Missouri Legal Aid By the Numbers
The Legal Services Corporation (LSC) provides funding to each state’s legal aid program(s) to provide legal aid to eligible clients. In return, every legal aid program must provide a report to LSC concerning their service delivery numbers and operational expenses in "Grantee Activity Reports" at the end of each year. These reports are for a period of January to December.
The Legal Services Corporation (LSC) has released “By the Numbers: The Data Underlying Legal Services Programs.” Drawing on data from LSC-funded legal services organizations, the report provides a snapshot of the civil legal issues facing low-income Americans and the assistance they receive. (See the report for numbers for Missouri in 2025).
LSC Press Release concerning this report
“Behind every number is a person or family confronting a serious legal challenge,” said LSC President Ron Flagg. “This report shows the life-changing impact LSC grantees have by helping low-income Americans protect their health, homes, finances and futures.”
The report shows growing demand in several areas of civil legal assistance. Consumer and finance cases increased 13.7% from 2024, reflecting mounting financial pressures on low-income families. These cases include helping clients fight fraud, challenge predatory lending and unfair debt collection, navigate bankruptcy and other financial disputes and prevent wrongful repossessions.
Legal issues related to domestic violence also continued to rise, increasing 5.4% from the previous year.
Housing remained the most common legal issue, accounting for 35.7% of all cases closed. The continued prevalence of these types of cases underscores the essential role legal aid plays in helping families maintain stable housing.
In all, LSC grantees served more than 1.8 million clients and their household members and closed more than 771,000 cases. Among named clients, 70.9% identified as women and 22.3% were age 60 or older.
Beyond direct representation, grantees also provided legal education or information to nearly 1.4 million individuals and made more than 693,000 referrals to other social services.
To learn more about the services provided by LSC's grantees in 2025, as well as data on client demographics, program staffing, revenue, expenses and private attorney involvement, read the report here or watch this brief video on the report's findings.
Legal Services Corporation (LSC) is an independent nonprofit established by Congress in 1974. For more than 50 years, LSC has provided financial support for civil legal aid to low-income Americans. The Corporation currently provides funding to 129 independent nonprofit legal aid programs in every state, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories.
