Marketing Legal Assistance

Abstract

Much of the American conversation about access to justice focuses on regulatory barriers to new forms of service delivery and treats regulatory resistance as the primary problem to be solved. Meanwhile, obstacles to consumer awareness and engagement have received less attention. This essay reverses the order of analysis and considers strategies for expanding access first from a marketing perspective. What models of legal assistance have been most successful in building consumer awareness and trust? To what extent can successful marketing help to sidestep or overcome regulatory resistance? And what are the implications for reformers interested in expanding access to justice?

Note: This essay appears in a special issue of Daedalus on Access to Justice, which “features twenty-four essays that examine the national crisis in civil legal services facing poor and low-income Americans.”

Keywords: access to justice, legal marketing, professional regulation