Physicians and Medicare: A Before-After Study of the Effects of Legislation on Attitudes

Abstract

problem across social strata. One informant, himself a successful attorney, was rather contemptuous of the survey. He could not believe that our standardized questions could apply to him since he had such ready access to legal services. Yet, in another section of the interview, this informant said that he had been cheated by a "gypsy" roofing contractor and that he had neither initiated legal action on the matter nor consultated anyone about such a possibility. This respondent was able to combine a comfortable sense of legal efficacy and a rather restricted concept of the limits of legal action. Our findings suggest that those who advocate the extension of legal services through such devices as the neighborhood law office, group legal service, lay advocacy, and the ombudsman could well found their claim on failures beyond the denial of legal services to the poor.