Legal aid

Most liberal democracies consider that it is necessary to provide some level of legal aid to persons otherwise unable to afford legal representation. To not do so would deprive such persons of access to the court system. Alternately, they would be at a disadvantage in situations in which the state or a wealthy individual took them to court. This would violate the principles of equality before the law and due process under the rule of law. Some people use the label of "judicare" for legal aid, in an apparent attempt to analogize legal aid to the Medicare health care programs in the U.S., Canada, and Australia.

Legal aid in the U.S.

The U.S. has always been less generous than most other First World industrialized democracies in providing counsel to the poor and indigent.

Related Topics:
First World - Poor

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In a series of cases starting in 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that American indigents do have a right to counsel, but only in criminal cases. See Gideon v. Wainwright. A few states (like California) also guarantee the right to counsel in "quasi-criminal" cases like paternity actions and involuntary terminations of parental rights. The federal government and some states have offices of public defenders who assist indigent defendants, while other states have systems for outsourcing the work to private lawyers.

Related Topics:
U.S. Supreme Court - Gideon v. Wainwright - Paternity - Federal government - Public defender

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Meanwhile, legal aid for civil cases is currently provided by a diverse hodgepodge of public interest law firms, who often have "legal aid" or "legal services" in their names. All such firms impose income and resource ceilings as well as restrictions on the types of cases they will take, because there are always too many potential clients and not enough money to go around.

Related Topics:
Law firm - Income - Client

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Common types of cases include: denial or deprivation of government benefits, evictions, domestic violence, immigration status, and discrimination. Some legal aid organizations serve as outside counsel to small nonprofit organizations that lack in-house counsel. Funding usually comes from charities, private donors, and some local and state governments. Most typical legal aid work involves counseling, informal negotiation, and appearances in administrative hearings, as opposed to formal litigation in the courts. However, the discovery of severe or recurring injustice with a large number of victims will sometimes justify the cost of large-scale impact litigation.

Related Topics:
Eviction - Domestic violence - Immigration - Discrimination - Nonprofit organization - Charities - Negotiation - Litigation

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In 1974, Congress created the highly controversial Legal Services Corporation to provide federal funding for legal aid services. LSC's funding has fluctuated dramatically over the past three decades depending upon which political party was in control of Congress. For example, LSC suffered staggering funding cuts under former President Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s.

Related Topics:
Congress - Legal Services Corporation - Political party - Ronald Reagan

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Legal aid organizations that take LSC money tend to have more staff and services and can help more clients, but must also conform to strict government regulations that require careful timekeeping and prohibit lobbying and class actions. Many legal aid organizations refuse to take LSC money, and can continue to file class actions and directly lobby legislatures on behalf of the poor.

Related Topics:
Lobbying - Class actions

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However, even with supplemental funding from LSC, the total amount of legal aid available for civil cases is still grossly inadequate. According to LSC President Helaine Barnett, in a speech delivered on October 21, 2004, all legal aid offices nationwide, LSC-funded or not, are together able to meet only about 20 percent of the estimated legal needs of low-income people in the United States.

Related Topics:
October 21 - 2004 - United States

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The problem of chronic underfunding of legal aid traps the lower middle class in a Catch-22: too rich to qualify for legal aid, too poor to pay an attorney in private practice. To remedy the ongoing shortage of legal aid services, some commentators have suggested that mandatory pro bono obligations ought to be imposed on all lawyers, just as physicians working in emergency rooms are required to treat all patients regardless of ability to pay. However, all such proposals have been successfully fought off by bar associations.

Related Topics:
Catch-22 - Pro bono - Physician - Emergency room - Bar association

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Legal aid programs for the poor are generally opposed by conservatives in the U.S., and supported by liberals and moderates. Fiscal conservatives argue that if asked to select between $500 in cash and $500 in legal services, most poor persons would take the cash. Social conservatives argue that legal aid programs serve only a very limited, left-wing version of the public interest. The liberal counterargument is that from an moral or philosophical perspective, legal aid preserves the ideal of "equal access for all" to the judicial system. A rather Machiavellian argument is that legal aid upholds the rule of law and stabilizes society as a whole, by enabling the poor to regularly seek redress of their grievances through formal legal processes; otherwise, it is likely that the poor will resort to highly destructive self-help measures like rioting.

Related Topics:
Social conservatives - Machiavelli - Self-help - Riot

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