STRATEGIES TO EXPAND SUPPLY OF ATTORNEYS
This section highlights three key strategies aimed at increasing the supply of attorneys who promote access to justice:
Legal Aid Leaders Fellowship. This fellowship program strengthens the pipeline of lawyers entering legal aid organizations, fostering a commitment to serving underserved communities.
Legal Incubators. These programs help cultivate a workforce of private practice lawyers dedicated to providing affordable legal services, equipping new attorneys with the skills and support needed to build sustainable practices.
Lawyer Referral Services. These State Bar-certified services connect the public with private attorneys and by law are required to support efforts to increase access to the justice system by including services to serve persons of limited means (see Bus. & Prof. Code §6155).
By analyzing previously unpublished data and describing these strategies, this section provides insights into approaches designed to expand access to justice for Californians with limited resources. However as the analysis ultimately reveals, these programs are limited in scale and reach, and much more data must be collected to assess their impact.
LEGAL AID LEADERS FELLOWSHIP
Many lawyers begin their law school journey by expressing a strong interest in pursuing a career in public interest law; however, many experience “public interest drift,” a phenomenon in which these aspiring lawyers veer from their initial intentions. The State Bar’s 2019 research on this topic identified participation in a public interest internship with a legal aid organization as a critical predictor of students’ future commitment to public-interest careers.[1] However, legal aid internships are typically unpaid, which can prevent students who cannot afford unpaid summer work from participating.
In 2022, the California legislature directed $5 of the $45 voluntary contribution to legal aid paid as part of annual attorney licensing fees to be used to fund summer fellowships for law students interested in pursuing careers in legal aid.[2] To carry out the statutory language, the State Bar, through the Legal Services Trust Fund Commission (LSTFC), established the Legal Aid Leaders Fellowship (LALF), a paid summer law student internship program.
In 2024, grantee applicants seeking funding for over 700 law students applied to the LALF program. The LSTFC awarded $752,000 in grants to legal aid organizations, which funded 77 law students. Additionally, California ChangeLawyers, a community foundation that funds fellowships for early-career attorneys, partnered with the State Bar and funded 11 additional fellows and offered workshops, training, and networking opportunities for all fellows. In total, 88 law students were hosted by 34 legal aid organizations statewide, completing nearly 30,251 hours of service and training.
Key findings about the 2024 LALF fellows include:
- They were more diverse than the current attorney population and better reflected California’s adult population. More than half (69 percent) of the fellows identified as people of color, 64 percent were women, and more than one-quarter (27 percent) identified as LGBTQIA+.
- Upon program completion:
77 percent of fellows reported a high or very high level of interest in pursuing a career in legal aid after law school.
86 percent of fellows reported that they would not have been able to work for a legal aid organization without the paid internship.
97 percent would recommend the fellowship to other law students interested in a career in legal aid.
Feedback gathered from the legal aid organizations that received funding for the LALF highlighted that the program provided a mutually beneficial relationship, with fellows not only providing services to clients but also providing valuable suggestions to improve operations.
As a newer program with limited funding, the LALF serves fewer than 100 law students annually. However, as interest in the program increases, funding and paid opportunities for law students must also expand to meaningfully impact recruitment and retention in legal aid and meet the broader demand for legal aid lawyers. As described in "Funding for Legal Aid Organizations," legal aid organizations that received funding through the State Bar in 2023 employed nearly 2,000 attorneys. The LALF is an important step—but a very small step to move in the direction of satisfying the need. Further, insufficient data has been collected from program participants to fully assess the program’s impact. To address this, the State Bar will develop a research agenda to illuminate the program’s impact, including comparing pre- and post-program survey questions regarding level of interest in pursuing a career in legal aid after law school and conducting follow-up surveys with program participants after graduation to learn if they pursued public interest law.
LEGAL INCUBATOR PROGRAMS
Newly licensed and early-career lawyers aiming to launch practices offering affordable legal services face significant barriers such as limited guidance and resources. “Legal incubators” help address these barriers by providing training and support to establish sustainable practices that help minimize the justice gap. The first incubator program was developed in 2007 at the City University of New York School of Law and since then, over 70 programs have emerged worldwide, with most located in the United States.[3]
In 2013, the State Bar of California created the Modest Means Incubator Task Force “to guide the growing incubator movement toward a conscious goal of training a generation of lawyers committed to serving the needs of ordinary people who otherwise have nowhere to go for legal help.”[4] This task force released an incubator guide and also launched a grant program awarding $180,000 across four projects to support new or expanding incubators. Four other California programs were launched around the same time.[5]
Today, just five of those eight incubator programs remain active: Contra Costa Family Justice Center, Los Angeles Incubator Consortium (LAIC), Bay Area Legal Incubator (BALI), Access to Law Initiative, and Orange County Legal Consortium (OCLC).[6] These programs take between 12 and 18 months to complete and require participants to complete a certain number of pro bono service hours in exchange for dedicated office space, mentorship, training, practice management software subscriptions, lawyer referral service memberships, insurance, and legal research subscriptions. Nearly 400 lawyers have successfully completed one of these incubator programs.[7]
Incubator programs aim to help lawyers establish practices serving underserved populations. Most programs collect some participant demographic data, such as race/ethnicity, gender, and practice area, but with no information on participants’ career paths after completing the program, their impact remains unclear. Tracking participants’ career trajectories is vital for assessing program effectiveness, identifying areas for improvement, and ensuring that training aligns with the needs of lawyers serving low- and moderate-income clients.
