Report: Legal Aid Holding Its Own, 'But Just Barely'

[WSJ_law_blog]

Even when the economy is humming right along, legal aid organizations seem to struggle to make ends meet. So when the economy tanks, you can bet that life won’t be good for poor people looking for legal help and the outfits that serve them.

The NYT’s John Schwartz tackles the issue on Wednesday, in the wake of a report issued by the Legal Services Corporation, the nonprofit agency that receives and disburses congressional funding to legal aid organizations. According to the report, writes Schwartz, “Nearly a million poor people continue to be denied representation in the nation’s courts because legal aid clinics lack sufficient financing.”

“There still exists a substantial justice gap in this country,” said Helaine M. Barnett, president of the agency.

The nation’s financial crisis has placed new pressure in particular on legal specialties like foreclosure, where few lawyers who contribute their services free of charge have great expertise and where legal aid offices turn away two people for each one they can help. According to the report, legal aid clinics will have turned away half their potential clients this year, or about a million people, the report says.

Though the Legal Services Corporation received an increase in Congressional financing for the current fiscal year, to $390 million from $350.5 million last year, the additional money made up for only part of the reduction in financing from state government and private sources, which have been squeezed by the recession.

“We are holding our own, but just barely,” said John A. Constance, the agency’s director of government relations and public affairs. “Increased federal dollars are doing nothing more than filling the space left by state funding.”