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Economic Benefits Statement
The work of MLAC-funded legal aid programs substantially boosts the Commonwealth’s economy each year by bringing in millions of federal dollars, improving the economic condition of low-income clients and other residents and saving the state millions in costly social services. In fiscal year 2017, new revenue for legal aid clients and cost savings to the Commonwealth from legal aid work totaled an estimated $59.2 million, of which $17.7 million was in the form of new federal revenue. A summary of the report is linked below, and the full report will be posted soon.
• FY17 Economic Benefits – Executive Summary
• FY17 Economic Benefits Statement
View previous economic benefits information from 2009 to the present:
• FY16 Economic Benefits Statement
• FY15 Economic Benefits Statement
• FY14 Economic Benefits Statement
• FY13 Economic Benefits Statement
• FY12 Economic Benefits Statement
• FY11 Economic Benefits Statement
• FY10 Economic Benefits Statement
• FY09 Economic Benefits Statement
Boston Bar Association Civil Legal Aid Task Force Report
In 2014, the Boston Bar Association’s Statewide Task Force to Expand Civil Legal aid in Massachusetts produced the report Investing in Justice: A Roadmap to Cost-Effective Funding of Civil Legal Aid in Massachusetts. This study, the result of comprehensive analysis of civil legal aid’s impact on the state, found that every dollar invested in civil legal aid returns between two and five dollars to the state and its residents. Read the full report to learn more about how lack of access to civil legal aid affects low-income people, the courts, and the state’s economy.
Economic analysis performed by independent and nationally known economic consulting firms The Analysis Group, Alvarez & Marsal, and NERA.
Opportunity Mapping Report
“The Geography of Opportunity: Building Communities of Opportunity in Massachusetts” was released in January 2009. The research was conducted by the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University on behalf of Massachusetts legal aid programs. The report presents compelling maps and demographic analyses that detail racial isolation in the Commonwealth’s low “opportunity” communities.