This exploratory study of the legal problems or needs of prisoners and mental hospital patients (the institutionalized) reveals the wide range and diversity in the perceptions of what the needs are and what the legal responses might be. It argues for the need to conduct research that first promotes our qualitative understanding of legal demand among the institutionalized, and it suggests the need to experiment with and do research on legal supply programs in the institutions. Only then can we begin to think about quantifying the needs and designing with some precision delivery programs based upon such quantitative information. The study also suggests the need for a lawyer role in the institutional context that departs from traditional role perceptions, both in terms of the approach taken to cases and clients and in terms of the substantive problems deemed deserving of legal attention.

Within recent years our understanding of legal education and the legal profession has been enriched by an increasing number of empirical investigations of legal education. As research interest in this area develops, it is important to assess and to build on past efforts. By serving as a guide to studies on law students, this bibliography is intended to advance that end. We hope that these materials can facilitate access into this field of scholarship and, by so doing, stimulate research on questions that have been raised but not yet answered.