The Public's Unmet Need for Legal Services & What Law Schools Can Do About It

Civil legal services in the United States are increasingly unaffordable and inaccessible. Although the causes are complex, law schools can help in three ways beyond simply offering free legal clinics staffed by lawyers and students. Law schools can teach the next generation of lawyers more efficient and less expensive ways to deliver legal services, ensure that educational debt does not preclude lawyers from serving people of modest means, and conduct and disseminate research on alternative models for delivering legal services. These strategies will not solve all of the problems that exist, but they hold the promise of meaningfully improving the affordability and accessibility of civil legal services.This essay appears in a special issue of Daedalus on Access to Justice, which “features twenty-four essays that examine the national crisis in civil legal services facing poor and low-income Americans.”