The goals and future prospectus of the Foundations are:

During our first year of establishment, we emphasized on promoting our reputation and service qualities so the public may better understand the Foundation.We are also aware that quality improvement and expanding operation have been and will be our main objectives.As a result, on March 5 and 6, 2005, we held the 2005 Planning Conferences where all committee members, presidents and executive secretaries of the established 10 branches attended to discuss the goal of this year.Prior to the conference, we held a pre-meeting to discuss the goals of 2005.Before submitting our annual budget to the Judicial Yuan, the Foundation also held three internal meetings on budget for the work goals and plans in the next year.Suggestions were also made in each research or development committees.

The goals and future prospectus of the Foundation can be found as follows:

1. Expansion of service (remote service)
   In most places, various kinds of legal consultation resources are available and the Foundation, as a result, does not provide pure legal consultation. (Except for Hualien, Taitung, Penghu, Kinmen and Mazu Branches). Judicial resources are insufficient in remote areas and offshore islands and it is difficult to find lawyers. People there do not know whom to turn to when they have legal problems. Because of this, the Foundation will continue their expansion service in which Branches of the Foundation themselves are working together with local associations, legal service associations of universities, etc to invite lawyers to provide legal service in remote areas and offshore islands to shorten the gap of judicial resources between the cities and remote areas.
2. Initiating legal aid service for inmates at prisons and arrested defendants
   The Foundation requests applicants or their representatives to meet with examining members for examination.However, there are many inmates at prisons and arrested defendants who can not appoint representatives.Also, many Branches reflected the need to provide arrested defendants with legal aid.The Foundation then studied the necessity and discussed with the competent authority, Ministry of Justice, on the possibility of establishing video conference equipment to provide legal aid.In the future, the Foundation will keep coordinating with the Ministry of Justice to protect the litigation rights of the inmates at prisons and arrested defendants.
3. Studying and expanding non- litigation types services for disadvantaged groups
   The work of the Foundation such as litigation representation, writing of legal documents, settlement and mediation, etc is to solve legal disputes for people. However, these are not the only things lawyers can do. They can still help people when they have troubles in law or administrative procedures when people apply for subsidy or welfare allowance. However, those having such needs are often poor and they do not intend to request lawyers. The Foundation intends to start service other than litigation for those who are in need.
4. Initiating the practice of first investigation by the police/prosecutors with lawyers present
   Around 80 to 90 thousand cases of arrest by the police/prosecutors have been made this year in Taiwan.However, only around 4,000 lawyers in Taiwan.This would mean that lawyers would have to be standing by 24 hours a day if they were required to be present at each arrest made in Taiwan.The Foundation did not start this service considering the heavy load to our staff and lawyers.To build a legal aid environment of total service for people, it is necessary to start such a service and the Foundation is expediting to establish relevant systems.
5. Initiating defense service of prosecutors’ requesting detention
   When prosecutors request detention from courts, lawyers need to be available to defend the defendants and we can then say that prosecutors and defendants were equal in battle.This is the same as the practice of first investigation by the police/prosecutors with lawyers present.Both are of emergent types of legal aid.In the future, the Foundation will determine whether it is necessary to start such service depending on the number of lawyers, work load of our staff and the requirements.
6. Expanding Alternative Disputes Resolution (ADR) operation
   The main service of the Foundation is to represent people for litigation.Yet, this is only one of the measures to solve disputes.As it takes time and money to litigate, people tend to think that it is the last measure.Therefore, we have few cases in litigation.In the past years, many countries have dedicated to developing Alternative Disputes Resolution such as settlement/mediation and arbitration, etc.However, the settlement/mediation in Taiwan is not sound and fails to reach the performance.We believe it would be more beneficial towards the resolution of a dispute if the lawyer involved in the investigation was present at the beginning of the dispute.To reduce the litigation source, it is indeed necessary to expand this service and we will work hard on this.

