Free Legal Services for the Poor: Increased Coordination, Community Legal Education, and Outreach Needed

As created by Public Law, the Legal Services Corporation is a private, nonmembership, nonprofit corporation, and is the primary provider of free civil legal services to the Nation's poor. The Corporation received appropriations of $125 million and $205 million for fiscal years 1977 and 1978, respectively, and an estimated $76 million was also available in 1977 for legal services to the poor from other sources; this was distributed almost equally among Corporation- and non-Corporation-funded providers.