Meeting California’s vast civil legal needs requires a sufficient number of attorneys and a legal services infrastructure that is accessible, affordable, and equitably distributed. This section of the report explores key elements of California’s legal services landscape.

The PeopleLaw legal market refers to services provided to individuals and households—everyday people seeking help with personal legal issues such as family law, housing, employment, immigration, debt, and consumer protection. As such, the PeopleLaw market is central to addressing the justice gap. A 2018 study commissioned by the State Bar showed that the national legal market shifted from predominantly serving the PeopleLaw sector in the early 1970s to primarily serving the organizational market in 2017. In 2024, the State Bar commissioned an update to this study, focusing on understanding California’s $57.8 billion legal market, the largest legal economy in the nation. Key findings are as follows:

• Just 25 percent of California’s legal market serves individual clients.
• The number of in-house lawyers in California grew by 45 percent from 2016 to 2023, compared to 20 percent for law firms and 14 percent for government lawyers during the same period.
• The significant growth in California attorneys working as in-house counsel may be partly due to compensation. In 2023, in-house attorneys earned an average salary of $254,544, compared to $215,890 for those in law firms—a gap of $38,654. This salary gap has more than doubled since 2016, when it was $16,590.

Attorney deserts are areas with fewer than one active attorney per 1,000 California residents. Identifying counties and rural areas within counties that are attorney deserts or at risk of becoming attorney deserts is critical for assessing gaps in legal representation and informing policy efforts to address attorney shortages in underserved communities. In the last 10 years, several shifts have occurred in California’s active attorney workforce, raising concerns about access to legal services across the state.

• The number of active attorneys residing in California grew by just 3 percent, falling short of the state’s 4 percent resident growth.
• The share of active California attorneys living in other states has increased from 11 to 13 percent.
• Three-quarters of California counties have experienced a decline in the number of active attorneys residing within them, and just over half of all counties experienced a decrease in active attorneys while simultaneously experiencing an increase in their resident population.
• The share of active attorneys residing in rural areas has remained small; just 3 percent of California’s active attorneys live in rural areas, compared to 12 percent of California’s residents.

The combined effect of these trends—shifts in the overall active attorney population and the persistent scarcity of attorneys in rural regions—has led to increasing and widespread attorney deserts.

Pro bono legal services help bridge the justice gap by mobilizing private attorneys to provide free assistance to those who cannot afford representation. Since 1989, the State Bar has encouraged attorneys to contribute at least 50 hours of pro bono service annually. This section of the 2024 California Justice Gap Study describes the State Bar’s pro bono initiatives—including the Pro Bono Practice Program and related grant funding—and presents findings from the State Bar’s analysis of over 3,000 California attorney responses to an ABA survey on pro bono. Key findings include the following:

• Three-quarters of California attorneys have provided pro bono services at some point in their career.
• Over half provided no pro bono services in 2022, unchanged from 2016.
• Nearly one in four (23 percent) met the State Bar’s goal of providing 50 or more hours of pro bono service in 2022, up from 20 percent in 2016.
• Attorneys who offered pro bono services in 2022 averaged 116 hours, a 47 percent increase from 79 hours in 2016. Based on these findings, an estimated 88,000 active California attorneys provided pro bono services in 2022, contributing nearly 10 million hours—the equivalent of over 4,700 full-time attorneys.
• Attorneys who haven’t provided pro bono services cited time constraints, lack of resources, malpractice concerns, and doubts about feasibility—especially among newer attorneys. Mentorship, malpractice coverage, and firm support were reported as key motivators.
• The most common ways that employers supported pro bono work were allowing pro bono work during business hours and providing internal resources. Nearly half of non-participating attorneys said their employers don’t permit pro bono during work hours.

Legal aid organizations are California’s primary providers of free civil legal services. In 2024, the State Bar—through its Legal Services Trust Fund Commission—awarded over $180 million in statutory and discretionary grants to more than 100 organizations, making it the state’s largest funder. These services support Californians living at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, including those receiving Supplemental Security Income and certain individuals with developmental disabilities. The State Bar analyzed all funding sources—government, foundations, and individual donors—that support these providers and staffing. Key findings include the following:

• State Bar funding for legal aid grew sharply over the past decade—from $30.4 million in 2014 to over $180 million in 2024.
• Discretionary grants saw the steepest growth, rising from $1.5 million in 2014 to $53.7 million in 2024.
• State Bar grants made up 16 percent of the total funding for legal aid organizations from all sources in 2019, rising to 18 percent by 2023.
• Between 2019 and 2023, State Bar funding increased by more than 62 percent. State Bar grantees added 388 attorneys to their staff, with an average of three more attorneys per organization. These additions represent a 24 percent increase in attorney staffing. With these staffing increases, the ratio of legal aid attorneys to indigent Californians has meaningfully improved in the past five years (one legal aid attorney per 5,338 indigent Californians in 2023 versus one legal aid attorney per 7,466 indigent Californians in 2019).
• More attorneys provided pro bono through legal aid organizations in 2023 compared with 2019, but total volunteer hours remain below pre-pandemic levels, limiting capacity.
• Between 2019 and 2023, legal aid organizations achieved 656,365 legal outcomes, including obtaining court orders, negotiating settlements, and winning monetary awards. During that time, they also served 764,861 people via self-help clinics and handled 571,269 hotline calls (65,089 in 2019 versus 166,810 in 2023, a 156 percent increase).
• Legal aid organizations recovered nearly $544 million for clients in 2024.
• High interest rates are expected to drive a record $252 million distribution from Interest on Lawyer Trust Account funds in 2025.

Legal aid organizations, supported by funding from the State Bar and other sources, are vital in expanding access to justice for Californians living at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. (In 2022, income eligibility increased from 125 percent of the federal poverty level to 200 percent. This change made approximately 4.5 million more Californians eligible for free legal services, an almost 73 percent increase.) Although these organizations provide many services and achieve many positive outcomes for their clients, the 2024 NORC survey results indicate that nearly 80 percent of California’s lowest-income group (those who qualify for legal aid) do not receive any or enough legal help for civil legal problems that substantially impact them.

The 2024 California Justice Gap Study also contains research on emerging and ongoing strategies to expand the supply of legal help that promotes access to justice, including the Legal Aid Leaders Fellowship, legal incubators, and Lawyer Referral Services.