Legal Aid Groups Losing Money, Cutting Lawyers and Practicing Client Triage
Legal aid programs are reeling from reduced funding from Interest on Lawyer Trust Account programs and state budget cutbacks, forcing lawyer layoffs and cuts in services.
Many legal aid groups are expected to cut staff by 20 percent or more even as demand for legal services is up by 30 percent or more, the New York Times reports.
The story highlights some of the problems. Connecticut Legal Services may have to cut a third of its 150 legal positions. In East Texas, where thousands of people who lost homes in Hurricane Katrina are seeking federal aid, the regional $16 million budget for legal services is expected to drop to $4 million. New York Gov. David Paterson is proposing a budget for fiscal 2009 that would eliminate the state’s $8 million appropriation for legal aid.
Steven Banks, chief attorney for the Legal Aid Society in New York City, told the Times his group can represent only one out of seven people seeking help. He compared the situation to “a MASH unit in a war zone.”
The situation is bad news for third-year law students hoping for jobs in legal aid. Many nonprofit legal groups don’t make hiring decisions until late winter and spring, forcing students seeking public interest jobs to wait for news of hiring decisions, the National Law Journal reports. The story features Carly Leinheiser, who interned this summer for Brooklyn Defender Services.
She told the publication the office probably isn’t hiring—and the situation is likely no different at other legal aid groups. “There are jobs that are probably going to be impacted,” she said.
The Times story explains that the lawyer trust account funding is drying up because of the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate reductions. Just two years ago, interest rates of 5 percent produced $200 million from IOLTA accounts for legal aid groups.
ABA President H. Thomas Wells Jr. talked about the problem in his President’s Message in the January ABA Journal. “This is an opportune time to seek out [ABA] resources, get involved and make a difference for our practices, our profession and our communities,” he wrote.
