LEGAL SERVICES CORPORATION

LSC works to maximize the availability, quality, and effectiveness of the services its grantees provide to eligible low-income individuals with the goal of closing the justice gap in America.

Legal assistance is necessary to address many issues that affect low-income individuals and families. The most frequent cases involve:

Family law: LSC grantees help victims of domestic violence by obtaining protective and restraining orders, help parents obtain and keep custody of their children, assist family members in obtaining guardianship for children without parents, and other family law matters. Almost a third of all cases closed by local LSC programs are family law cases.
Housing and Foreclosure Cases: As the second largest category of all cases closed, these matters involve helping to resolve landlord-tenant disputes, helping homeowners prevent foreclosures or renegotiate their loans, assisting renters with eviction notices whose landlords are being foreclosed on, and helping people maintain federal housing subsidies when appropriate.
Consumer Issues: Eleven percent of cases involve protecting the elderly and other vulnerable groups from being victimized by unscrupulous lenders, helping people file for bankruptcy when appropriate and helping people manage their debts.
Employment and Income Maintenance: More than 15 percent of cases involve helping working Americans obtain promised compensation from private employers, and helping people obtain and retain government benefits such as disability, veterans, and unemployment compensation benefits to which they are entitled.
Helping Military Families: StatesideLegal.org—the first website in the nation to focus exclusively on federal legal rights and legal resources important to veterans – is funded by an LSC Technology Initiatives Grant. This free service enables military families and veterans to access a wide array of legal information and assistance. The Department of Veterans Affairs, in a directive, encourages use of the website in connection with service to homeless veterans.
Responding to Disasters: LSC has a long history with helping victims of natural disasters. LSC has built a national network of experience and expertise—including legal services providers and national organizations such as the American Red Cross and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)—to help programs better serve victims when disasters strike.

LSC is the single largest funder of civil legal aid for low-income Americans in the nation.

LSC promotes equal access to justice by awarding grants to legal services providers through a competitive grants process; conducting compliance reviews and program visits to oversee program quality and compliance with statutory and regulatory requirements as well as restrictions that accompany LSC funding, and by providing training and technical assistance to programs. LSC encourages programs to leverage limited resources by partnering and collaborating with other funders of civil legal aid, including state and local governments, Interest on Lawyers' Trust Accounts (IOLTA), access to justice commissions, the private bar, philanthropic foundations, and the business community.

LSC is a grant-making organization, distributing nearly 94% of its federal appropriation to eligible, nonprofit organizations delivering civil legal aid. LSC awards grants through a competitive process and currently funds 133 independent legal aid organizations.

With 800 offices nationwide, these organizations serve thousands of low-income individuals, children, families, seniors, and veterans in every congressional district. LSC grantees handle the basic civil legal needs of the poor, addressing matters involving safety, subsistence, and family stability. Most legal aid practices focus on family law, including domestic violence, child support and custody, and on housing matters, including evictions and foreclosures.

In 2016, LSC grantees closed 736,404 cases, including 73,627 with the involvement of pro bono attorneys. LSC's 134 grantees employed 9,287 full time staff at 903 offices throughout the United States and its territories. 4,809 were attorneys and 1,595 were paralegals.