Annual case service report. A compilation of all case activity during the annual calendar year period. It is required by the grant agreement with the Corporation. Local programs are required to inform the Corporation of how many cases are open at the end of the year and how many cases are closed during the year. Instructions for preparing this annual report appear in the Corporation's Case Service Report (CSR) Handbook and Grant Activity Reporting Instructions. The Corporation used the information provided in case service reports to inform the Congress what the program was accomplishing, in terms of cases produced, with annual appropriations. The Corporation also used these reports as evaluation factors in making competitive grant award decisions and to support requests for program funding from the Congress. Congress used the annual case report it received from the Corporation to make judgments on annual appropriations for the program.
Open case. Before a local program can open a case, it must first accept the applicant into the program as a client after determining that the applicant meets the eligibility requirements of the LSC Act and Corporation regulations. The applicant's legal issue must also be within stated program priorities and the case must also conform to the Corporation's case reporting standards. The vast majority of cases opened by local programs fall into the category of limited services (70-80 percent). Limited services cases are typically resolved in a relatively short period of time, many on the same day. They should be promptly closed and reported to LSC in the period the legal service was provided.
Closed case. Local programs close a case when the legal action on the client's case is completed. Annual case reports contain two general categories of closed cases - limited services and extended services. Extended services frequently require negotiations and/or representation at judicial proceedings.
Cases handled. A term used by local programs when referring to the total number of open and closed cases on the books at any one time.
Phantom case. It is a case that never existed and for which the local program could not produce any record of a client.
Single case reported more than once. Typically found in combinations of open/open, open/closed, or closed/closed in the subsidiary records supporting the annual case service report and identifiable by same client name, same date, and same legal issue for a client. Some local programs close and recount open/open and open/closed duplicates in different years making detection more difficult. Prevalent in programs having unusually large numbers of open cases.
Non-reportable issue. When client eligibility is undetermined or undocumented according to the LSC Act and Corporation regulations or when the local program violates a congressional restriction on allowable case services (e.g., abortion or redistricting cases). A telephone call in which eligibility is not determined and the application is not legally assessed by a qualified legal representative of the program also does not qualify as a reportable case.
Index of the LSC Case Over-Counting Scandal
Legal Services Accountability Project Page