Some spending cuts
hurt worse than others, and this one
is before House Appropriations as I write this:
Legal assistance for the poor will take a huge hit under a proposal just released by the House Appropriations Committee, which aims to slash funding for Legal Services Corporation by $104 million, rewinding the program’s budget back to 1999 levels.
LSC, which has been around four decades and supports 136 independent legal-aid outposts in communities all over America, knew big cuts were coming—the program was by no means exempt from DC’s budget-slashing hysteria. But supporters were betting on losing $70 million, the figure proposed last year during budget negotiations.
The new proposal chops off 26 percent of the program’s resources at a time when demand for civil legal assistance is soaring. Legal services groups from Texas to Maine say need has outstripped funding for years, even without the cuts.
“Demand is just going to keep going up. People are still losing their jobs. People are still struggling to put food on the table. Foreclosures are still happening,” says Cynthia Martinez, spokeswoman for Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, the state’s largest legal-services agency. “Last year, we had to turn away half of the people that came to us because we just don’t have the resources. And it’s not like when we say no, the legal problems just go away.”
This is, in truth, a double whammy, because one of the other key funding sources for legal services for the poor is what's called IOLTA -- interest on lawyers' trust accounts in which client funds (such as settlements) are held -- and with interest rates dropping, IOLTA funding has fallen as well.
As that article notes, the legal-aid nonprofits supported by the LSC are slated to lose a total of 445 staff members, including 200 lawyers, by the end of 2011, and this is at a time of rather striking need for such services, especially in rural areas. How bad is it? Here's what LSC has to say:
LSC’s preliminary estimates show that about 235,000 low-income Americans eligible for civil legal assistance at LSC-funded programs would be turned away if the Committee proposal were enacted.
“The proposed cut would prove to be especially damaging to low-income persons whose health and safety are at risk—the elderly, the victims of domestic violence, the disabled, children, veterans and others—by denying them access to justice,” LSC President James J. Sandman said.
“At LSC programs, requests for assistance are increasing. The poverty population eligible for civil legal assistance has grown by 17 percent since 2008, to an all-time high of 63 million Americans. And funding from non-federal sources is decreasing. This is not the time to undercut the fundamental American commitment to equal justice for all,” Mr. Sandman said.
From 2009 to 2010, foreclosure cases were up 20 percent at LSC-funded programs; unemployment compensation cases increased 10.5 percent; landlord-tenant disputes rose by 7.7 percent; bankruptcy, debt relief and consumer finance cases were up by nearly 5 percent, and domestic violence cases increased by 5 percent.
What do Republicans have to say about this? Essentially, "don't worry ...
pro bono work can pick up the slack." But that's not the same, because the expertise isn't there. I don't know how to handle a domestic violence case, or a foreclosure case, and most BigLaw attorneys are in the same boat. We can't provide the same quality of services as trained specialists can.
And that's for cities, where lawyer incomes are such that we can afford to take on some pro bono work. In many rural areas, there are barely enough lawyers to handle the paying clients, and minimal capacity to take on these cases. A cut of this size will affect rural America the most.
Finally, let's be clear. This is not ideological. Ohio's former Attorneys General, from both sides of the aisle, recently co-signed a letter to Speaker Boehner stressing the need to preserve funding:
In Ohio, the Save the Dream Foreclosure Prevention Project, for example, is staffed primarily by legal services attorneys. The Save the Dream project served 10,808 homeowners through direct representation by legal services attorneys between April 2008 and June 2010. In addition during that same time period, legal services attorneys trained over 400 volunteer attorneys, who in turn, represented 1,486 homeowners. Such representation allowed these homeowners to remain in their homes and to financially participate in their communities throughout the state. Yet, without the appropriated level of LSC funding, the Save the Dream Foreclosure Prevention Project will be at risk.
Save the Dream provides a perfect example of why private lawyers serving clients through pro bono work can never replace the work done by legal services and its attorneys. Only 15% of the attorneys in the country work for firms with infrastructure sufficient to allow meaningful pro bono work. In Ohio, despite the commitment and good intentions of attorneys across the state, only 400 volunteer attorneys were able to actually take cases and represent clients in foreclosure matters. Thus, legal services, through its efficiencies and experience, represented 7 times as many clients as pro bono lawyers. In other words, 9,000 additional Ohioans were helped because legal services handled their cases.
Those of you who were at Netroots Nation this year may recall that I spoke about attending a law school surrounded by conservatives. Well, one of my law school classmates,
The Rev. Pius Pietrzyk, O.P., is among the Republican-appointed Directors of the Legal Services Corporation. Here's what he had to say
in a recent op-ed for the Richmond (VA) Times-Dispatch:
Every day, legal aid attorneys across the nation assist low-income Americans who are confronting critical civil legal problems. They help women escape domestic violence, ensure military veterans receive fair treatment, protect the elderly from scam artists, respond to the needs of disabled citizens, and handle an array of requests for help in other civil matters....
This is not the time to reduce funding for civil legal assistance. If anything, funding needs to go up, and fairly dramatically, and not just from government but from other sources as well.
LSC estimates that the number of people who qualify for civil legal assistance has increased by 17 percent since 2008. These Americans live at or below 125 percent of the federal poverty guideline — an income of $27,938 for a family of four. More than one million Virginians are eligible for LSC-funded services — almost 14 percent of the state's population....
Legal aid often averts more costly interventions by state and local agencies. When a family escapes domestic violence, we save on the costs of medical care for injured victims and follow-up counseling for affected children. When LSC programs resolve landlord-tenant disputes, we keep families together and avoid homelessness and emergency shelter costs.
Legal aid programs do not handle criminal matters, do not litigate personal injury cases, and do not pursue class actions or frivolous lawsuits. Only 13 percent of our matters involve going to court, and that includes uncontested court decisions....se who only seek fair treatment and a level playing field in our civil justice system.
The Constitution calls for establishing justice in its very first line. The Pledge of Allegiance proclaims our national commitment to "justice for all." As written by James Madison, a son of Virginia and the father of the U.S. Constitution, "Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit."
Please call your Congressman at 1-800-962-3524, ask to speak to his or her legislative director, and be clear and polite: whatever else needs cutting, Legal Services Corporation funding should not be cut.