The ABA Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services:
Three Decades of Commitment to Meeting the Legal Needs
of Moderate Income People
by Caroline RothertBoch
The American Bar Association Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal
Services works to “maximize access to legal services and justice for moderate-income
people.” The Committee was formed as an ABA Special Committee in the mid1970s, and over the ensuing decades, has engaged in research, evaluation, and
outreach to identify promising methods of legal service delivery, to advocate policies
to expand service delivery, and to educate the bar and the public about the legal needs
of moderate income households. It is the only nationwide body solely focused on
legal services for those with moderate incomes, who do not qualify for legal services
from federally-funded Legal Services Corporation grantees or other subsidized legal
service providers.
Currently, the Committee seeks to advance its mission through four goals that
were formulated in a series of meetings in 2002 and 2003:
 To research and identify the scope, dynamics and impact of the unmet
legal needs of moderate-income people;

To create an environment in the legal community cognizant of meeting
the legal needs of moderate-income people, and encourage the ABA,
other bar associations and legal groups to actively respond to the unmet
legal needs of this population;

To identify, evaluate and advance innovative and exemplary models
and develop mechanisms designed to meet the legal needs of moderateincome persons within the marketplace of legal commerce; and

To identify policies, rules and laws that have an impact on access to
legal services for those of moderate income; develop and advance those
policies, rules and laws that create improved access to meet legal
needs; and identify, debate and challenge policies, rules and laws that
create barriers to meeting legal needs.
The Committee carries out a number of activities in furtherance of its mission and its
goals, including both participation in many state and local workshops and conferences
on legal service delivery issues affecting middle income people and other efforts to
engage the broader legal community in these issues.
Throughout the decades, the Committee’s activities have evolved, but its focus
on legal services for those of modest means has remained consistent. The
Committee’s earlier emphasis on commissioning research has shifted to a focus on
policy analysis and outreach, and as the practice of law has changed, so has the work
of the Committee. An examination of the Committee’s history reveals how
innovative it has been and continues to be. Several of the issues the Committee
grappled with in the 1980s are still important today, including self-help law,
alternative dispute resolution, and prepaid legal services. The Committee has
distinguished itself by its prescience, its readiness to ask complex and difficult
questions, and its willingness to press the legal community to find better ways to
serve moderate income individuals and families.
The 1980s:
The Committee was formed as a Special Committee in the mid- to late-1970s,
although written records of the Committee’s activities date from 1980.
Legal Clinics
During the early 1980s, the Committee focused its work on the phenomenon of
legal clinics. Privately funded legal clinics gained popularity in the aftermath of the
introduction of advertising into the legal profession, and clinics such as Jacoby &
Myers and Hyatt Legal Services were thought to represent a significant new method
of legal service delivery. To examine legal clinics, the Committee held a national
conference in 1981, tracked the movement throughout the decade and conducted a
survey of legal clinics led by Gary Singsen. The results of the survey, published in
1990, highlighted the methods that made legal clinics feasible: technology, use of
paralegals, convenience office location, advertisement, use of forms, etc.
The Committee continued to track changes in the legal clinic movement,
which had been roughly defined as low cost advertising law firms, throughout the
1980s. However, legal clinics did not flourish, as many in the legal profession
expected, and the Committee turned its attention to new areas. In 1984, the
Committee held a Workshop on Delivery Models, which examined the areas of selfhelp law, legal clinics, pre-paid and lawyer referral services, alternative dispute
resolution, and arbitration, a list strikingly similar to the methods for delivery of legal
services to moderate income individuals used today.
Pro Se Litigation
The legal clinic phenomenon was not sustained, but the crisis in legal service
delivery to moderate income individuals persisted. To continue to combat this crisis,
the Committee broadened its mandate in the 1980s and initiated research into other
legal service delivery mechanisms. The Committee began to concentrate on selfrepresented litigants. In 1983, it published a Model Lawyer’s Guide to Legal
Services, which examined self-help law. Pro se litigation has remained a primary
interest of the committee to the present day.
