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Keys Findings of the Needs Assessment • Only 1 in 5 love and moderate-incarne Havvai`i residents have their legal needs met. • Legal service providers are able to help only I in 3 of those who contact them for assistance. • The areas with the asreatest uruuet civil legal needs are housing (24%), f•.unrily (2 domestic violence (Pi)), and consumer (7%). • Significant barriers to obtaining legal assistance in addition to usability to afford an attorney include language and cultural barriers, lack of knowledge of one's legal rights, lack of knowledge of available legal services, and difficulty in accessing legal services programs. • There is one legal service attorney for every 2,291 persons living below 125° c of the federal poverty guideline. • There is one legal service attorney for every 4,402 persons living below 200° e of the federal poverty guideline. • There is one private attorney for ever- 361 persons in the general population. Community NN"ide Action Plan-. Ten Steps in Increase Access to Justice in Hawaii by 2010 (1) Create an Access to justice Commission. The Havvai`i Supreme Court should create an Access to justice Conmiission with members from the judiciary, organized bar, legal service providers, and others. The Commission would oversee and coordinate statewide efforts to expand access to justice for love-income people, increase funding for legal service providers and pro bong contributions by attorney-s, and increase public awareness. (2) Increase Funding to Support the Delivery of Legal. Services to Ensure Access to justice. Legal service provider organizations are the cornerstone of access to justice. The current level of funding from all sources allows these providers to serve less than 23°Fa of lovy-income residents with critical legal problems. Additional funding should be sought from the Hawaii Legislative, the federal government and through other means, including adoption of a "comparability" requirement for interest paid on lawyers' client trust accounts and increasing the court filing fee surcharge for the Indigent Legal Assistance Fund. (3) Develop a Culture that Values Providing Pro Bono Services. Attorneys who voluntarily provide free legal assistance to love and moderate-income residents play a key role in helping to address the unmet need for legal services.leasures should be taken that elevate pro bono to a value revered throughout Hawai`i's legal community. ' For the study, a family of four was deemed to consist of tvvo adults, one school age child. and one pre-school child. Comparable monthly basic living expenses on the neighbor islands were found to be 54,896 on Kauai, 5 5,294 in .Bans County. and 54,492 on Hanui°i Island. Exhibit "A"