; Whereas the 2017 Justice Gap Report found that low-income individuals in the United States received inadequate or no legal help for 86 percent of their civil legal problems; Whereas millions of individuals in the United States cannot afford to hire a lawyer, including approximately 94,000,000 individuals with family incomes below 200 percent of the Federal poverty guidelines (as defined by the Department of Health and Human Services); Whereas assistance programs support less than 1 civil legal aid attorney per 10,000 individuals with an income under 200 percent of the Federal poverty guidelines; Whereas countless studies have shown that programs that provide attorneys to low-income individuals produce fairer outcomes, promote public confidence in the justice system, facilitate greater judicial efficiency, and save taxpayer dollars; Whereas a 2015 report titled The Landscape of Civil Litigation in State Courts published by the National Center for State Courts found that only 26 percent of defendants have an attorney; Whereas the Conference of Chief Justices and the Conference of State Court Administrators resolved in 2015 to support the aspirational goal of 100 percent access to effective assistance for essential civil legal needs ; Whereas self-represented litigants face significantly worse outcomes in court, including that— (1) in Montgomery County, Maryland, domestic violence victims without lawyers are almost three times more likely than those with lawyers to drop their cases before obtaining final protection; (2) in Maricopa County, Arizona, judges take, on average, less than a minute to hear eviction proceedings involving unrepresented tenants, with judgments overwhelmingly favoring landlords; (3) in Wisconsin, Social Security Disability claimants with representation succeed up to 70 percent of the time while unrepresented claimants succeed only 30 to 55 percent of the time