What is Civil Legal Aid?

Civil legal aid helps people living in poverty resolve non-criminal, law-related problems. Some of the challenges legal aid clients face include serious health and safety issues like housing foreclosures and evictions, domestic violence and access to medical care. Civil legal aid is often the only way in which the basic needs of many individuals and families can be met. Many matters are solved or prevented from becoming worse as attorneys advocate for and support clients through our complex legal system. Without civil legal aid many people would not be able to receive equal justice under the law.

People who qualify for legal aid live below 125 percent of the federal poverty level. Funding for civil legal aid programs provides these individuals with services free of charge. Since 1983, the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation has supported legal aid programs across the Commonwealth to ensure that low-income people with critical legal problems would have access to information, advice and representation. The Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation is the state’s largest funding source for civil legal aid programs.