The roots of poverty law stretch back to the late nineteenth century, when privately funded organizations arose to provide legal assistance to poor immigrants. Legal aid offered services to people who could not afford to pay for them, often helping them secure money that was owed when deserting husbands failed to pay child support or when unscrupulous employers failed to meet the terms of the wage contract. But although legal aid did often secure funds owed to indigent clients, the purpose and focus of assistance were to open access to the justice system, not to assure poor people an income.

Poverty law can be distinguished from ordinary legal aid in that the heart of poverty law is advocacy for poor people’s access to resources. A political practice as much as it is a legal analysis, poverty law emerged as a coherent body of law and legal advocacy during the 1960s, when the civil rights movement, the War on Poverty, the introduction of public legal services for poor people, and grassroots welfare activism combined in an ambitious legal and political movement to secure rights for economically disfranchised people. Poverty lawyers challenged the differential legal treatment of low-income individuals, especially those who needed government assistance. They also developed affirmative claims for income support as part of an overall strategy to increase resources for poor people and win rights for welfare recipients.