The Legal Needs of the Poor as a Starting Point for Systemic Reform

Abstract

The crisis in the provision of legal services to poor people has a long history. As with many longstanding social ills-urban sprawl, disintegrating public schools, poverty in general-the persistence of the problem tends to reduce it to subliminal status, despite angst-laden bar meetings, scholarly articles espousing new and innovative approaches, and cycles of warnings and complaints from poverty lawyers. What is beyond challenge, however, is that the gap between the needs of poor clients and lawyers to meet these needs is large and growing larger.