Civil law issues can have a significant impact on people`s lives. Many of the civil law issues facing low-income Americans are related to vital issues such as losing a home, managing debt, or managing a health issue. There are also less direct but important ways in which these issues affect people`s lives. For example, other research has shown that stress related to civil law issues can lead to mental illnesses such as anxiety and depression, further complicating the situation for affected families.29 Many civil law issues, such as unsafe housing and the loss of benefits for food purchases, can also pose a threat to physical health. The findings presented in this section are drawn from a section of the 2017 Justice Sector Gap Measurement Survey, which included detailed questions on a subset of civil law questions reported by respondents. For each respondent, the survey randomly selected up to four personally experienced issues that affect them more than „not at all.“ Because of the low incidence of veterans` and disability issues, these issues were always selected if they met the other criteria. Respondents responded to questions about what assistance, if any, they were looking for to address each of these issues. The unit of analysis in this section is that of problems. The collection agency must provide a copy of the creditor agreement if you request it: If the creditor sold your debts to a collection agency, the company is required to keep a copy of the contract between you and the original creditor, showing your account number with the original creditor. You have the right to request a copy of this contract so that the collection agency can prove that it has the authority to collect the debt. Often, the debt collection agency prefers not to bother finding, copying, and sending you a copy of the creditor agreement and will simply stop collection efforts against you rather than go through these extra steps.

that the number of people turning to LSC Fellows is very close to the number of issues presented to them during this six-week period. It is possible that a person has had more than one problem, but this is probably not a common occurrence given the short period of time. For the remainder of this section, we assume that the number of people and the number of questions followed in the admissions count are equivalent, which refers to the number of questions for analytical purposes. So our estimates are conservative: To the extent that individuals and issues are not equal, we underestimate the number of legal issues that low-income Americans will seek help from LSC researchers in 2017. You will receive legal documents by mail or from a processing server. The first page is the „quote“ that will say, „You have been sued. Read the documents, identify who is suing you and how much you owe. Submit a written response by the deadline (response deadline). If you don`t submit a response or if you submit it too late, the creditor wins by default. Low-income Americans report that they seek legal help for only 20% of their problems. Interestingly, people are only slightly more likely to seek professional redress for problems that affect them significantly (24% of problems that affect them very strongly or severely) than problems that do not affect them much (17% of problems that affect them moderately or easily).

38 2017 Justice Sector Gap Measurement Survey, questions 35 and 37: Why [didn`t you talk/didn`t you talk] with a lawyer about this? Why haven`t you talked/asked someone else for help or searched online for information about this issue? (Multiple answer). Not all workers with a legal problem get the legal help they need. To maximize the use of available legal aid resources, LSC fellows develop guidelines on the types of legal issues they prioritize for service. LSC requires recipients to regularly conduct comprehensive legal needs assessments in their communities to inform these guidelines. Some employees have issues covered by these priority guidelines, but still do not receive the support they need for other reasons. We examine these cases in this section and try to assess the extent to which they are characterized by a lack of resources. The household screening portion of the survey consisted of only two questions that assessed current household size and income levels. Following the screening questions, eligible respondents moved to a section containing questions on household characteristics. This was followed by most of the main survey tools, which included questions to assess the prevalence of different types of civil law needs. LSC and NORC worked to develop a list of general civil law questions to be included in this part of the survey and arrived at a final list of 88 different questions.

These editions were divided into 12 categories. The findings presented in this report add important new evidence to the growing literature on the justice gap. We find that seven in 10 low-income households have had at least one civil law problem in the past year. A whopping 70 percent of low-income Americans with civil law issues said at least one of their problems affected them very or severely. However, they only seek legal help for 20% of their civil law problems. Many who do not seek legal aid express concern about the cost of legal aid because they do not know if their problems are legal in nature and do not know where to look for help.