The Access to Justice Support Project (formerly SPAN, the State Planning Assistance Network) is a joint project of NLADA and the Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants (SCLAID) of the American Bar Association. It provides support and coordination for state-level partnerships dedicated to improving civil legal assistance and expanding access to justice for low-income people.

In states around the country, bar officials and leaders, judges and court administrators, and legal services executives, board members, staff, and clients have joined together with others committed to the goal of equal justice including law schools, social services and community organizations, low-income community leaders, religious groups, and business and labor leaders in a collaborative effort to build a civil legal assistance system capable of responding to the needs of low-income people in the state.

These partnerships take different forms in different states: Access to Justice Commissions, State Bar Association Access to Justice Committees, Planning Councils, and others. Among the initiatives they have undertaken are obtaining or increasing state funding for civil legal assistance, expanding pro bono efforts by volunteer private attorneys, making the courts more user-friendly and responsive to self-represented litigants, and increasing coordination among providers to ensure that the full range of legal needs of low-income people in the state is addressed.

Contact the Access to Justice Support Project