The Lawyer Statistical Report
Author: Barbara A. Curran
The Lawyer Statistical Report, which has been an early and continuing publication in cooperation with Martindale-Hubbell, provides a profile of the legal profession and data on its composition and the work settings in which lawyers practice. A report on the legal profession in the year 2000 was published in 2004. A report on the profession in the year 2005 is now available, and interested parties may contact Jeyoon Park for further information.
In the 1970s a national survey was conducted of the legal needs of the public that documented for the first time how people use lawyers and the surprising extent to which people with valid legal claims fail to pursue them because of concerns about the availability of affordable legal services. The study’s findings, reported in The Legal Needs of the Public, were cited extensively in Bates v. O’Steen, the landmark decision that overturned bans on lawyer advertising, and it figured prominently in the debates on federally subsidized legal services, prepaid plans, and alternative dispute resolution. The study was updated in 1990.
Among other projects were studies of the delivery of legal services to the poor, consumer credit legislation, and gender bias in Illinois courts.