The state of legal aid

Legal aid offices across the country are being decimated by funding cuts. Host Dick Gordon of NPR’s The Story speaks to a man making do with increased pressures and less money. John Whitfield runs a legal aid service in Virginia– and he says he’s having to turn people away. Click here to hear the interview.

Courts flooded with poorer Americans representing themselves

The Associated Press reports that “a crush” of people are representing themselves in the nation’s civil courts because they can’t afford a lawyer–and that the American Bar Assoc. is urging lawyers to offer free legal services to those who can’t afford a lawyer.

“The increase in self-represented parties stems from a recession that has left fewer people able to afford lawyers and created new waves of foreclosure, debt collection and bankruptcy cases, judges and lawyers say. Judges say self-represented people are slowing down court dockets because they typically don’t know what legal points to argue or what motions to file,” the article said.

“There’s a crisis in this country,” said John Levi, board chairman of Washington, D.C.-based Legal Services Corp., the nation’s largest funder of civil legal aid for the poor. “Courthouses are being filled with people just showing up, trying to figure out what their rights are. If you’re a low-income person and you have a legal need, it is not easy to get it addressed.”

To read the article, click here.

Funding cuts expected to result in nearly 750 fewer staff positions at LSC-funded programs

According to a recent survey conducted by the Legal Services Corporation, local legal aid programs expect to reduce staffing by nearly 750 employees in 2012–including 350 attorneys– because of funding cuts. This represents a reduction of 8 percent of full-time-equivalent positions from the end of 2011.

Nationwide, programs receiving grants from LSC reported significant reductions in funding, staffing, and operations.  Eighty-seven percent of the respondents report that their total (LSC and non-LSC) funding in 2012 will decrease significantly from 2011.  Eighty-two percent of the programs with reserves expect to use those funds in 2012 to continue operations.  One hundred thirty-three of the 134 LSC grantees responded to the survey.

So far, LSC-funded Maryland Legal Aid has not reduced staff or closed any offices.  But that could change if the next General Assembly doesn’t extend or make permanent court filing fee surcharge increases that expire in 2013, said Legal Aid Executive Director Wilhelm Joseph. The surcharge increases, enacted nearly two years ago, supports civil legal programs that help low-income Marylanders across the state.

To read the LSC press release, click here.

NPR: Legal help for the poor in ‘state of crisis’

From National Public Radio:  Nearly 50 years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that people accused of a crime deserve the right to a defense lawyer, no matter whether they can afford to pay for one. But there’s no such guarantee when it comes to civil disputes — like evictions and child custody cases — even though they have a huge impact on people’s lives.

For decades, federal and state governments have pitched in to help. But money pressures mean the system for funding legal aid programs for the poor is headed toward a crisis.

A Legal ER

On a recent morning, one block from city hall in downtown Baltimore, a few dozen people crowd into a waiting room. The light is dim and the mood is downcast, except for a toddler in a pink stroller singing her ABCs.

This isn’t a hospital. But it is a kind of emergency room, for people who need help, right away, with all kinds of legal problems.

One of them is Baltimore cab driver Rodney Taylor, who says he’s “here at Legal Aid today to receive some help because I’m trying to get custody of my son.” Another is Jasalle Coates, “here because I’ve been given the runaround about my property.” And then there’s a middle-aged lady in fashionable black glasses who didn’t want to give her name, to protect her brother in a nursing home from possible retaliation.

“I need to see what his rights are,” she says, “because he was not given medication, he was not fed, he was soaking wet, he had black eyes. His head was busted. And I feel that was abuse.”

At Maryland’s Legal Aid Bureau, the doors are open every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

“Some days,” says Joe Rohr, a veteran lawyer at Legal Aid, “we actually have to close early because of the volume.”

He has just come back from the courthouse, where he tried to help a woman who’s pregnant and blind keep her gas and electricity service.

“The problem is, we have far more clients coming in than we have available staff to fully represent everyone,” Rohr says.

To read and listen to the story, click here.

The relentless push to bleed Legal Services dry

From Remapping Debate, a short history of the Legal Services Corp., which funds legal aid programs across the country (including Maryland Legal Aid):

Ask people about the things that make America a “country of laws,” and one answer you will likely get is that everyone is entitled to be represented by a lawyer of his or her choice. But that promise has little meaning to more and more families at or near the poverty level. They’re among the millions of Americans for whom having a lawyer is a luxury beyond reach. Such families cannot afford a lawyer to defend them in an eviction proceeding, to fight a wrongful denial of veteran’s benefits, or to help get a restraining order to protect against an abusive spouse.

While the right of an indigent defendant to have counsel appointed for criminal cases is constitutionally-protected, there is no such right for lower-income people who need to bring or defend civil cases, leaving them with limited access to the justice system. Congress, however, created the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) in 1974 with the intention of providing high quality civil legal aid to poor and working class Americans — those in households at or below 125 percent of the poverty level (currently $27,938 for a family of four). And independent observers, including bar associations, sheriffs’ offices, and State Supreme Court justices, widely acknowledge that LSC-funded lawyers perform vital work for their clients.

