion rate was 89.1%. The final
response rate was 11.2%, based on the American Association for Public Opinion Research Response Rate 3
Method.
Statistical Weighting
Statistical weights for the study-eligible respondents were calculated using panel base sampling weights to
start. Panel base sampling weights for all sampled housing units are computed as the inverse of probability of
selection from the NORC National Sample Frame (the frame used to sample housing units for AmeriSpeak)
or address-based sample. The sample design and recruitment protocol for the AmeriSpeak Panel involves
subsampling of initial non-respondent housing units. These subsampled non-respondent housing units are
selected for an in-person follow up. The subsample of housing units that are selected for the nonresponse
follow up have their panel base sampling weights inflated by the inverse of the subsampling rate. The base
sampling weights are further adjusted to account for unknown eligibility and nonresponse among eligible
housing units. The household-level nonresponse adjusted weights are then post-stratified to external counts
for number of households obtained from the Current Population Survey. Then, these household-level post-
stratified weights are assigned to each eligible adult in every recruited household. Furthermore, a person-level
nonresponse adjustment accounts for nonresponding adults within a recruited household.
60 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
Appendices
Finally, panel weights are raked to external population totals associated with age, sex, education, race/ethnicity,
housing tenure, telephone status, and Census division. The external population totals are obtained from the
Current Population Survey.
Study-specific base sampling weights are derived using a combination of the final panel weight and the
probability of selection associated with the sampled panel member. Since not all sampled panel members
respond to the screener interview, an adjustment is needed to account for and adjust for screener non-
respondents. This adjustment decreases potential nonresponse bias associated with sampled panel members
who did not complete the screener interview for the study.
Furthermore, among eligible sampled panel members (as identified via the survey screener questions), not all
complete the survey interview for the study. Thus, the screener nonresponse adjusted weights for the study
are adjusted via a raking ratio method to 125% of the federal poverty line population totals associated with the
following socio-demographic characteristics: age, sex, education, race/ethnicity, and Census division.
Population totals for the 125% of the federal poverty line sample for the Justice Gap Study were obtained
using the screener nonresponse adjusted weight for all eligible respondents from the screener question(s). At
the final stage of weighting, any extreme weights were trimmed based on a criterion of minimizing the mean
squared error associated with key survey estimates, and then, weights re-raked to the same population totals.
The overall margin of sampling error was +/- 3.27 percentage points for a 50% statistic, adjusted for design
effect resulting from the complex sample design.
A more detailed description of AmeriSpeak panel recruitment and management methodology, and additional
information about the Justice Gap Study methodology, are included in Appendices A and B, respectively.
Sample Demographic Profile
The respondents who completed the survey represent households in the United States with incomes at or
below 125% of the federal poverty level, based on the 2016 federal poverty guidelines set by the Department
of Health and Human Services. These households include a range of incomes depending on household size,
from $14,850 for a single person household to $61,520 for households of 10 or more. For a family of four, the
threshold was $30,380. About a quarter (24%) of this group have annual household incomes of $9,999 or less,
while 19% have incomes between $10,000 and $14,999, 31% have incomes between $15,000 and $24,999,
and 26% have incomes of $25,000 or more.
Roughly one third (34%) of this group are under the age of 35, and the remainder are evenly split between the
age groups of 35 to 49 (23%), 50 to 64 (22%), and 65 and older (21%). There are more women than men in
low-income households (58% vs. 42%). In terms of racial and ethnic identification, just under half (46%) are
white, a quarter are Hispanic, 21% are African-American, and 8% fall into some other category or identify as
multi-racial. Eighty-five percent live within a metropolitan area, while 15% live outside of metropolitan areas.
Most have at least a high school education, but few have a college degree. Twenty-eight percent have not
finished high school, while 35% have a high school diploma or equivalent, 29% have completed some college,
6% have a bachelor’s degree, and 2% have a graduate degree. Over a third (35%) are currently employed, but
61The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
Appendices
nearly two-thirds (65%) are not working, including 17% who are retired, 13% who are looking for work, and 21%
who are not working due to disabilities.
