NCJ Number
168711
Journal
ABA Journal Volume: 82 (July 1996) Issue: Dated: Pages: 60-66
Date Published
1996
Length
7 pages
Annotation
Cuts in Federal funding for the national Legal Services Corporation (LSC) have resulted in office closings, personnel layoffs, hiring freezes, and salary cuts.
Abstract
LSC transfers Federal grant money to 323 legal services programs, which operate about 1,200 neighborhood law offices. In January 1996 Congress cut LSC funds from $400 million to $278 million. The result will be the closing of 300 to 400 offices, layoffs of hundreds of the 4,700 attorneys, and a reduction of about one-third in the 1.7 million cases typically handled. The attrition has produced even stricter intake criteria and more skeletal forms of service for people who are vulnerable by definition, because their income cannot be 25 percent more than the national poverty level of $15,455 for a family of four. The most vulnerable populations are the geographically, culturally, or linguistically isolated. Further difficulties have resulted from the new Federal restrictions on the types of matters handled by legal services agencies that receive Federal funds, regardless of the source of the money actually spend. Forbidden areas include abortion, prisoners' rights, welfare reform, alien representation, and class actions. In response to these restrictions some States have separate organizations that receive no Federal funds and can take cases prohibited under congressional restrictions. The agencies are also continuing to try to raise money, save money, and use money efficiently through methods such as a Statewide central intake and referral system. Photographs