The California Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Californians explores the state’s justice gap in 2019, describes the volume of civil legal needs faced by Californians, assesses the extent to which they seek and receive help, and measures the size of the gap between their civil legal needs and the resources available to address these needs.
The programmed survey instrument, codebook, and data files from the 2019 California Justice Gap Study conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago are available for download.
Survey Instrument
Survey Codebook
Respondent Level Data Contains responses not specific to a named legal problem, including respondent demographics, perceptions of the civic legal system, and number of legal problems experienced. One record per respondent. Click here for more information about the structure of the data.
Household Level Data
Contains legal problem-related survey responses, including questions about each legal problem they and/or someone else in their household experienced in the past year. One record per respondent per legal problem (each respondent has a record for each of the legal problems in the survey). Click here for more information about the structure of the data.
Individual Level Data Similar to the household level data, but contains problems personally experienced by the respondent, as well as responses to questions about help-seeking. One record per respondent per personally experienced legal problem (with no records for problems not experienced).