1: Public Awareness and Support

Increase public awareness of and support for civil legal services to low-income persons in order to respond appropriately to more of their legal needs.

Other Information:

Performance Measures: 􀂄 Count of media articles. This count will include articles from every media outlet tracked by LSC’s clipping service. An increase in articles published will be considered as an indirect indication of an increase in public awareness. 􀂄 Collective visits to legal services websites. As a measure of public awareness of the availability of legal services, LSC will count the number of page loads of LSC and grantee websites. Page loads require more time than mere "hits" on websites and are a more appropriate measure of interest by the viewer. An increase in the number of page loads will be considered an indication of increased public awareness of legal services. To measure increasing support for legal services, one performance measure has been adopted: 􀂄 Total funding nationwide to support equal access work. The total funding measure will include total dollars appropriated by Congress for the year, the collective amount of other federal grants reported by grantees on an annual basis, the collective amount of private funding reported by grantees and LSC on an annual basis, the annual amount and percentage of IOLTA dollars nationwide that are appropriated for legal services work, and the collective amount of state funding, including appropriations and fees. Funding will be reported collectively for LSC grantees, and collectively for non-grantees to the extent that non-grantee information is available. To measure the element of responding to more needs, LSC will use three performance measures: 􀂄 Periodic nationwide counts of potential clients whom grantees are unable to serve. In 2005, LSC asked grantees to count the number of potential clients that they were unable to serve because of a lack of resources. While LSC will not pursue such counts on an annual basis, a count at least every five years will be used to measure success in serving more of the people who ask for the help of legal services programs. 􀂄 Analysis of Case Service Report data and types of cases. Grantees report to LSC on an annual basis the number and types of cases which they handle. LSC will provide an annual report of this data and indicate year-to-year changes which measure the level of services provided.  􀂄 Number of downloads of forms from grantee websites. As grantees provide more support for pro se filings, potential clients will be using more of the pro se forms made available on grantee websites. LSC will consider the total number of pro se forms downloaded annually as a measure of providing assistance to pro se litigants.

Objective(s):

1.1: Access and Means

1.2: Collaboration and Partnerships

1.3: Public Information

1.4: Funding

Content