“These are basic legal services for low income people to have a place to live, feed their kids, deal with an abusive spouse, deal with their education so their kids would have more of an opportunity,” explained Esther Lardent, president and chief executive officer of the Pro Bono Institute, a supporter of the LSC. “We’re not only helping those individuals but society overall — there’s a cost if you don’t help people’s situations improve.”

Despite its achievements, conservatives have consistently targeted the LSC, attempting to strip it of resources, and, at times, to abolish it. This pressure began in earnest in 1981, just months after Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency. Until that year, the LSC’s budget had grown consistently. Reagan was unsuccessful in his attempt to shutter the LSC entirely, but he succeeded in cutting its budget by 25 percent. In the following decade, under House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Congress hit the program with even greater constraints. The LSC has been hamstrung by major budget cuts and service restrictions under both Democratic and Republican presidents ever since.

The push against the LSC continues. Just last month, Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.) proposed an amendment to the fiscal year 2013 House Appropriations Bill that would have ended all funding for the LSC. (The amendment failed, but garnered 122 votes.)

When asked about whether their constituents have been or would be hurt by cuts to the LSC, the LSC’s opponents in Washington don’t squarely answer the question. Instead, they claim the services LSC-funded programs provide are unneeded, and condemn the LSC as just another “advancement of Big Government,” as Representative Scott stated on the House floor.

In the face of such arguments, the LSC’s proponents have prevented its elimination. But they have done little to replenish, let alone expand, its resources. Similarly, the LSC’s advocates outside of government have been unable or unwilling to raise broader public awareness of the importance of the program and secure robust funding to deliver quality legal representation to the millions of Americans in genuine need.

To read the entire article, click here.

White House and LSC co-host forum on civil legal assistance for poor Americans

The Legal Services Corporation co-hosted a White House forum to discuss the state of civil legal assistance for low-income Americans. At the forum, President Barack Obama addressed a group that included U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, State Department Legal Adviser Harold Koh, and former U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, as well as six directors of LSC-funded programs from across the nation (including Wilhelm Joseph of Maryland Legal Aid). Making civil legal assistance available to low-income Americans is “central to our notion of equal justice under the law,” the president said. He pledged to be a “fierce defender and advocate” for legal services. For more last month’s forum, click here.

Budget cut hits region’s legal aid groups

A 14-percent budget cut the federal Legal Services Corp. has D.C.-area legal aid programs scrambling, the Washington Post reported last week.

“Neighborhood Legal Services Program in the District, Legal Services of Northern Virginia and Maryland Legal Aid are consolidating offices and jobs, freezing salaries and more aggressively pursuing private funding and partnerships with law schools to share resources and manpower,” the article said.

“Maryland Legal Aid, the largest civil legal services provider in the region with about 300 employees in 12 offices throughout the state, has not laid off any staff and does not plan to dismiss any staff in 2012, said executive director Wilhelm Joseph, Jr.,” the article continued.

“To compensate for a 15 percent cut ($670,000 less) in LSC funding — paired with a 5 percent cut ($550,000 less) in funding from Maryland Legal Services Corp., the state counterpart to LSC — the nonprofit is looking to replace retiring staff with lower-paid new hires, tighten up travel and other expenses, and intensify fundraising campaigns aimed at law firms, foundations and individual donors.”

To read the article, click here.

Staff reductions hit legal aid programs nationally

The nonprofit programs funded by the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) to deliver civil legal assistance to low-income Americans are implementing layoffs and staff reductions because of budget constraints, a survey conducted by LSC found.

According to the survey, LSC-funded programs anticipate laying off 393 employees, including 163 attorneys, in 2012.  The reductions continue a staffing downturn that began about a year ago. In December 2010, LSC-funded programs employed 4,351 attorneys, 1,614 paralegals and 3,094 support staff. During 2011, LSC programs reduced their staffing by 833 positions through layoffs and attrition. They now anticipate a new round of layoffs this year, bringing the staffing loss to 1,226 full-time personnel.

The survey was conducted in late December and early January, and 132 of the 135 nonprofit legal aid programs funded by LSC responded.

Maryland Legal Aid, one of those LSC-funded programs, has not implemented layoffs or closed offices.

To read the entire press release, click here.

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.

Legal Aid adjusts to funding cuts

Maryland Legal Aid, the state’s primary provider of civil legal help to the poor, will try to avoid reducing its services in the wake of cuts to federal funding, the Montgomery Gazette reported.

Legal Aid will look at “any cost-saving measure short of affecting our capacity to serve clients,” said Shawn Boehringer, the nonprofit’s chief counsel. Last month, Congress cut funding to the Legal Services Corp., a major Legal Aid funder, by $56 million, which will translate into a reduction of more than $650,000 to the Maryland program.

To read the article, click here.