|  |
|
|
|
The Chicago Community Trust created the Chicago Area Foundation for Legal Services, or CAFLS, in 1982 as a way to address problems with the availability and quality of legal services for the poor in metropolitan Chicago.
Almost 25 years later, the need is greater than ever.
Consider:
- Awareness of legal services programs among those in need has dropped from 43% to 23% … yet caseloads have increased!
- Only 326 of the 76,000 Illinois attorneys registered in 2003 work for legal aid programs. That translates to one legal aid lawyer for every 4,750 legal problems experienced by low-income Illinois households.
- The average legal aid staff attorney handles 330 cases.
- The three regional legal hotlines estimate they can respond to only 15%-33% of the calls they receive.
To address this need, our goals are simple:
- Increase accessibility of the civil legal system to low-income Chicagoans.
- Decrease the gap between unmet needs of low-income Chicagoans and the legal services provided.
- Improve the delivery of legal services through collaborative approaches.
- Increase the level of pro bono services in the Chicago area.
|
|
|
|
|