1. Improving examination and legal aid quality
   To help more people become aware of the Foundation, we aimed to have certain number of cases last year.In the coming year, after maintaining the number of cases, the Foundation will pay more attention on the quality of both examination and legal aid and the quality of our own staff.With service quality control, we will have a series of educational training amongst our staff,examining members and legal aid lawyers and monitor those with poor performance to ensure that we provide the public with the best service.
2. Employing full-time lawyers
   The Foundation currently has lawyers from law firms as legal aid lawyers.We have lawyers at the Foundation who are in charge of administration.Nevertheless, the Foundation can not control the case progress without report from the legal aid lawyers or recipients.In accordance with Category 3, Paragraph 24 of the Legal Services Corporation Act, the Foundation shall employ full-time lawyers who will take cases and help the staff proceed with cases and understand law practice.The staff can understand the problems of the case and have contact with the cases that need legal aid to encourage their morale.
3. Video conferencing system
   Examination of Penghu, Kinmen and Mazu branches, with few examining members and legal aid lawyers or even without local lawyers, is made via video conferencing with Kaohsiung and Taipei Branches.However, the Foundation attempts to apply video conferencing in other remote places for those who are unable to come to the Foundation/branches.For example, inmates at prisons or arrested defendant would have trouble accessing the branches.The Foundation is now coordinating with the Ministry of Justice to expand the video conferencing to prisons so that inmates at prisons can also have the opportunity to apply for legal aid.Also, the Foundation intends to have video conferencing with branches in central and southern Taiwan to save time and transportation fees.We can increase the number of meetings to improve better connection and exchange between the Foundation and Branches.
4. Establishing appeal channel
   People can submit their questions to our appeal system when they are dissatisfied with the examination decision, our staff, examining members, legal aid lawyers and/or the system as a whole.The Foundation will contact them directly.Nevertheless, our appeal channels are not complete.We are now working hard on standard operation procedures of the appeal system to fully satisfy the people using our service and the appeal system will also the drive to push us for improvements.
5. Recognition standards on financial eligibility criteria
   The set standards for financial eligibility to apply for legal aid is the basis on which the Foundation judges who is eligible.This is closely related to the precision of poverty line in Taiwan.The Foundation intends to invite social welfare group representatives and scholars to establish a review group.This group will take into consideration the range of financial situations in current day society and amend the standards so that it may better reflect the underprivileged group as a whole.
6. Balance between exact examination and convenience to people
   We have made significant breakthroughs and progress in examination of cases.Examination Committee members have grown from filling out only one form to being required to fill out 3 to 4 forms during their examination process.This demonstrates the preciseness of the Foundation’s operation manners.The Foundation is also aware of the importance of convenience to people and will work towards the balance between the two.

1. Implementation of legal education
   Due to huge differences of judicial resources between cities and remote areas, people have great differences regarding knowledge of their rights and duties.Unfortunately, we are unable to examine whether people have correct understanding of their rights and duties.Promoting legal education is a part of legal aid services and we take it as our responsibility.In addition to the above services in remote areas, we intend to expand cooperation with associations or government institutes on legal education for social workers or publicity on legal concepts as an intermediate/long-term legal aideducation.
2. Promoting system reforms
   We have discovered that many legal aid cases are not granted due to an unreasonable, un-sound system or altogether a lackthere of overall system .The Foundation believes that, in addition to legal aid, the operation shall cover system reforms or establishment.Therefore, upon discovery of unreasonable conditions of systems, we inform the related social welfare groups and provide lawyers to work together to reform systems.Also, when social welfare groups inform us of un-sound systems, the Foundation is delighted to provide them with lawyers who have undertaken similar cases or are interested in the issues to cooperate.In other words, other than providing legal aid, the Foundation aims to be a platform between social welfare groups and professionals to seek better exchange opportunities and work for the system reform and soundness.
3. Enhancing global participation
   Many countries now have legal aid systems with different experience and results.In addition to holding international conferences, the Foundation will also send staff abroad to understand development of legal aid in other countries and learn from their experience to make our legal aid system more appropriate.