Over a third (34%) reported that the home they live in is owned, and roughly the same number (36%) said they
live in a rented home without public assistance, while 17% live in a home that is rented with public assistance,
and 13% report having some other housing arrangement. Roughly a quarter are married, and three-quarters
are not. Nearly 3 in 10 (28%) live alone, and about half live in households with at least two other members. Four
in 10 of these households include parents of children or teenagers under the age of 18 in their households. Six
in 10 have internet access at home, at work, or at some other location, while the remaining 4 in 10 only have
internet access on a mobile phone or have no access at all.
Appendix B1: Section 1 Data Sources and Methodology
Most of the descriptive data on the population below 125% FPL come from the American Community Survey
(ACS) 2015 Single Year Estimates. Most figures are based on data from table S1703: Selected Characteristics
of People at Specified Levels of Poverty in the Past 12 Months. At times additional tables were used to provide
estimates and are noted in endnotes. To estimate the number of Americans under 125% FPL for each of the
groups presented in the report, we used the percent of the population that is estimated to be under 125%
FPL and the total number of people estimated to comprise each group. Figures for the estimated number
of veterans under 125% FPL are not readily available and had to be calculated. We estimated this figure
by calculating ratio of the number of people below 100% FPL and the number of people below 125% FPL
nationwide. We applied this ratio to the total number of veterans living below 100% FPL in order to estimate the
total number of veterans living below 125% FPL nationwide.
Appendix Table B1.1:
Percent of state populations below 125% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL).
Data Source: United States Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2015 1-year Estimates, Table S1703:
Selected Characteristics of People at Specified Levels of Poverty in the Past 12 Months, accessed June 6, 2017.
State Total Population Percent of Population below
125% FPL
Alabama 4,736,333 23.8%
Alaska 720,765 13.9%
Arizona 6,671,705 22.3%
Arkansas 2,887,337 25.3
California 38,398,057 20.2%
Colorado 5,339,618 15.2%
Connecticut 3,480,932 13.7%
Delaware 920,355 15.9%
District of Columbia 638,027 21.4%
Florida 19,850,054 21.1%
Georgia 9,943,145 22.1%
Hawaii 1,394,121 13.2%
62 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
Appendices
State Total Population Percent of Population below
125% FPL
Idaho 1,622,116 19.9%
Illinois 12,559,422 17.8 %
Indiana 6,417,418 19.0%
Iowa 3,021,823 16.3%
Kansas 2,830,943 17.3%
Kentucky 4,290,022 23.3%
Louisiana 4,541,688 24.8%
Maine 1,292,996 1 7.8%
Maryland 5,863,290 12.7%
Massachusetts 6,558,724 14.8%
Michigan 9,698,396 20.2%
Minnesota 5,366,594 14.0%
Mississippi 2,896,579 28.3%
Missouri 5,901,967 19.4%
Montana 1,007,727 19.1%
Nebraska 1,842,682 16.6%
Nevada 2,850,472 19.7%
New Hampshire 1,288,060 10.7%
New Jersey 8,781,575 14.3%
New Mexico 2,044,431 26.0%
New York 19,283,776 19.8%
North Carolina 9,790,073 21.8%
North Dakota 731,354 14.4%
Ohio 11,295,340 19.3%
Oklahoma 3,795,764 21.5%
Oregon 3,952,077 20.0%
Pennsylvania 12,385,716 17.0%
Rhode Island 1,016,343 18.0%
South Carolina 4,750,144 21.7%
South Dakota 829,644 18.4%
Tennessee 6,440,381 22.1%
Tex a s 26,846,203 21.1%
Utah 2,947,861 15.2%
Vermont 600,659 15.0%
Virginia 8,131,328 14.8%
Washington 7,036,725 16.0%
West Virginia 1,793,096 23.2%
Wisconsin 5,620,223 16.1%
Wyoming 572,319 15.0%
63The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
Appendices
Appendix B2: Section 2 Data Sources and Methodology
The findings presented in Section 2, “Experience with Civil Legal Problems,” come exclusively from the 2017
Justice Gap Measurement Survey. Respondents were presented with an extensive list of specific problems that
usually raise civil legal issues. They were asked whether they had experienced any of these problems in the past
12 months and whether anyone else in their household had experienced any of them.
