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Some Research Perspectives for Looking at Legal Need and Legal Services Delivery Systems: Old Forms or New?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

F. Raymond Marks
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Abstract

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This paper reviews existing empirical studies, finding that most have adopted an explicit or implicit model of legal need which is based solely on past use patterns. There is an absence of linkage between problem solving styles, uniqueness of problems, community networks of support, and concepts of social justice. The central problem confronting groups is how to convert their interests into some semblance of property interests or expectation. This invites legal change. Much of the past preoccupation with the problem of need conceals an absence of attention to crucial variables about quality of legal service, lawyer outlook and socialization, and the dynamics of the lawyer-client relationship. Lawyer perception may be as important, if not more important than client perception in determining the nature and scope of legal service. The author suggests, therefore, that any functional definition of legal need has to include a structural view of the legal profession.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 11 , Issue 2: Delivery of Legal Services , Fall 1976 , pp. 191 - 205
Copyright
Copyright © 1977 by the Law and Society Association.

Footnotes

The author was assisted in the preparation of this paper by Norman Vance and Sandra Bressler, students at Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley.

References

1. The studies reviewed by Stolz were: Clark and Corstvet (1938); Koos (1949); Los Angeles Joint Board of Hotel and Restaurant Employees and Bartenders Union (1957); and Washington Township Legal Assistance Office (1966-67).

2. See the preliminary report of the study, reporting on precoded marginals only.

3. Highlights of this study are reproduced in American Bar Association (1973).

4. The questionnaire used is reproduced in the appendix to Curran and Spalding (1974).

5. Mayhew extends this thesis in his recent article (1975).

6. There are considerable data from this study which have not been analyzed, and even more which have been analyzed but not published.

7. See, for example, Rosenthal et al. (1971), which was a study of a volunteer program of Wall Street associates and partners operating out of a Harlem office. Most of the studies of specific OEO programs concentrated on the “legal needs” of the served group, e.g., Sykes, 1969.

8. The lawyer interviews supported the earlier ABF-OEO findings: prior to the inception of the plan private lawyers handled substantial numbers of no-fee and low-fee matters.

9. This question is raised, but not answered, in Marks and Cathcart, 1974.