Legal aid hours and where they go
Introduction
AMMAN — How we decide which corridor or district receives the next tranche of legal aid capacity. What began as a local difficulty is now a structural one, and it shapes daily life for every household here. This brief sets out the evidence, the cost of inaction, and what should follow.
The problem, before the work started
Legal aid is scarce, so where the hours go decides who gets protection. Households absorbed the difference themselves — in time, in money, and in risks they would not otherwise take. Those costs rarely appear in a budget line, but they decide whether a family recovers or slips further.
We could not defend how we spent the hours until we could see how we spent the hours.
Nour Khalil, legal aid coordinator
How the work was delivered
Hours are logged by case type, and the allocation is published. The approach was chosen because it survives the conditions here: staff turnover, seasonal access, and a population that may move at short notice.
- Every hour logged against a case category
- Allocation reviewed quarterly against demand
- Waiting times published alongside the split
- Cases that time out counted and reported
What changed beyond the immediate goal
The direct objective was met, but the effects that matter most were the ones we did not set out to produce.
1. Shorter waits for urgent cases
Reallocation cut the wait for detention cases substantially.
2. Honest capacity limits
Published timing out made the shortfall arguable with funders.
3. Referrals that fit
Partners could see which categories had capacity before referring.
What comes next
The next report adds outcome by category, so hours can be weighed against what they achieve. The measure of success is not how long we stay, but whether the work continues once we have gone.