Readers are encouraged to visit www.lsc.gov/justicegap2017, where they can find a document that
supplements this appendix called, “Justice Gap Appendix B2 Tables.” This document presents a number of
tables with additional information on the survey results presented in Section 2 of this report. For a given set of
survey results, the tables present the calculated proportion (or “percent”) along with the standard error of the
percent and the unweighted base for the corresponding variable.
On the same landing page (www.lsc.gov/justicegap2017), readers can find the full technical survey report, the
questionnaire, and the codebook corresponding to the 2017 Justice Gap Measurement Survey.
Appendix B3: Section 3 Data Sources and Methodology
The findings presented in Section 3, “Seeking Legal Help,” come exclusively from the 2017 Justice Gap
Measurement Survey. More specifically, this section presents findings from a part of the survey that asked
detailed questions about a subset of the civil legal problems reported by respondents. For each respondent, the
survey randomly selected up to four personally-experienced problems affecting them more than “not at all.”
Due to the low incidence of problems relating to veterans’ issues and disabilities, these problems were always
selected if they met the other criteria. Respondents answered questions about what, if any, help they sought to
address each of these problems. The primary unit of analysis in this section is problems.
Readers are encouraged to visit www.lsc.gov/justicegap2017, where they can find a document that
supplements this appendix called, “Justice Gap Appendix B3 Tables.” This document provides additional
information on the survey results presented in Section 3 of this report. For a given set of survey results, the
table presents the calculated proportion (or “percent”) along with the standard error of the percent and
the unweighted base for the corresponding variable. Because the primary unit of analysis in this section is
problems, the bases represent a number of problems (with the exception of Appendix Table B3.6, where
individuals are the unit of analysis). For reference, we have also included the (unweighted) number of
respondents corresponding to those problems.
On the same landing page (www.lsc.gov/justicegap2017), readers can find the full technical survey report, the
questionnaire, and the codebook corresponding to the 2017 Justice Gap Measurement Survey.
Appendix B4: Section 4 Data Sources and Methodology
Most of the findings presented in Section 4, “Reports from the Field,” are based on data collected during the
Legal Services Corporation’s (LSC) 2017 Intake Census. Additional data used in that section come from LSC’s
2016 Grantee Activity Report. This appendix provides more information about both of these data sources as
well as details about the assumptions underlying estimates presented in Section 4.
64 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
Appendices
The Legal Services Corporation 2017 Intake Census
Data Collection
As with LSC’s two prior justice gap studies, LSC asked its grantees to conduct an Intake Census by documenting
the number of individuals who approached LSC grantees with legal needs that could not be addressed because of
insufficient resources. The 2017 Intake Census instrument has more categories than the two previous instruments
to yield a more granular analysis of the reasons why an individual may not receive services from a grantee. LSC
recognizes that this process is imperfect and will not capture all of the unmet need, which is why LSC pursued the
national survey with NORC using the AmeriSpeak Panel in addition to conducting the Intake Census.
From March 6, 2017 to April 14, 2017, LSC grantees tracked and collected data about those individuals who
approached their program with a legal problem. The Intake Census Instrument has three main data collection
categories: (1) Unable to Serve, (2) Unable to Serve Fully, and (3) Fully Served.
