The International Legal Aid Group (ILAG) is a network of legal aid specialists including chief executives and managers from legal aid commissions, high ranking civil servants and leading academics in over two dozen countries. Its mission is to improve evidence-based policy-making in the field of poverty legal services through discussion and dialogue relating to international developments in policy and research. ILAG focuses primarily on the particular issues raised in jurisdictions which have established highly developed systems of legal aid. However, ILAG is expanding its brief to include jurisdictions with less developed systems, particularly in jurisdictions close to its conference sites. ILAG began by holding biannual conferences, with the first being organised in 1992 in the Hague, the Netherlands by Vouter Meurs of the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Professor Alan Paterson, of Strathclyde University. From November 2008, it has published a periodical newsletter on developments around the world and, from February 2010, it established this website. It seeks maximum discussion of its concerns. For reasons of manageability, however, ILAG conferences are open only by invitation. The latest one took place in Helsinki, Finland in June 2011. ILAG is guided by an international steering committee with Professor Alan Paterson as its Chair (prof.alan.paterson@strath.ac.uk). Communications to ILAG should be sent to Eileen Ritchie, Conference Co-ordinator (eileen.ritchie@ilagconference.com), to Paul Ferrie, Researcher and Website Administrator (paul.s.ferrie@strath.ac.uk), or to info@ilagnet.org. The ILAG newsletter is published by Roger Smith, an expert in domestic and international aspects of legal aid, human rights and access to justice. Possible content for the newsletter can be sent to rsmith@rogersmith.info. Subscription to the newsletter is open to all and it can be done through the appropriate part of the website.