Civil Legal Needs and Access
to Justice in Connecticut

October 2025

In 2024, Connecticut Bar Foundation contracted with CTData Collaborative to conduct a comprehensive assessment of Civil Legal Needs and Access to Justice in Connecticut. The study examines the experiences of low-income residents across Connecticut, including the civil legal challenges they face, how they navigate existing systems, where those systems succeed or fall short, and the barriers that limit meaningful access. Together, these findings point toward clear, actionable steps to strengthen the civil legal system and advance equitable access to justice.

  • Civil legal aid is the system of services that ensures low-income people can protect their basic rights when facing life-altering civil legal problems. Unlike in criminal cases, where individuals are guaranteed a lawyer if they cannot afford one, no such right exists in most civil matters—even when someone’s home, health, safety, or livelihood is at stake.

    Civil legal aid fills that gap. It provides advice, information, and representation so that people can navigate complex systems, assert their rights, and resolve problems that otherwise threaten their stability and well-being.

    Civil legal aid attorneys and advocates help people with the most essential aspects of daily life. The work ranges from direct legal advice through hotlines and online tools, to community education and systemic advocacy that strengthens protections for all low-income residents, to full representation in court.

  • Civil legal needs arise when an individual faces a non-criminal issue where their legal rights are threatened or implicated. When people face these needs, they may need legal help to resolve these issues. However, many people do not have the money to pay for legal representation.

    Many people may not even realize that they can seek legal recourse in some of these situations. Some examples include:

    • Public Benefits & Health Care, including public assistance, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), food stamps, childcare subsidies, medical assistance, VA benefits, discharge upgrades, and access to healthcare benefits

    • Immigration, including representation and advice in immigration matters including asylum, U-Visa, naturalization, and removal proceedings

    • Employment, including discrimination, unemployment compensation, wages, work hours, sexual harassment, workplace conditions, and barriers to employment

    • Children & Family, including divorce, child support, custody, visitation, restraining orders, guardianship, abuse, neglect, domestic violence issues, and access to education services and accommodations

    • Consumer & Fraud Protection, including bankruptcy, debt collection, small claims actions, fraud protection, and medical debt

    • Elderly, including nursing home problems, right to home care, medical assistance, social security, consumer issues, credit card debt, medical debt, abusive and harassing collection practices, and identity theft

    • Housing, including discrimination, eviction, security deposit returns, rent increases, utility shutoffs, homelessness, unsafe conditions, landlord/tenant disputes, access to public housing and housing vouchers, home foreclosure, and mortgage modification

    • Persons with Disabilities, including housing discrimination, employment discrimination, conservatorship, equal access to public and private services such as hospitals or nursing homes, special education, vocational rehabilitation, and transportation

  • Connecticut’s civil legal aid system plays a critical role in ensuring equal access to justice for people with low income.

    Connecticut’s legal aid network includes 11 legal aid providers. Some of these organizations serve specific populations while others have broader missions or geographic reach. In addition to providing direct legal advice and representation to low-income individuals in need of legal assistance, these legal aid organizations advocate for systemic change to enhance justice for Connecticut’s most vulnerable communities.

    Connecticut has also invested in online and court-based resources that expand access to civil justice.

    • CTLawHelp.org, operated by the legal aid community, serves as a statewide online platform for self-help legal information. It offers plain-language guides, court forms, and instructional materials to empower individuals to navigate civil legal issues on their own.

    • Connecticut Judicial Branch system plays a central role by maintaining a comprehensive self-help section on its website, operating Court Service Centers in courthouses across the state, and offering language access and mediators that make the legal system more approachable for people without attorneys.

    Together, these resources provide critical entry points to justice for residents who might not otherwise be able to obtain formal legal representation.

    • Statewide Legal Services of Connecticut (SLS) operates as Connecticut’s legal aid hotline, providing intake, advice, and referrals to clients seeking help.

    • New Haven Legal Assistance Association (NHLAA) provides civil legal aid for low-income residents in New Haven County and the Lower Naugatuck Valley.

    • Greater Hartford Legal Aid (GHLA) provides civil legal aid to low-income residents in the Greater Hartford region.

    • Connecticut Legal Services (CLS) provides civil legal aid to Connecticut’s low-income residents who do not reside in the greater Hartford and New Haven areas.

    • Center for Children’s Advocacy (CCA) supports the legal rights of children, in particular youth of color who have been impacted by systemic racism, children who have been abused and neglected, children with disabilities and chronic health conditions, immigrant children, LGBTQ+ youth, those experiencing or at risk of homelessness, and justice-involved youth.

    • Children’s Law Center of Connecticut (CLC) works to ensure safety and stability for children, prioritizing child-centered, trauma-informed advocacy in family legal matters.

    • Lawyers for Children America (LFCA) protects the rights of abused, abandoned, and neglected children through pro bono legal representation and partnerships that create systemic change.

    • Connecticut Fair Housing Center (CTFHC) addresses systemic housing discrimination and barriers to fair housing, promoting equal access to safe and stable housing across the state.

    • Connecticut Veterans Legal Center (CVLC) removes legal barriers for veterans, helping them access healthcare, housing, and stability.

    • Open Communities Alliance (OCA) works to dismantle housing segregation and promote access to opportunity for families of color and low-income households.

    • Connecticut Legal Rights Project (CLRP) provides legal services to people with psychiatric disabilities primarily on matters related to their treatment and civil rights.