Unable to Serve. An individual may fall into the “Unable to Serve” category for a number reasons, including
being financially ineligible for services (with a household income that is too high) or being a non-citizen. Other
reasons for placing an individual in this category are that the person’s problem was not the type of legal issue the
grantee handles on a regular basis (e.g., commercial transactions) or the grantee has insufficient resources to
assist the individual with their problem.
The five subcategories within “Unable to Serve” are:
• Unable to Serve – Ineligible
• Unable to Serve – Conflict of Interest
• Unable to Serve – Outside of Program Priorities or Case Acceptance Guidelines
• Unable to Serve – Insufficient Resources
• Unable to Serve – Other Reasons
Unable to Serve Fully. An individual may be placed in the “Unable to Serve Fully” category if the individual
received some form of legal information or legal advice to help address their problem. In this category, the
grantee assesses if the case would have been appropriate for full representation if the grantee had sufficient
funding. The legal information or legal advice the individual received in not expected to fully resolve the
individual’s case.
The two subcategories within “Unable to Serve Fully” are:
• Unable to Serve Fully – Insufficient Resources –Provision of Legal Information or Pro Se Resources
• Unable to Serve Fully – Insufficient Resources – Provided Limited Service or Closing Code “L”
Fully Served. An individual is categorized as “Fully Served” if the grantee has sufficient resources to fully
address the individual’s problem at an appropriate level given the facts and nature of the case. The legal
assistance provided in these cases can vary from providing brief legal advice, or help filling out a form, to full legal
representation in court.
The three subcategories within “Fully Served” are:
• Fully Served –Provision of Legal Information or Pro Se Resources
• Fully Served – Provision of Limited Services or Closing Code L
• Fully Served – Extended Service Case Accepted
65The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans |
Appendices
Finally, there is an additional category called “Pending,” which includes individuals that will receive legal help of
some kind, but for whom program management had not made a final decision on the level of legal assistance
they will be able to provide before data collection for the Intake Census had ended. Had data collection
continued for a longer period of time, such individuals would most likely have been coded into one of the
following subcategories:
• Unable to Serve Fully – Insufficient Resources – Provided Limited Service or Closing Code “L”
• Fully Served – Provision of Limited Services or Closing Code L
• Fully Served – Extended Service Case Accepted
Additional information about the 2017 Intake Census, including the detailed definitions of each of these
categories and the data collection instructions given to grantees, can be found at www.lsc.gov/justicegap2017.
A total of 132 LSC grantees (out of 133) submitted 2017 Intake Census data. When submitting their data,
grantees were also asked to provide the average number of hours they offer intake to potential clients in various
modes (e.g., by phone, online, in-person appointments, walk-in) on a weekly basis. They were also asked to
indicate the extent to which the six-week Intake Census period was typical and, where applicable, to elaborate
about why intake might have been atypical. Fifteen of the total 132 grantees indicated that this period was
atypical for them. Twelve of the 15 who said it was atypical, say they processed fewer people for intake than
usual because of holidays, staff shortages, or other reasons.
Data Analysis
Unit of Analysis. It is important to note that while the Intake Census tracked the number of individuals, the
analysis in Section 4 uses problems as the unit of analysis. It is fair to assume that the number of individuals
approaching LSC grantees is very close to the number of problems presented to them in this six-week period
of time. It is possible that an individual had more than one problem, but this is not likely a common occurrence
given the short span of time covered during data collection. Throughout Section 4, we assume that the number
of individuals and the number of problems tracked during the Intake Census are equivalent, referring to the
number of problems for the purposes of analysis. The estimates in this report are therefore conservative: to the
extent individuals and problems are not equivalent, we are underestimating the number of legal problems for
which low-income Americans will seek help from LSC grantees in 2017.
12-month Projections. Throughout this section, we provide 12-month projection estimates for the total
number of problems low-income Americans will present to LSC grantees in 2017 and subsets of those
problems. These projections were calculated by multiplying the relevant Intake Census figure by 8.6905 (52.14
weeks divided by 6 weeks) and rounding to the nearest hundred.
