Comparative Statistics About Equal Access to Justice In Different Countries The NEJL International Legal Aid Collection has begun assembling a comprehensive body of information about the legal aid systems of countries around the world.  Included in what the Collection is acquiring are statistical data about various dimensions of these legal aid systems -- financial investments in legal aid, numbers of lawyers, caseloads, and the like.  As useful statistical information becomes available and can be analyzed, this section of the website will present this data, often in chart form.  While most often comparing different nations, sometimes this section will include interesting data from a single country. The first such chart appears below and makes some comparisons which are both significant and somewhat embarrassing to the United States. PUTTING YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS What share of  the nation's income are some leading industrial democracies willing to spend to make the rhetoric of equal access to justice a reality within that nation's borders? The chart below compares the United States and several other industrial democracies – from Europe, North America, and Oceania -- using a telling measure of their relative commitment to equal access to justice for all.  That measure is a nation’s current public investment in civil legal services for lower income people.  (Civil legal services” includes all legal representation and legal advice in non-criminal cases, e.g., family, contract, property and torts litigation, administrative, etc.) Since these jurisdictions vary so widely in population size and per capita income, the nations are ranked by the proportionate share of their Gross National Product (GNP) they devote to this fundamental government function.   In all cases the statistics reflect total governmental expenditures on civil legal services for some annual period in the 1990’s – the most current year for which I have been able to obtain this data for the nation involved.  With the exception of France (1994) and Germany (1996) the expenditure data is for 1998 or 1999. In most instances the national government is responsible for the entire public investment.  But in Australia, Canada, and the United States the figures represent the combined expenditures of all levels of government – national, state, and local -- which contribute funds to civil legal services for lower income people. COMPARATIVE CIVIL LEGAL SERVICES INVESTMENTS [Nations ranked by relative share of GNP invested in publicly-funded civil legal services—lowest to highest] NATION (or political subdivision of nation, e.g., province, state)   THIS NATION’S TOTAL GOVT INVESTMENT IN CIVIL LEGAL SERVICES (in U.S. DOLLARS)  [In U.S. includes Federal, State, local govts, & IOLTA expenditures] GOVT’S PER CAPITA CIVIL LEGAL SERVICES INVESTMENT (in U.S. DOLLARS) GOVT’S  CIVIL LEGAL SERVICES INVESTMENT PER $10,000 of GNP  (in U.S DOLLARS)   TOTAL U.S. CIVIL LEGAL SERVICES INVESTMENT IF U.S INVESTED AS MUCH  OF ITS GNP AS THIS NATION  DOES IN CIVIL LEGAL SERVICES HOW MANY TIMES GREATER IS THIS NATION’S CIVIL LEGAL SERVICES INVESTMENTTHAN THE U.S. INVESTMENT [as % of GNP] UNITED STATES  (FY 1998)   $600 million [pop=270 million]          $2.25               $0.70       [=70 cents]  $0.6 BILLION [e.g., 600 million] //////////////////////// //////////////////////// GERMANY (1996)   $390 million [pop=80million]          $4.86               $1.90  $1.6 BILLION        2.5 times FRANCE (1994)   $270 million [pop=59 million]          $4.50               $1.90  $1.6 BILLION        2.5 times AUSTRALIA  (FY 1998-99) ///////////////////////// ///////////////////////// //////////////////////////// //////////////////////////// [Each State has its own program] /////////////////////////// /////////////////////////// /////////////////////// ///////////////////////      -New South          Wales          $31 Million [pop=6 million]            $5.12              $2.75   $2.3 BILLION         4 times CANADA (FY 1998-99) ///////////////////////// ///////////////////////// //////////////////////////// //////////////////////////// [Each Province has its own program] /////////////////////////// /////////////////////////// //////////////////////// ////////////////////////       -Quebec     $52 Million [pop=7.3 million]          $7.07               $3.50   $3.0 BILLION        5 times       -Ontario     $82 Million [pop=11.5million]          $7.06               $3.60   $3.0 BILLION        5 times       -British              Columbia     $32 Million [pop=4 million]          $7.80               $4.00   $3.34 BILLION        5.8 times NETHERLANDS (1998)    $150 Million [pop=15.5million]         $9.70               $4.20   $3.5 BILLION        6 times NEW ZEALAND  (FY 1998-99)      $27 Million [pop=3.8 million]          $7.10               $5.10   $4.25 BILLION        7 times ENGLAND (1999)    $2 BILLION BILLION             $1.35 BILLION [pop=53 million]          $39.00         $26.00 Gross=$17.00     Net =   $12.00  $14.2 BILLION  $10.1 BILLION       23.5 times       17 times SOURCES OF LEGAL AID EXPENDITURE DATA: AUSTRALIA-Legal Aid Commission of New South Wales, Annual Report ’99, Financial Overview, Program Expenditure Chart. CANADA-Legal Aid in Canada: Resource and Caseload Data Tables, 1998-99, Table 5-Legal Aid Expenditures by Object (Statistics Canada-Catalogue No. 85F0028, Ottawa, 2000) Source: Legal Aid Survey,  Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics.  ENGLAND-Lord Chancellor’s Department, Judicial Statistics – England and Wales for the Year 1999 (CM4786, July 2000).  Table 10.7-Legal Aid Expenditures: Receipts and Payments, 1999. FRANCE-Projected figures for 1994 reported in National Resource Center for Consumers of Legal Services, France Beefs Up On Legal Aid, Legal Plan Letter, Jan. 15, 1993; GERMANY-Gerhard Danneman, Access to Justice: an Anglo-German Comparison, 2 European Public Law 271 (1996) Table 5.  NETHERLANDS-Peter van den Biggelaar, Legal Aid in the Netherlands, in “Legal Aid in the New Millennium” (papers Presented at the International Legal Aid Conference, University of British Columbia 16-19 June 1999) p. 74. (Statistics for 1998). NEW ZEALAND-Legal Aid Board, Annual Report for Year Ending June 30, 1999, p. 33. Appendix 1-Overview of legal aid costs and recoveries. UNITED STATES-Legal Services Corporation, Annual Report–1999.  SOURCES OF GNP AND PER CAPITA GNP DATA: World Bank, 2000 World Development Indicators and World Development Indicators database. EXCHANGE RATES: Chart uses exchange rates in effect in year of legal aid expenditure, e.g., 1996 exchange rate for Germany and 1999 exchange rate for England, etc. .             As can be seen, other industrial democracies invest from two-and-a half times as much of their GNP as the United States (France and Germany) to seventeen times as much (England) to provide access to justice for their lower income population. To illustrate what this means in concrete terms the chart sets forth how much United States governments – federal, state and local -- would have to invest in  civil legal services for the poor to match the current investment in such services by these other industrial democracies.  The U.S. would have to raise its  present combined public investment of approximately $600 million to $1.6 billion if it were to match France and Germany, despite the fact the courts in both of these countries use an inquisitorial  process which is less dependent on lawyers.  To match the three major Canadian provinces, federal, state and local governments in the U.S. would have to combine to invest something over $3 billion a year in civil legal services, to match the Netherlands $3.5 billion, or to match New Zealand $4.25 billion.  Finally, if the United States were to demonstrate as great a financial commitment to equal access to justice as England its governments would be investing over $10 billion a year on civil legal services for the nation’s lower income population.   Date this page was last edited: 01/16/2002