Access to Justice Series
Publications
1) Making the Case: Legal Services for the Poor (Brennan Center, 1999) Written through the lens of Maryland’s Legal Aid Bureau, this report provides a 360-degree examination of many of the inspiring and infuriating aspects of how our nation does, and does not, provide civil legal assistance to its weakest members.
2) Restricting Legal Services: How Congress Left the Poor with Only Half a Lawyer (Brennan Center, 2000) The second installment of the series, this report documents the importance of restricted forms of lawyering to individuals and communities unable to afford private counsel.
3) An Unsolved Mystery: Why Are Rogue Politicians Trying to Kill a Program That Helps Their Neediest Constituents? (Brennan Center, 2000) An Unsolved Mystery describes the important work that advocates for the Legal Services Corporation are doing in the very states in which some of the strongest critics of legal services hold elected office.
4) Maintaining the Safety Net: Legal Services Lawyers Work Closely With Communities to Help Those in Need (Brennan Center, 2000) Maintaing the Safety Net illuminates the importance of legal services advocates to the larger communities in which their clients live.
5) Bearing Witness: Legal Services Clients Tell Their Stories (Brennan Center, 2000) Bearing Witness presents true narratives of individuals and families whose lives were altered for the better by the tenacious efforts of lawyers working on their behalf in programs funded by our nation’s Legal Services Corporation.
6) Left Out in the Cold: How Clients Are Affected by Restrictions on Their Legal Services Lawyers (Brennan Center, 2000) Left Out in the Cold explores limits on legal services advocacy from the clients’ perspective, illuminating ways in which individuals’ sympathetic problems could be effectively addressed by class-action suits brought by legal services lawyers.
7) Hidden Agendas: What is Really Behind Attacks on Legal Aid Lawyers? (Brennan Center, 2001) Hidden Agendas shines a bright light on the organizations and individuals repsonsible for imposing funding cuts and restrictions on civil legal aid lawyers, particularly on those in programs receiving federal funds from the federally funded Legal Services Corporation.
8) Struggling to Meet the Need: Communities Confront Gap in Federal Legal Aid (Brennan Center, 2003) Struggling to Meet the Need presents a picture of the valiant efforts of state and local governments, as well as private entities, to find ways to support civil legal representation for vulnerable individuals and families despite massive setbacks imposed by Congress in 1996.