In 1984, the Committee embarked on a study of self-help litigation in
Maricopa County, Arizona. The study aimed to identify the problems faced by pro se
individuals using self-help materials and problems encountered by court personnel in
processing pro se filings, focusing on divorce and bankruptcy. The study explored
how individuals choose to proceed pro se or with representation and how courts deal t
with pro se litigants. From the study and other research on pro se, the Committee
concluded that: 1) the bar had a role in formulating policy decisions regarding self help litigation; 2) the bar had a role in assuring the quality of self-help materials; and
3) the bar should take measures to alleviate the problems created by the courts by
2
self-help practice. In 1987, the Committee was involved in a self-help law program,
examining the line between self-help and the unauthorized practice of law, and this
continued to be an area of interest for the Committee throughout the years. The
Committee’s work on pro se litigation has been instrumental in the creation of court based self-help centers as well as other resources for individuals representing
themselves.
Other Activities
During the 1980s, the Committee expanded its scope to include other projects
as well. The Committee was active in workshops examining compensated models and
prepaid legal services. Discussions of innovative uses of law schools and law
students in legal service delivery to moderate income individuals occurred throughout
the decade. For example, the Committee floated the idea of creating legal internships
for training newly licensed lawyers, similar to the medical internships for new
physicians. The Committee also discussed the idea of a relocation project to send
lawyers to underserved geographic areas.
In 1989, the Committee was involved in the Conference on Access to Justice
in the 1990s, which brought together more than 100 individuals to discuss the legal
needs of moderate and low income individuals. Among the themes of this conference
were: 1) “consumers are not generally well-informed about available legal services
and how to achieve access to them” and 2) “some degree of de-legalization may be
necessary to assure that legal needs of the public are met.” A key job for the
Committee, noted one member, was to “consider how the legal system resolves
particular kinds of disputes.” Following from this discussion, the Committee
contributed to a Legal Services Gap Study in 1989 to determine areas of the legal
system in which gaps in access to legal services exist.
The 1990s:
In the 1990s, the Committee continued its research and policy work on issues
affecting legal service delivery for moderate income individuals. In 1992, it became a
Standing Committee, solidifying its significant role in the activities of the American
Bar Association.
Pro Se Litigation
In the 1990s, self-help remained at the top of the Committee’s agenda. First,
the Committee began a self-help quality study, examining the basic question of
whether individuals who are represented by attorneys are better or worse off than
individuals who litigate pro se. The study examined the quality factors, both financial
and non-financial, associated with both types of litigants. This study found that pro
se litigants went through the process faster and indicated they would proceed pro se
again if given the choice.
The research also suggested that the primary determinant of individuals’
decision whether to seek representation or not was the complexity of the case, with
financial considerations secondary. This research commissioned and overseen by the
Committee helped create a response on the part of the courts around the country for
the creation of self-help centers.
3
In 1994, the Committee produced a symposium on court-based pro se
programs that brought together court administrators from around the country to
discuss pro se programs. Topics of discussion at the conference included self-help
materials, clinics and seminars, simplified court procedures, the use of courthouse
facilitators, technology, and user-friendly courts. The Committee’s work on self-help
programs in the 1980s and 1990s facilitated the expansion of this significant manner
of providing access to legal services to moderate income individuals.
Alternative Delivery Mechanisms
The Committee also built upon its previous work in other alternative delivery
mechanisms. The use of non-lawyers, as well as the idea of preventive law – “helping
legally ‘healthy’ people stay that way” – was examined in the early part of the decade.
In addition, the Committee tracked innovative techniques including legal hotlines,
form preparation services, unbundling, and other services. In 1993, the Committee
began a database on alternative delivery mechanisms, serving as a significant resource
to the legal community.
Technology
In the 1990s, the Committee became increasingly interested in the role of
technology in legal service delivery. As the Internet radically changed the way in
which individuals obtain information and how attorneys practiced law, the Committee
recognized the role of technology in facilitating access to legal services. The
Committee began harnessing technology to disseminate information, for example,
creating a legal access listserv in 1997.
