Perceptions About the Poor, Their Legal Needs, and Legal Services*

Abstract

The Legal Services Corporation is faced with the problem of allocating limited resources in order to meet the legal needs of the poor. It is forced into the dilemma of setting priorities, creating workable regulations to meet an ambiguously defined and elusive concept of legal need. Current regulations require annual reports by legal services programs that are based, in part, on the assessment of eligible clients' needs as expressed by the attitudes of clients, the private bar and other interested persons. These regulations are premised on implicit assumptions relating attitudes, problems experience, legal need, and the relevancy of nonclient perceptions. This study examines these assumptions in an analysis of perceived problems, attitudes toward the allocation of legal services resources, and how these differ between the eligible client community, the private bar and public agencies in a community served by one legal service program in California.