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.

NY Times editorial: Legislature should approve legal aid increases

Listen to Judge Lippman
March 13, 2011

Acknowledging New York’s deep fiscal crisis, Judge Jonathan Lippman, the state’s chief judge, has reluctantly agreed to make cuts in his $2.7 billion budget request, including a reduction in the number of people working for the court system. But he is refusing to back down on his call for a $25 million increase, to $40 million, in support for civil legal service programs that help low-income New Yorkers faced with foreclosures, evictions, domestic violence and other serious legal problems.

His commitment comes at a time when Republicans in Washington are determined to slash the federal contributions to these essential programs.

Judge Lippman knows what he is up against politically but is undaunted. In a recent talk at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in Manhattan, he described the shocking need for help out there — and the cost to justice and the judicial system if it continues to go unmet.

He told of state courtrooms that are “standing room only, filled with frightened, unrepresented litigants — many of them newly indigent — who are fighting to keep a roof over their heads, fighting to keep their children, fighting to keep their sources of income and health care.” And he cited the astonishing fact that in New York City 99 percent of tenants in eviction cases and 99 percent of borrowers in consumer credit cases have no lawyers.

“What is at stake,” he said, “is nothing less than the legitimacy of our justice system,” adding that the rule of law “loses its meaning when the protection of our laws is available only to those who can afford it.”

Judge Lippman offered a final practical reason for increasing spending on civil legal services: preventing unwarranted evictions, avoiding foster care placements, helping clients get access to federal benefits and easing court delays will carry real economic benefits for the state. He is right on all counts. The Legislature should approve the increase.

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.

New York Times Calls for Congress to Increase Funding for Civil Legal Aid

The New York Times, “Sins of Omission: The Forgotten Poor,” Editorial, February 2, 2009:   “[L]ost in the wrangling over the huge House economic measure were two programs for the poor that are in urgent need of Congressional attention: legal services and access to family planning. The proven national program of civil legal aid for impoverished Americans, created in the 1960s, is suffering from multiple blows in funding.  While the poor are caught increasingly by foreclosure, eviction and food-stamp fights for their daily bread, deficit-bedeviled statehouses across the country are cutting support for legal services or dropping the programs outright.  Creative funding that taps lawyers’ escrow accounts has evaporated because it is tied to the Fed’s fading interest rate.  Local governments, charities and pro bono law firms are similarly tight-pursed.  Scores of legal aid societies are cutting their staffs just as requests for help are booming, according to The Times’s Erik Eckholm.  Bar associations continue to help, and even in these tough times probably could do more.  But federal funding is the ultimate hope in a dire situation.  In 2008, Congress chipped in $350 million for the nonprofit Legal Services Corporation, which then distributed the money throughout the country.  Given the tough times – underfunded programs and ever more desperate clients – more money is needed.  Congress still has the opportunity to renew the regular appropriation in a coming omnibus budget bill, but it must bolster that with extra support for the program.”