Community Needs and Services Study (CNSS)
December 8, 2016
Access to Justice
With support from the National Science Foundation (SES-1123507), the American Bar Foundation will launch a new, comprehensive civil justice study, the Community Needs and Services Study (CNSS). The study, which will run for two years, investigates simultaneously public experience with civil justice problems and the resources available to assist people in responding to them. The Study focuses on a core set of commonly experienced problems surrounding issues such as personal finances, housing and family relationships. These problems are carefully selected to be those that have civil legal aspects, raise civil legal issues and have consequences shaped by civil law. The CNSS is the first-ever study to pair an investigation of the civil justice problems people experience with an investigation of the legal and non-legal resources available to assist them in handling those problems.