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.

Legal aid is needed now more than ever

An op-ed in today’s Baltimore Sun by Legal Services board chairman John G. Levi:

Federal funding for civil legal assistance to low-income Americans in Maryland and throughout the country is in jeopardy.

A proposal before the U.S. House of Representatives would cut funding for the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) by 26 percent — a reduction of $104 million, down to $300 million. The proposal, for fiscal year 2012, would roll back LSC funding to a level not seen since 1999. Such a result would hit the 100-year-old Maryland Legal Aid Bureau with a cut of more than $1.15 million a year.

The proposal by the House Appropriations Committee is not the last word. The Senate Appropriations Committee is scheduled to take up the issue Thursday and will soon make its recommendation for 2012 legal services funding. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski of Maryland is a great supporter of legal services, oversees the subcommittee that handles LSC appropriations, and through the years has helped to build bipartisan support for legal services in the Senate, for which we are very grateful.

Much is at stake. At many legal aid offices throughout the country, the recession and slow economic recovery have led to significant increases in matters involving foreclosures, landlord-tenant disputes, bankruptcy and consumer finance, and, sadly, domestic violence. And the number of Americans who are eligible for civil legal aid (at or below 125 percent of the federal poverty line) has continued to climb to now more than 60 million Americans. As a result, legal aid programs, including Maryland’s, are overwhelmed with requests for assistance and stretched thin in their ability to provide it. Recent studies show that half of eligible applicants are turned away at LSC programs because of underfunding; across the nation, less than 20 percent of the legal needs of low-income Americans are being met.

Why should taxpayers support legal services?

Civil legal assistance is necessary to provide access to justice, which has long been a part of our national fabric. We pledge allegiance to a nation with “justice for all,” and, as the legendary federal judge Learned Hand said, “If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: thou shalt not ration justice.”

To read the column, click here.

Addressing the justice gap

A New York Times editorial this week called for expanding civil legal services to the poor:

“In civil proceedings like divorces, child support cases, home foreclosures, bankruptcies and landlord-tenant disputes, the number of people representing themselves in court has soared since the economy soured. Experts estimate that four-fifths of low-income people have no access to a lawyer when they need one. Research shows that litigants representing themselves often fare less well than those with lawyers. This ‘justice gap’ falls heavily on the poor, particularly in overburdened state courts.

“There is plenty the government, the legal profession and others can do to improve this shameful state of affairs. With the economic downturn, only around two-thirds of law school graduates in 2010 got jobs for which a law degree is required, the lowest rate since 1996. That leaves the other third — close to 15,000 lawyers — who, with financial support from government and the legal profession, could be using their legal expertise to help some of those who need representation.

“While the Constitution requires that defendants in criminal cases be provided a lawyer, there is no such guarantee in civil cases. The Legal Services Corporation, created by Congress, gives out federal grants that provide the bulk of support for legal aid to the poor. Over the decades, that budget has shrunk — it was $404 million in 2011, about one-third less than it was 15 years ago, adjusted for inflation. The House Appropriations Committee has proposed reducing that to $300 million for 2012. The cut would be devastating; the budget should, instead, be increased. “

To read the entire editorial, click here.

An advocate for equal justice

Today’s New York Times editorializes on the importance of legal services to the poor . . . and not just criminal defendants. “The civil legal aid system is no less challenged,” the editorial said about funding problems that threaten the country’s commitment to equal justice under law. “Short on resources, local offices supported by the Legal Services Corporation, the federal agency that provides legal assistance for low-income Americans in civil cases, must turn away about half the eligible individuals who contact them for help with life-altering issues such as child custody or saving their homes from foreclosure.”

To read the complete editorial, click here.

Maryland Legal Aid expands online custody forms interview

Two online tools unveiled by Maryland Legal Aid last year to help a parent seeking custody are now more powerful. Pro se (self-help) litigants can now file answers to complaints, motions for modification of custody and visitation, petitions for contempt, and answers to these types of motions and petitions.

The Child Custody and Visitation Interview is a website that interactively helps clients complete and fill out forms required by the circuit court to begin a custody proceeding—an online “automated custody interview.”

Unveiled last year, now the website is accessible to even more Maryland residents because it contains powerful tools that can by used by both plaintiffs and defendants in custody matters.

“Both parties can file the forms they need to tell the court their side of the story about the custody matter,” said Legal Aid’s Katherine Jones. “The new interactive interview walks the party through the process; answering questions they might have about how to complete the blanks on the forms. Now, no one should feel like the court isn’t listening to them just because they don’t have a lawyer.”

The new interview can be found linked from the Peoples Law Library.

Maryland Legal Aid is among an increasing number of pioneering legal aid organizations, pro bono programs, and courts using online document assembly to increase and improve access to the courts. This growing movement is made possible by the National Document Assembly Project of Pro Bono Net, a nonprofit dedicated to increasing access to justice. The NDAP allows self-represented litigants and pro bono and legal aid attorneys to quickly and easily draft complete legal documents such as requests for orders of protection and answers to eviction complaints, by answering questions via an easy-to-use online interface. This initiative is in use in 26 states and generated 111,000 documents in 2008.

The new online tools were developed by Legal Aid, the Maryland Legal Assistance Network, the Chicago-Kent College of Law Center for Access to Justice & Technology, Capstone Practice Systems, Inc., LexisNexis, and the Legal Services Corporation.

The website can be accessed at http://www.peoples-law.org (in the Family Law section under “Need Help with Maryland Custody Forms?”). A separate advocate-specific website, updated to include the additional forms (as well as the new interview questions needed for those new forms), is available at http://www.mdjustice.org (in the Children and the Law Resource Center; click on New Automated Maryland Custody Forms).

The latest version of Adobe Flash is required to access the Child Custody and Visitation Interview.  Most Maryland public libraries allow printing from public computers for a nominal fee.

For more information, call Katherine J. Jones at 443-604-4729, David Demski at 410-451-2892, or  Joe Surkiewicz 410-951-7683.

New York Times urges Mikulski to lift LSC restrictions

Today, an editorial in the New York Times urges Sen. Barbara Mikulski to lift “egregious” restrictions that Congress placed on grantees of the Legal Services Corp., including Maryland Legal Aid, more than a decade ago. The House recently passed a bill increasing LSC’s funding–but only struck one of three restrictions that President Obama asked to be lifted.

“The matter now moves to a Senate subcommittee led by Senator Barbara Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland,” the editorial says. “By making sure that the Senate version of the bill lifts all three restrictions, per President Obama’s request, Senator Mikulski and her colleagues can usefully support the cause of equal justice.”

To read the editorial, click here.