After the sections on prevalence and severity of problems, respondents who reported being personally affected by at least one civil law issue were given a section on help-seeking behaviour. The first point in this section was a multi-part question that covered each relevant civil law issue and asked respondents to indicate whether they had told someone about the issue, searched for information online, talked to someone and gone online, or had none of these behaviors. This question included all personally experienced problems, with the exception of those classified as “not at all affected”. As a result, we have seen a dramatic decline in the number of ambulatory care cases managed, and community care specialists are leaving the profession in droves. It is outrageous that community care advocates are leaving simply because they cannot afford the job. There is an urgent need to invest more in rapid legal support. The opening of an inquiry organised by MPs in Westminster into the viability of legal aid has called for urgent government investment in the underfunded legal aid system. Another question of concern is the extent to which local and national authorities are the producers of legal problems. It is increasingly clear that it is government in all its forms that creates legal problems and makes them more costly to resolve.
These problems often appear to be simply due to poor administrative quality and could be addressed at the strategic level with sufficient foresight and resources. In this case, legal aid could be seen as part of the solution rather than the problem of legal aid cases, and the costs incurred in these cases are important drivers for improving the administration of justice across government. Interesting work in Nottingham suggests that such an orientation may lead to an overhaul of public services in a way that reduces costs for the “defendant” government agency and lowers the cost of the “plaintiff`s legal aid budget” (through lower demand and/or unit costs). A broader examination of how litigation assistance could be used to generate systems thinking and drive such change is one of the few ways in the current system to reduce costs and improve client welfare. Years of failure of social services have led to their behaviour becoming violent. She did not have mental illness, but she was separated. Housed far from home, she was overmedicated, illegally handcuffed, treated like an animal – staff knocked on a door on one side of her cell and pushed food through a hatch on the other. Her desperate parents were not allowed into the room and communicated with her through a small window. After two years of inhumane treatment, she began to harm herself, hallucinate and have seizures. The hospital denied access to a medical specialist, citing security concerns. Outraged, her father posted on social media what happened to his daughter.
When exposed, the local authority sought a gag order alleging that the father was abusing his daughter`s right to privacy. 39 2017 Justice Sector Gap Measurement Survey, Questions 41, 42 and 43: To what extent do you think people like you have the opportunity to go to court to protect themselves and your family or to assert your rights?, To what extent do you think people like you are treated fairly in the civil justice system?, To what extent do you think the civil justice system can help people like you to solve important problems like these? Did you find in this survey? Charles | California | Living | Charles and his wife care for their elderly parents and grandchildren in their rural California home. They had their first financial problems when Charles` employer reduced his working hours. Then he fell ill with a life-threatening illness. He and his wife sought help from their lending bank. When the bank did not respond to her request for change, she sought the assistance of an LSC fellow. Legal aid staff were able to secure a change that reduced their monthly mortgage payment and established a fixed payment for principal and interest. Prior to the Justice Committee`s inquiry, the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (Cilex) also warned that “legal aid services are now on the brink of collapse and only the immediate resumption of funding can save them.” The 2017 Justice Sector Gap Measurement Survey assessed the prevalence of different types of issues that typically raise “litigant civil law issues,” that is, issues that could be resolved through civil law actions. This is consistent with the usual practice in the literature to measure the prevalence of civil law issues.
While an in-depth interview with a lawyer would show that some of the issues identified by respondents are not truly justiciable, most will be. To facilitate reporting and to be consistent with the general literature, we refer to these issues as “civil law issues” in this and subsequent sections. Generally, to be eligible for LSC-funded legal aid, a person must have a family income equal to or less than 125% of the federal poverty line (FPL), and their civil law problem cannot be related to matters for which the use of LSC funds is prohibited, such as abortion, euthanasia or class actions.43 We will discuss civil law issues that meet these criteria. referred to in this section as “Eligible Problems” or “Eligible Civil Law Problems”. Low-income Americans do not seek professional legal recourse for 78 percent of the civil law issues they face in a given year. If a person does not seek this help, they turn to other resources about half the time (for 54% of problems for which professional legal help is not sought). They talk to other non-lawyers (usually friends and family) about 33% of these problems, search online for information on 13% of these problems, or take both steps on 8% of these problems. When people search for information online, they often look for legal information about procedures to resolve a particular civil law issue, legal rights in specific cases, or how to get legal help.35 Donna | | of New York Domestic violence| Donna, a rural resident of New York City, suffered from serious mental health issues stemming from domestic violence and the sexual abuse of one of her children.
She didn`t feel comfortable talking about her situation until she contacted an LSC fellow who helped her resolve various civil law issues she faced. Specifically, attorney Donna helped avoid a workfare sanction by the local social services department and won her SSI appeal, permanently removing her from the county`s welfare lists. Donna received over $40,000 in retroactive SSI benefits, which allowed her to start her own home and provide her child with a college education. Given that standard solutions to our problems seem very unpromising, what alternatives can be proposed? I come back to my original theme: the idea that we need to think more broadly about where the pressure is in the system and the forces that drive up legal costs. 27 The 2017 Justice Sector Gap Measurement Survey calculated variables indicating whether households and individuals had at least one civil law problem in each category in the past 12 months, based on several questions on the questionnaire. As always, if you seek legal advice in a criminal matter, Gallant Law can help you through this difficult time at 03 8374 7657. Next, the survey included detailed questions about help-seeking behaviors for a subset of reported problems. In order not to overburden respondents who had reported a large number of issues, the survey randomly selected up to four questions for follow-up questions.