Few Americans realize that legal services in this country are part of a large and expanding international family of such services throughout the world. While the delivery systems in every country are somewhat different, they all share the same goal—to provide access to justice to those who would otherwise be denied it.

This June, a panel of experts called the International Legal Aid Group held its fifth meeting in Cambridge, Mass., as part of Harvard Law School’s Bellow-Sacks Access to Civil Legal Services Project. Those of us who attended the conference walked away struck by the similar challenges facing our legal systems and by how much we can learn from experience, research, and experimentation in countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada, and the Netherlands.

Perhaps the most important difference—one that should cause us embarrassment and inspire us to greater energy—is that legal aid networks in most industrialized countries receive far greater resources than groups in the United States do. (See chart.) Why does Holland’s per capita investment in equal justice more than triple America’s? Why does England spend almost nine times more than we do? These disparities are even greater when corrected for GNP, the percentage of the population living in poverty, and the range of problems that are dealt with in the legal system. The very recently issued Draft European Union Constitution guarantees a right to legal aid for “those who lack sufficient resources insofar as such aid is necessary to ensure effective access to justice.”

We in the United States should be thinking about how other industrialized nations earn the kind of political support that sustains this type of funding commitment. In many industrialized countries, the dominant model for delivery of legal aid is not the salaried nonprofit organization model followed here. Many other countries pay private attorneys on a case-by-case or hourly basis for rendering assistance to low-income clients. And more clients are helped, because the income-eligibility formula is set so that a far higher percentage of the population is eligible than in the United States. 

In most industrialized countries, people are not turned away because of lack of capacity in the system; if you meet the financial and case-type requirements, your costs will be paid by the system. That said, legal aid systems in every country are under pressure to reduce costs; America is not alone in this respect. These pressures can take the form of limiting the substantive areas in which representation will be provided. Most countries are experimenting with “complex mixed models,” the idea that different ways of providing and paying for services will be best for different situations. Indeed, in many countries the dominant private attorney system has been supplemented by a wide variety of staffed programs, clinics, drop-in centers, and specialist programs. 

In England, the Legal Services Commis­sion has recently been requiring regional coordination similar to the Legal Services Corporation’s State Planning Initiative. Fascinatingly, the disputes about the best delivery approach often, quite literally, mirror those in the United States—except the arguments used here to oppose the use of paid, private attorneys (e.g., lack of client loyalty, less independence, lower quality) are used in other countries to oppose the introduction of full-time salaried providers. 

For most of the world, the debate about the optimal delivery system is over—there is international consensus favoring a “complex mixed model” making use, where most appropriate, of private attorneys, salaried staff, and pro bono and non-lawyer advocates. To administer such a complex system cost-effectively takes research. The British have conducted cost comparisons of solicitors with non-lawyers and their research may indicate that non-lawyers are characterized by both higher quality and higher cost. They’ve sent out “model clients” trained to tell a story and report what happened to them, discovering wide variety in quality. They also have engaged in carefully monitored and validated peer file and outcome review. They have performed sophisticated surveys on legal need. They are laying the intellectual basis for cost-effective, quality-driven management of the system as a whole.

n Richard Zorza, Esq., is a freelance access-to-justice consultant focusing on technology, evaluation, and pro se issues. His book, The Self Help Friendly Court (National Center for State Courts, 2002) is available at www.zorza.net.