Civil legal needs like protection from wrongful eviction or employment discrimination disproportionately impact our most vulnerable residents. Connecticut’s civil legal aid system provides free legal resources, advice, and representation to those who cannot afford to hire a layer to defend their rights.

The assessment revealed:

  1. Civil legal needs are widespread among Connecticut’s low-income residents.

  2. The state’s legal aid system delivers high-impact free legal services, but demand far outpaces capacity, leaving many without legal support.

Read the Reports

 
Read the Full Report
 
Read the Report Overview
 

Key Findings

Prevalence and Impacts of Civil Legal Needs

  • 72% of Connecticut’s low-income residents - over 400,000 residents in total - have experienced a civil legal need.

  • 41% have experienced two or more different kinds of civil legal needs.

  • Housing-related civil legal needs are experienced by roughly two in five low-income families in Connecticut.

  • Other common areas of civil legal need experienced by more than one in five low-income families are:

    • Family matters

    • Employment

    • Public Benefits & Healthcare

    • Consumer & Fraud Protection

 

Among those who had experienced any civil legal need,

  • Nearly four in five reported that their most recent civil legal issue had increased their stress or anxiety.

  • About half reported that their civil legal issue had impacted their physical and/or mental health or that it had resulted in increased expenses.

 

Strengths in Legal Service Delivery

  • More than 20,700 low-income Connecticut residents received legal aid services in 2024.

  • Clients receiving legal aid services were 2.5 times more likely to be satisfied with the resolution of their issue than those who did not get help.

  • In 2024, court support staff assisted nearly 187,000 self-represented parties at Court Service Centers and Public Information Desks.

  • CTLawHelp.org provides plain-language resources to empower individuals to navigate civil legal issues on their own. The site was viewed nearly 678,000 times in 2024.

 

Civil Legal Aid Gaps and Barriers

  • Connecticut’s civil legal aid system facilitates access to justice for many low-income residents, but the demand far exceeds the system’s capacity.

  • Nearly two in five low-income residents who sought legal aid could not obtain help.

  • Connecticut’s legal aid hotlines are a vital but strained entry point to legal aid.

  • 139,117 calls were received by Connecticut’s legal aid hotlines in 2024.

  • Nearly 31,000 calls were disconnected due to high call volume.

  • More than 25,000 calls were received while the hotlines were closed.

  • Income eligibility requirements and lack of awareness of legal aid programs are substantial barriers to low-income residents accessing legal aid services.

  • Among low-income residents who experienced a civil legal issue but did not seek legal aid:

    • More than one in three said they were not familiar with legal aid.

    • Roughly one in four said they did not think they qualified for legal aid.

  • Legal needs related to consumer and fraud protection, employment, public benefits and healthcare, immigration, and elder law are underserved by Connecticut’s legal aid system.

  • These problem areas make up roughly half of low-income residents’ most recent civil legal needs but only 10% of legal aid cases in 2024.

  • The data reveal unequal access to legal aid among Connecticut’s low-income residents depending on where they live. The largest discrepancy between legal needs and legal aid services is in Fairfield County, which constitutes roughly 27% of low-income residents with civil legal needs but only 18% of legal aid cases.

  • Older adults are less likely to access legal aid for their civil legal needs.

Key Recommendations

Based on the findings, this report makes the following key recommendations:

  • Strengthen hotline capacity and coordination to serve a greater proportion of callers.

  • Increase resources for service delivery to address unmet legal needs.

  • Expand service models to include community justice workers and social workers to close the justice gap and meet clients’ needs.

  • Modernize technology and information management to track unmet need and improve service continuity.

  • Leverage new technologies on CTLawHelp.org to facilitate access to resources, potentially including AI-enabled search, automated document drafting, and chatbot navigation.

  • Address geographic gaps through regional innovation, including mobile and virtual legal aid, community lawyering, and partnerships with local organizations to ensure equitable access statewide.

  • Build capacity to serve a wider range of civil legal problems beyond housing and family issues.

  • Strengthen pro bono engagement, including centralizing the pro bono service model and standardizing training and mentorship, to expand the system’s capacity.

Data Sources and Methodology

 

  • This report is based on analyses from the following data sources:

    • Survey of Low-Income Residents’ Civil Legal Needs (“the Survey”) conducted by the University of New Hampshire (UNH) Survey Center

    • Interviews with legal aid providers conducted by CTData Collaborative

    • Administrative data provided by Connecticut’s legal aid organizations and the State of Connecticut Judicial Branch

    • Hotline call data provided by Statewide Legal Services of Connecticut

    • Website analytic data provided by CTLawHelp and the State of Connecticut Judicial Branch

  • All analyses were conducted by CTData Collaborative.

    The Survey distributed by UNH received responses from 389 individuals with household incomes below 200% of the federal poverty level (FPL). An additional 60 individuals responded to a Survey link distributed by Statewide Legal Services of Connecticut to clients who had opted in to receive text messages. These 60 individuals supplement the Survey sample for analyses focused only on those individuals who have used legal aid services. They are excluded from all analyses focused on the overall prevalence of civil legal needs.

    For analyses related to the prevalence of civil legal needs, the Survey data are weighted to match the county of residence and demographic characteristics of Connecticut’s low-income adult population based on Census Bureau data. For analyses related to the experiences of individuals who have used legal aid services, the Survey data are weighted to match the characteristics of Connecticut’s legal aid clients based on administrative data provided by the legal aid organizations.

    For more details, see the full report.

 
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