Using quasi-experimental methods, this paper investigates the effects of reduced access to legal aid for social welfare cases. Focusing on the changes introduced by the 2012 LASPO Act, I document the impact on households' welfare and the escalation of their legal problems in terms of evictions, debt judgments and benefits appeals.

Analysing the introduction of a right to counsel for tenants undergoing eviction proceedings in New York City, this paper looks at whether seeing a lawyer helps households secure additional sources of income, affects their use of public assistance programs and ultimately reduces poverty.

This project commissioned by the Legal Education Foundation explores how we can use administrative benefits data routinely processed by local authorities in the U.K. to capture the impact of legal support on improving households' housing and welfare outcomes.

As part of this project, we are creating time series data on legal aid budgets to better understand the structure and drivers of legal aid provision. The ultimate objective is to map provision against needs, within and across counties, to highlight the depth of the justice gap.  This project currently covers two Indian states, England and Wales, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and France.