Ethics 2000
From 1997 to 2002, the Committee provided input into the ABA Ethics 2000
process, which reconsidered the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. The
Committee’s input assisted in the modification of rules allowing for further limited
scope representation. For example, Model Rule 1.2(c) was modified to explicitly
allow a lawyer to “limit the scope of representation if the limitation is reasonable
under the circumstances and the client gives informed consent.” Another rule arising
from the Ethics 2000 initiative, Model Rule 6.5, facilitates the participation of
attorneys in nonprofit or court-sponsored limited legal services programs by limiting
the obligation to do full conflict of interest checks.
Brown Award
In 1995, the Committee inaugurated the Louis M. Brown Award for Legal
Access, which highlights innovative methods of legal service delivery to moderate
income Americans. The Brown Award stimulates replication of innovative and
effective delivery mechanisms and allows for the identification of trends in service
delivery, and it remains a central activity of the Committee to date. The Brown
Award is presented at the ABA Midyear Meeting each February.
Policy Activities
Throughout the decade, the Committee’s interests and projects continued to
4
grow. The Legal Services Gap Study begun in the late 1980s also continued into the
early 1990s. In 1990, the Committee identified two primary areas of need:
individuals who attempt to obtain legal services but are not able to do so, and those
who would be better off if they had legal services but failed to recognize their need
for such services; in other words, recognized vs. unrecognized legal needs.
In 1995, the Committee embarked on a Barriers Project, to examine policies
that create barriers to access to information or representation, whether those barriers
were statutes, procedural rules, or ethical provisions. The Committee also continued
to analyze policies and practices that facilitated or hindered innovative legal service
delivery to those of moderate income throughout the 1990s.
2000 to the Present
In the past decade, the Committee has continued much of the work begun in
the 1980s and 1990s on innovative methods of legal service delivery to moderate
income households, while adding emphasis on the role of technology and increasing
its outreach activities.
Models and Outreach
The Committee has expanded its outreach activities over the last decade,
providing resources to the legal community and the public at large about legal service
delivery. In 2001, the Committee launched the online Pro Se/Unbundling Resource
Center, which provides a searchable and wide-ranging compilation of articles, books,
court cases, ethics opinions, self-help centers, and other online resources to assist the
legal community, scholars, and the media in understanding pro se and unbundling.
In 2002, the Committee published a booklet entitled “Innovations in the
Delivery of Legal Services: Alternative and Emerging Models for the Practicing
Lawyer.” An update of sorts of the 1983 Model Lawyer’s Guide to Legal Services,
discussed above, the booklet described both established models, including lawyer
referral and information services and legal service plans, as well as a wide ra nge of
innovative models: collaborative lawyering, distance lawyering, holistic lawyering,
micro-niche practices, networked practices, online case matching, outreach models,
preventive law, subsidiary marketing, and unbundled legal services This booklet i s
yet another example of the Committee’s commitment to discovering and highlighting
innovative and effective modes of delivering legal services to moderate income
individuals.
The Blueprints Project, an online technical assistance program that describes
programs that have been successful in increasing access to legal services for moderate
income individuals, began in the early years of the decade and has continued to the
present. The goal of the Blueprints Project is to identify and describe innovative a nd
successful projects to facilitate their adaptation and replication on a broad scale. To
date, the Blueprints have included Modest Means Panels of Lawyer Referral Services,
Community Legal Resource Networks, and Access to Justice courses at law schools.
In addition, the Louis M. Brown Award has continued to recognize innovative
programs that have made “substantial or creative contributions to the delivery of legal
services” to individuals of moderate income. Recent recipients have included the
AARP Legal Hotlines Project, the Self-Represented Litigant Task Force of the State
5
of Maine, the California Commission on Access to Justice, and the Legal Resolutions
Center of the Legal Aid Society of Orange County, California. Modified in 2007, the
selection criteria include significant improvement of delivery of legal services and
information; innovation in development, funding or implementation of legal service
delivery; the ability to replicate; demonstrated operational success; and capacity to
generate compensation for attorneys providing legal services.
