Blocking Legal Access for the Poor : Cuts jeopardize the rights of all Americans

Those in Congress who are so anxious to slash federally funded legal services say they want to end what they consider nuisance lawsuits by welfare recipients and others getting government handouts. But make no mistake: These massive cuts will hit the working poor hard. And they will render increasingly hollow the constitutional guarantee of all Americans to equal treatment under the law. With the gutting of legal services, millions of Americans will no longer even get into the courthouse, let alone find equal footing against better-endowed and represented opponents. Advocates for slashing federal funds that provide legal help for the poor at the least have an obligation to come up with an alternative to the current system.

Legal services for the poor have a long history in this country. While the current federal program, administered by the Legal Services Corp., is a legacy of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, the tradition of helping the poor with basic legal problems dates back to the 19th century. Every program between then and now has shared this fundamental tenet: A legal system to which only the financially comfortable have access is inherently unjust and unacceptable in a democracy.

Legal aid programs share an honorable record of securing minimal legal rights for the dispossessed and the working poor and providing such basic nonadversarial services as writing wills and finalizing adoptions. In pursuing employment and civil rights claims of America’s 39 million poor, poverty lawyers have immeasurably strengthened legal protections for middle class Americans as well.

But this mission has not sat well with some business interests. For example, a number of banks have ended unfair lending and credit practices, but only after losing discrimination suits brought by legal aid attorneys.

Now, at the behest of some of these interests, Congress wants to slash by 33% the budget of Legal Services Corp., the Washington-based funding conduit for hundreds of local offices nationwide. Federal funding to provide legal help would drop from $415 million this past fiscal year to $278 million. Separate funding for legal services to migrant laborers would be eliminated altogether.

Equally distressing, Congress aims to tightly constrain, well beyond the bounds of reason, the sort of services the poor may receive through legal aid-funded lawyers. For example, lawyers who receive any federal funding would be barred from filing class-action suits or challenging any welfare laws. Moreover, legal aid lawyers would be barred from receiving any attorney fees from losing defendants. (Private lawyers representing the same clients in the same types of disputes could continue to receive such fees.) Legal aid lawyers win about $9 million to $11 million yearly in such fees; this money goes back into state and local programs.

These proposals go far beyond budget cutting. They are a clear attempt to block access to the courts for poor Americans. In so doing, they jeopardize the legal rights of all Americans.