A recent Boston Globe editorial highlights the financial logic and moral imperative of legal aid.
Legal aid programs in Massachusetts are taking a significant hit. Greater Boston Legal Services, for example, has taken a 15 percent cut to its staff. The Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation, the primary financial supporter of local civil legal aid programs around the state, cut its funding for services by 54 percent over the past year. All this while there has been an increase in the demand for assistance in handling housing, health care and child custody issues within the Commonwealth.
What might be overlooked about legal aid is the cost benefit. Legal aid reduces the burden on state social service organizations by helping secure unemployment benefits for some employees as well securing federal funds for unemployment.
Rather than fund legal aid to its levels from years before, Massachusetts is making the decision of underfunding it. It appears this is another loss for lower income individuals and families facing tougher times now than ever before.
November 9th, 2009
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The Recorder recently wrote about new money coming into California Legal Aid organizations as well as positive recent developments for the various groups, like balanced budgets.
Some of the good news:
*A check for $800,000 came to the California Rural Legal Assistance about a week ago. The organization was facing a shortfall that could have possibly forced them to cut pay and cut staff attorneys.
*The Asia law Caucus received a check for $400,000 which helps an organization that already had a surplus. The money will allow the organization to hire two new staffers and handle the growing demand for housing and elder law services.
*The Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles received $700,000 which will allow them to consider hiring a lawyer for housing work and an intake screener for domestic violence complaints.
Why did these various legal aid organizations receive the money, you ask? The money came from a 2002 case filed against U.S. Tobacco, the maker of Skoal and other brands of chewing tobacco. Under the terms of the settlement approved last year, money that went unclaimed by consumers would be distributed to various charities.
November 8th, 2009
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A recent letter to the editor in the New Yorker Magazine highlighted Bruce Wasserstein’s life achievements and work as the owner of The New Yorker. Bruce Wasserstein was a joint degree graduate of Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School. The Wasserstein Public Interest Fellows Program was named in his honor.
November 8th, 2009
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A recent USA Today article mentioned two HLS graduates, Dan Lindsey and Melanca Clark, in a story focusing on the dearth of legal service attorneys available to poor people facing foreclosure. The article focuses on a report done by the Brennan Center for Justice, an organization based out of New York University Law School. Dan Lindsey is currently supervising a foreclosure program in Chicago and was a source for the report, and Melanca Clark, a lawyer at the Brennan Center for Justice, is one of the report’s authors.
November 1st, 2009
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