The Legal Aid Reform program aims to improve state-supported legal aid systems in order to enhance access to justice for socially vulnerable, poor and disadvantaged people.

For over a decade, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Russia have been in the process of reforming and restructuring their legal systems. While many critical justice sector reforms have been undertaken throughout the region, the mechanisms to ensure individuals' access to legal information and assistance often remain inadequate and ineffective. Consequently, many people — especially those who are poor or otherwise disadvantaged — are left without any real access to legal counsel in both criminal and non-criminal matters.

To help improve equal and effective access to justice, PILI works with partner organizations to engage Ministries of Justice in legal aid reform efforts and to support the development of legal aid coalitions comprising NGOs, human rights lawyers, judges and bar association leaders. PILI relies on a diverse set of methodologies and participatory processes to:

• gather, analyze and disseminate data to assess current deficiencies in access to justice, highlight problems and needs, and inform priorities;
• increase knowledge and build broader awareness among stakeholders of access to justice issues;
• foster, develop and assist state-supported reform initiatives;
• support the implementation of legal aid systems; and
• build the capacity of and provide assistance to civil society networks and other actors providing legal aid services.

PILI's activity in this field includes past projects in Poland and Bulgaria as well as more recent projects in Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Russia. In Russia, PILI has conducted research and analysis of legal aid needs as part of a comprehensive study of legal aid, and has also launched a pilot project in Samara that aims to bring together the efforts of the government-sponsored legal aid office and the Samara bar to improve legal aid delivery. In Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, PILI has been collaborating for several years with Ministries of Justice and civil society organizations on legislative reform in the area of legal aid. In 2002, PILI organized the European Forum on Access to Justice, an international event which brought together key stakeholders to share ideas, experiences and strategies to promote access to justice.

PILI held a 2nd European Forum on Access to Justice in 2005, in cooperation with the Open Society Justice Initiative, which drew over 200 legal professionals from 40 countries around the world. PILI has also published a series of resource books on access to justice in English and Russian; click here for more information about these and other PILI publications.