The Committee has also continuously engaged in outreach to panels and
conferences around the country, including the National Equal Justice Conference and
the ABA Annual Meeting. Collaborations with other organizations and with other
sections of the ABA have been instrumental to the Committee’s understanding of
legal service delivery issues and the dissemination of the Committee’s work. In
addition, outreach to state and local bar associations and practitioners ensures that the
work of the Committee reaches a broad audience.
Technology
Technology remained a focal point of the Committee’s activities in the present
decade. In 2001, the Committee launched findlegalhelp.org, billed as the Consumer’s
Guide to legal Help on the Internet. The following year, it embarked on an initiative
to create best practices guidelines for web site providers collaboratively with the ABA
Law Practice Management Section’s e-Lawyering Task Force. In the e-lawyering
project, the Committee examined the manner in which legal service providers are
using the Internet in the provision of legal services.
Policy Activities
In 2000, the Committee began formulating best practice standards for legal
hotlines, which the ABA adopted the following year. The Committee began
exploring standards for hotlines at a time when many in the legal community
perceived legal hotlines as substandard practice, further demonstrating the innovative
nature of the Committee’s work. The standards are “intended to recognize the value
of telephone hotline services in the delivery of legal services” and aim “to advance
and encourage best practices among those who establish systems to meet the needs of
callers looking for a convenient and cost-effective source of legal advice and
information.”
The Committee continued its examination of ethical provisions impacting
innovative service delivery through the ABA’s Ethics 2000 process and beyond. In
2005, the Committee published a white paper, “An Analysis of Rules that Enable
Lawyers to Serve Pro Se Litigants,” which examined “the ways in which various
states are formulating or amending rules of professional conduct, rules of procedure
and other rules and laws to enable lawyers to provide a limited scope of
representation to clients who would otherwise proceed on a pro se basis, and to
regulate that representation.” The research indicates that most dispute resolution
proceeds pro se, and while numerous courts have established self-help centers, and
there are several resources available to pro se litigants, frequently these individuals
could benefit from at least limited assistance from attorneys. The analysis provides
several examples of modifications in rules of professional conduct and rules of
procedure that facilitate the ability of attorneys to assist pro se litigants while
6
conforming to legal and ethical requirements.
Future Challenges
The Committee has made numerous significant contributions to the legal
profession’s understanding of the legal needs of moderate income people and methods
of providing innovative legal services to meet those needs. However, several
challenges still exist.
First, additional research into the unmet legal needs of moderate income
individuals and the best ways to allocate resources to meet those needs must be done.
Funding for research has been scarce in recent decades, but the Committee has
continued to coordinate and compile the research that exists. However, there is a
need for more research, particularly into ways of maximizing the limited available
resources. Staff Counsel William Hornsby described the need to create an analytical
model to maximize the allocation of existing resources, as the capacity to provide
legal services to those of moderate income, including funding and pro bono
involvement, is not likely to increase dramatically.
In addition, policy limitations continue to hamper the ability of legal service
providers to resourcefully meet the needs of moderate income individuals. For
example, the Rules of Professional Conduct restrict attorneys from providing
document preparation services similar to the services provided by non-attorneys.
Policies are needed to allow attorneys to compete on a level playing field with non lawyers providing ancillary legal services. Particularly as technology becomes more
important in the practice of law and people rely more heavily on the Internet for
information, policies allowing attorneys to provide limited services are necessary to
allow for innovative delivery of legal services to moderate income Americans.
In the three decades since its founding, the ABA Standing Committee on the
Delivery of Legal Services has been a powerful force for improving access to legal
service for those of moderate income. Throughout its history, the Committee has
explored innovative mechanisms of legal service delivery, and several of the methods
the committee examined in the early 1980s remain important today. While the legal
landscape has changed over the years, the Committee has remained on the cutting
edge of legal service delivery.
7