Great expectations accompany many community legal education and information (CLEI) strategies - as tools to empower, to prevent legal issues escalating and to improve access to justice. This paper seeks to identify what different CLEI strategies may actually provide. To move beyond the great expectations, this paper provides a model for identifying different types of CLEI. The model can support the design, planning and evaluation of CLEI within organisations, and in collaborative planning across the legal assistance sector. It can help link CLEI to other legal assistance strategies. The model applies equally to face-to-face education sessions, hardcopy resources and online innovations.