Estimating the Number of Problems Unserved and Underserved Due to Lack of Resources. In Section 4,
we present a range of estimates for the number of problems presented to LSC grantees that do not receive any
legal help (“unserved”) or do not receive enough legal help to fully address the client’s needs (“underserved”).
In that section, we describe the assumptions we make to produce these estimates and the reasoning behind
them. Here, we lay out these assumptions in terms of the original data collection coding scheme.
To produce the upper-bound estimate, we make the following assumptions:
• All observations coded as “Pending” would eventually be coded as “Unable to Serve Fully” and the reason
they would not be “Fully Served” is for reasons related to a lack of resources.
66 | The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans
Appendices
• All observations coded in the following categories were “Unable to Serve” for reasons related to a lack of
resources:
• Unable to Serve – Outside of Program Priorities or Case Acceptance Guidelines
• Unable to Serve – Insufficient Resources
• Unable to Serve – Other Reasons
• All observations coded in the following subcategories were “Unable to Serve Fully” for reasons related to a
lack of resources:
• Unable to Serve Fully – Insufficient Resources –Provision of Legal Information or Pro Se Resources
• Unable to Serve Fully – Insufficient Resources – Provided Limited Service or Closing Code “L”
To produce the lower-bound estimate, we make the following assumptions:
• All observations coded as “Pending” would eventually be coded as “Served Fully.”
• All observations coded in the following categories were “Unable to Serve” for reasons related to a lack of
resources:
• Unable to Serve – Outside of Program Priorities or Case Acceptance Guidelines
• Unable to Serve – Insufficient Resources
• None of the observations coded as “Unable to Serve – Other Reasons” would have been served if more
resources were available.
• All observations coded in the following subcategories were “Unable to Serve Fully” for reasons related to a
lack of resources:
• Unable to Serve Fully – Insufficient Resources –Provision of Legal Information or Pro Se Resources
• Unable to Serve Fully – Insufficient Resources – Provided Limited Service or Closing Code “L”
Legal Service Corporation Grantee Activity Report
Section 4 presents the distribution of the types of problems for which LSC grantees provided case services in
2016. The data for this come from the Legal Services Corporation Grantee Activity Report (GAR) data. GAR is
the largest and longest running data collection effort on civil legal aid in the United States. Dating back to 1976,
LSC has recorded and reported data from grantees in a variety of ways. Information from the Grantee Activity
Reports is summarized on an annual basis by LSC staff for public reports and for internal use by management
and program staff. The data are also publicly available through the Grantee Data Page on the LSC site and as a
full dataset at LCS’s DATA.GOV site: https://catalog.data.gov/organization/legal-services-corporation.
The data are gathered annually from all grantees on a calendar year basis. Grantees use automated reporting
forms that are accessible via the Internet. Grantees report on the conduct of their Basic Field, Agricultural
Worker and Native American grant programs to LSC on a calendar year basis, using automated reporting forms
that are accessible via the Internet. The reports are collected in January and February of each year.
More information about the GAR can be found at http://www.lsc.gov/grant-activity-reports.
Board of Directors
John G. Levi
Chairman
Martha Minow
Vice Chair
Robert J. Grey Jr.
Harry J.F. Korrell III
Victor B. Maddox
Laurie Mikva
Fr. Pius Pietrzyk, O.P.
Julie A. Reiskin
Gloria Valencia-Weber
Officers
James J. Sandman
President
Carol A. Bergman
Vice President for Government Relations
and Public Aairs
Ronald Flagg
General Counsel, Corporate Secretary
and Vice President for Legal Aairs
Lynn A. Jennings
Vice President for Grants Management
David L. Richardson
Treasurer and Comptroller
For more information
Carl Rauscher, Director of Communications
and Media Relations
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3333 K Street NW, Washington, DC 20007
202.295.1615
www.lsc.gov
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