More seek Legal Aid in hard times

From yesterday’s Washington Post: As Maryland Legal Aid celebrates its centennial this year, the national housing crisis, which has hit suburban Washington hard, is making the work it does even more vital.

At the same time, the agency, like similar organizations across the country, is grappling with funding cuts that make it harder to help the increasing number of people in need of assistance in civil cases.

For example, Prince George’s, the second-most-populous jurisdiction in the state, has endured more foreclosures than any other in Maryland. And the economic downturn has brought Legal Aid prospective clients that the organization would not have seen 10 years ago.

“I review a lot of the intakes, and we’re getting people from Potomac calling us,” [said Legal Aid supervising attorney Teresa Cooke]. “But these individuals are now actually financially eligible for our services.”

To read the article, click here.

After Disney dumps workers during record unemployment, ESPN Zone workers move forward with class-action lawsuit

Inner Harbor workers and allies are staging an action Monday, October 25, starting at 11 AM at the Power Plant and ending at the Garmatz Federal Courthouse at 12:30 PM, to highlight the filing of a class-action lawsuit against Disney’s ESPN Zone for failing to give workers adequate notice before suddenly shutting down in June, in violation of the federal WARN Act.

When the ESPN Zone failed to respond to workers’ request in June to meet face-to-face to resolve this blatant violation of worker rights, a committee of ESPN Zone workers decided to pursue legal action. “We are sending a message to Disney, ESPN Zone and Inner Harbor developers that private gain should not take precedence over human life. Corporate executives think they can break the law and just get away with it, because harbor developers do not enforce any human rights standards, but we are human beings and we have the right to dignity and respect,” says Debra Harris, a former ESPN Zone cook.

Maryland Legal Aid represents United Workers, a human rights organization led by low-wage workers that is organizing the ESPN Zone workers. Because Legal Aid is prohibited from filing class-action lawsuits by Congress, the Baltimore firm of Brown, Goldstein & Levy represents the workers in the class-action lawsuit.

For more, click here.

Post urges Congress to increase legal aid funding

An editorial in this morning’s Washington Post urges conferees reconciling House and Senate bills to increase funding to the Legal Services Corp. (which funds Maryland Legal Aid) and end Congressional restrictions that tie the hands of civil legal programs that help the poor. “Tough economic times have led more poor–and newly poor–people to need legal help,” the editorial says. “The LSC has been grossly underfunded for years, and the amount of money it gets from private and non-federal government sources has been shrinking because of the recession. Fully funding the LSC and giving it as much flexibility as possible will help to ensure that the needy get help.”

To read the entire editorial, click here.

Senate approves $400 million for legal services, removes restrictions

Last night, the Senate, by a vote of 71-28, passed the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies (CJS) bill (HR 2847), which provides $400 million for the Legal Services Corp. and removal of federal restrictions on state, local and private funds held by LSC grantees (including Maryland Legal Aid), excepting abortion-related and prisoner representation cases. The Senate funding level of $400 million is $40 million less than that provided by the House of Representatives in its bill passed earlier in the summer (and $10 million more than current funding).  The House bill did not remove the restriction on non-LSC funds, but did remove the restriction banning LSC recipients from seeking attorneys’ fees. The Senate bill did not remove the attorneys’ fees restriction, but such fees could be sought in cases brought using non-LSC sources of funding if the Senate version is enacted into law.  Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.), who chaired a hearing last year on closing the justice gap, spoke on the Senate floor in support of the increase.

Foreclosure glut in Anne Arundel–and Legal Aid swamped

Yesterday’s Capital (Annapolis) newspaper reported that foreclosure filings in Anne Arundel Co. are “far higher” than a year ago–and that Maryland Legal Aid “has seen a 64-percent increase in caseload over the same period one year before. Cheryl Hystad, the bureau’s director of advocacy, said a portion of that increase is the result of foreclosure cases, through landlord evictions, loss of health care coverage and other economy-related legal problems are all contributors,” the article said.

“Hystad said that, while legal aid is in demand for foreclosures, the bureau can only help those who meet certain qualifications. ‘We can only represent folks who are poverty-level and below,’ she said. ‘There are a lot of people who aren’t eligible for Legal Aid but still need the help.’”

The article also looked at proposed federal reforms and Congressional restrictions that prevent Legal Aid and other federally funded programs “from participating in class-action lawsuits, pursuing statutory attorneys’ fees and advocating for lending reform.”

“For example, the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau, the only agency in the state that receives the federal legal-services funds, receives only about 20 percent of its funding from federal grants,” the article said. “Regardless of the fact that a small portion of its funds comes from the government, all of its funds fall under the federal restrictions.”

To read the article, click here.

ACORN sting alarms Maryland nonprofits

A front-page Sun article looking at how nonprofits are reacting to a video of ACORN workers dispensing advice to a couple posing as a prostitute and a pimp included an interview with Acting Chief Counsel Peter Sabonis. “It’s a general warning to everyone,” Sabonis said. “It wouldn’t surprise me if we’ve had enemies of our program come in here in all of our offices and try to show we’re violating our congressional restrictions and using our money illegally.” To read the article, click here.