While legal incubator programs in California show potential for addressing access to justice issues, they currently lack the scale to significantly increase the number of attorneys providing affordable legal services. Since their inception, these programs have served approximately 400 attorneys—a relatively small number that limits their impact on the justice gap. In addition, the lack of comprehensive data on program outcomes and effectiveness makes it difficult to measure their tangible contributions to meeting unmet legal needs. Expanding the capacity of incubator programs and implementing robust data collection to track participant outcomes after program completion can be instrumental in maximizing their effectiveness in reducing the justice gap in California.
LAWYER REFERRAL SERVICES
With the ever-increasing cost of legal help and the significant justice gap, lawyer referral services (LRSs) are an essential way that members of the public can connect with lawyers. The ABA reports over 200 LRSs operating nationwide; California’s first LRS was established in 1937. Over the last 10 years, the number of certified LRSs in California has gradually decreased from 52 in 2013 to 37 in 2023, but the number of participating lawyers has increased from approximately 1,300 in 2013 to over 3,700 in 2023. These LRSs cover all counties in the state, with 11 serving more than one county, five serving the entire state, and lawyers offer legal assistance in a wide range of languages and areas of law. LRSs are the most common type of assistance requested through the State Bar’s contact center and in 2023, LRSs referred nearly 179,000 callers to participating attorneys.
To operate in California, LRSs must be certified by the State Bar and comply with rules and statutes designed to protect the public. Following initial certification, LRSs are required to recertify each year by submitting an annual report detailing their operations. This report is used to evaluate whether the LRS meets regulatory standards and ethical requirements. Attorneys seeking to join an LRS must be in good standing with the State Bar, demonstrate legal experience and expertise, provide proof of professional liability insurance, and adhere to ethical standards. Once approved, they are eligible to receive client referrals through the LRS.
LRSs conduct an initial intake process to determine whether a client’s issue can be resolved without a lawyer. If so, they connect clients to resources like mediation programs or rent control boards. When a lawyer is needed, LRSs assess eligibility based on practice area, lawyer availability, geographic location, and potential conflicts of interest. Eligible clients are then referred to participating lawyers for a reduced or no fee; many LRSs offer a free 30-minute consultation with attorneys to determine necessary legal services and assess if the attorney is a good fit. LRSs also enhance access to legal assistance by connecting clients with bilingual lawyers and offering legal services at reduced rates.
California Business and Professions Code section 6155(f)(5) requires LRSs to develop and maintain programs and services aimed at helping individuals who don’t qualify for legal aid and cannot afford the standard hourly rates of private attorneys. Rule 3.820 of the Rules of the State Bar provides examples of the types of services LRSs may provide, including modest means panels, limited scope panels, flat fee panels, free 30-minute consultations, or sliding fee scales. Table 18 shows the percentage of current LRSs that currently offer specific types of activities meant to promote access to justice for Californians with limited means; the data highlights that some services are offered less widely than others.
Table 18. Types of Limited Means Services Offered by California Lawyer Referral Services in 2024
Note: Data gathered from LRS recertification applications.
The State Bar does not require LRSs to report the number of referrals to each type of service or outcomes of such referrals. The lack of data prevents LRSs and the State Bar from understanding service demand and effectiveness. Moving forward, gathering insights from LRSs on utilization and outcomes could help improve and expand services to better address Californians’ legal needs.
Despite LRSs in California playing a vital role in connecting individuals with legal help, their current scale is insufficient to meaningfully address the widespread need for affordable legal services. All LRSs do not offer the full range of legal services meant to promote access for people with limited means. Compounding this issue is the lack of comprehensive data on their operations and outcomes, which hinders efforts to evaluate their effectiveness in increasing access to justice. Improving the availability of all affordable legal services types and more accurately capturing data on the effectiveness of LRSs will be key in ensuring that these resources can better address the justice gap in California.