 Web Junction and the Legal Services Corporation have partnered on a national training initiative to help public libraries be better equipped to help patrons address their civil legal needs. LSC defines the justice gap as the difference between the civil legal needs of low-income Americans and the resources available to meet those needs. According to the LSC's Justice Gap Report, in 2017, almost three in four low-income households experienced at least one civil legal problem, and one in four experienced more than six. 86% of these problems received inadequate or no legal help. Rates are even worse for groups like seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities. There are many reasons for this, including the lack of sufficient legal aid services to meet the need, a general lack of understanding of civil legal issues, and that people tend to neither know what legal information and service options exists nor where to look for them. Libraries are well positioned to help address the civil legal justice gap. They already play a public service and community anchor role in connecting patrons to information and services, and library staff have the necessary research and reference skills and also understand the importance of neutrality when providing sensitive information. Patrons often come into the library when trying to address problems such as these, but like the patrons themselves, library staff may not recognize when a problem has a civil legal solution and don't know the questions to ask that might uncover the legal issues involved. Dealing with legal issues is also intimidating for many public library staff, in part due to the complexity of the law and also because they may be worried about crossing the line from providing information into offering legal advice. Given the level of need and the potential for trained library staff to address it, we developed a series of four self-paced courses that build the skills and confidence needed by public library staff to identify and respond to patrons' legal questions, as well as to provision their library with the reference resources and partnerships that can provide relevant, authoritative, and helpful information and services. The four-course series provides a learning pathway to a strong foundation of civil legal reference, but you can also enroll in individual courses to meet your specific needs. We estimate each course will take between two and three hours to complete. Let's take a quick look at what each course covers. The first course, the Justice Gap in the US Legal System, introduces the Civil Legal Justice Gap, the US legal system with its multiple layers of laws and procedures, and how to provide legal information without straying into the disallowed activity of offering legal advice. Course two, Civil Legal Issues and Resources describes the most common types of civil legal issues, the kinds of real-world solutions where they occur and how to spot them. It then covers finding and evaluating legal resources to build a unique location-specific legal resource collection that meets your community's needs. For the final assignment, learners begin creating that resource collection. Course three, Partnering with Legal Service Providers surveys the range of legal information and assistance providers and how to find and then partner with the organizations providing legal information and services in your area. It also highlights examples of the ways some public libraries already partner with these organizations to better serve their communities. The final assignment for this course is to find and contact at least one such organization. Course four, Conducting a Legal Reference Interview focuses on developing the core skillset necessary to conduct a successful legal reference interview. This course includes tips and best practices, demonstrations of interviews, and active legal reference interview practice with either another person or using the interactive scenarios built into the course. At the end, you will share your reflections on the experience. So visit oc.lc-slash-legal-justice to read more about these free courses and to enroll. Note that if you don't already have one, you will need to create a free webjunction account to enroll in these free courses.