Richard Zorza's Access to Justice Blog covered the testimony of Professor Gillian Hatfield of USC in front of the New York Task Force to Expand Access to Civil Legal Services in New York on October 1, 2012.

A Reuters story briefly referenced the full testimony.

Richard's blog article does a great job of summarizing the full testimony, but if you have a few minutes, please review and digest her testimony.

She makes some interesting points.  Her analysis is based on New York numbers but may well be representative of many states and the need for and availability of civil (not criminal) legal services for the poor.