Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee:

My name is Howard Eisenberg, and I am Executive Director of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association (NLADA).

The National Legal Aid and Defender Association is the only private, non-profit organization devoting all its resources to the support and development of quality legal assistance to poor people. The Association was organized in 1911, and NLADA's membership today includes approximately 2,800 legal services and public defender offices across the United States. NLADA combines the efforts of members of the private bar with those of professional legal services attorneys to provide equal access to justice for poor persons. While supporting the request of the Legal Services Corporation for $257 million in fiscal year 1984, we ask for $296 million for reasons will enumerate. This

figure of $296 million is the amount necessary to sustain the current service capacity of local programs and to continue funding the real needs of the poverty population.

This Subcommittee is well aware of the 25% cut sustained by the legal services program in fiscal years 1982 and 1983 which provided funding at a $241 million level. The deep cuts to the Legal Services Corporation in this two-year period has caused drastic shortages in services to eligible clients and has seriously undermined the Corporation's ability to provide quality legal services to clients. During 1981 and 1982, approximately

24% of all field offices (354 offices) were closed.1 Over 4,000 field staff employees had to leave legal services (26%) as well as 1,546 attorneys or 24% of field attorneys were terminated.2

All of this has occurred at a time when the demand for services has escalated and the number of poor persons has increased. The expanded demand for legal assistance for problems that accompany poverty has greatly impacted upon the ability of the local programs to meet the needs of eligible clients. Many needy people are being turned away by legal services programs due to the lack of resources, time and availability of staff.

We believe that funding below the $296 million level for the Legal Services Corporation will translate into additional cuts to essential services. This program has been operated on an

extremely economical and cost-conscious basis. In 1982, 95.8% of the $241 million appropriation was used for direct legal assistance, while only 2.1% was expended for central management and administration and 2.1% was allocated to field monitoring and evaluation.3 The Legal Services Corporation has been a most efficient and effective vehicle of providing lawyers to poor individuals. Programs are organized, operated and controlled at the local level and meet priorities in relation to the relative needs of their communities.

1

"Characteristics of Field Programs Supported by the Legal Services Corporation Start of 1983 A Fact Book," at p. 2

In 1982, legal services attorneys closed 1,141,481 cases nationwide.4 The majority of these cases were in the categories

More than

of domestic relations, housing and income maintenance. one-third of all cases in 1982 were closed after simply providing the client with advice, while another 16% consisted of brief services such as a letter or a phone call to resolve a client's problem.

5

NLADA has asserted in the past, and continues to assert, that legal services programs deliver essential legal services usually in the form of individual representation in routine cases. These services are vital to protecting the basic legal rights of poor persons. The Corporation's performance as an independent federally-funded program which directly funds locally-managed programs provides the most efficient and effective means of delivering necessary legal services to poor persons.

In establishing the Legal Services Corporation in 1974, Congress determined that a need existed to provide equal access to our nation's system of justice, and to provide high quality legal assistance to those otherwise unable to afford adequate legal counsel. This has enabled poor persons to bring grievances before judges and others empowered to hear them.

Id. at 9.

Id. at 11.

The Corporation, in 1976, adopted its policy of minimum access because of the disparity between the availability of private attorneys for those above the poverty threshold and that availability for individuals at or below the poverty level. As defined by LSC, minimum access meant two attorneys for every 10,000 persons at or below the poverty line. At the end of fiscal year 1980, legal services programs (at a minimum level of funding) had expanded to every area of the country, and expansion was completed. Now, however, the Corporation is no longer able to provide the equivalent of two attorneys for every 10,000 persons 6 at or below the poverty line.

We recognize that pro bono, judicare and other proposals such as the new initiatives of LSC for the advance of the Interest on Lawyers Trust Account Program (IOLTA), to generate funds from the private sector to help offset recent cutbacks in federal funding for legal services are important adjuncts to the program. We support such efforts and attempts to supplement the delivery of services. However, they are, by themselves, inadequate to meet the enormous need for legal services.

As pointed

out earlier, programs have been forced to restructure priorities, restrict intake of new cases, and necessarily eliminate services

6

The Legal Services Corporation presently estimates that minimum access is 1.76 attorneys per 10,000 persons at or below the poverty line. Donald Bogard, President of LSC, testifying before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Justice, and Commerce, the Judiciary and Related Agencies. March 24, 1983.

than on the merits of

within some communities. Certain types of cases are singled out for exclusion simply because there are insufficient resources and staff rather the claims of eligible clients. The overall effect is to deny poor people legal remedies available to others and to restrict the scope of legal assistance for those least able to obtain it elsewhere.7

The simple fact remains that these pressing needs for legal services by poor persons cannot begin to be met by the private bar. It is, therefore, incumbent upon the federal government to be the primary source of funds for legal services to poor individuals. Equally true, is the fact that state and local governments are also unable to meet this need, given the competing demands for social services at the local level. In other words, adequate funding guaranteeing access by poor people to our legal system is essential and is well within the role of the federal government to ensure that the indigent enjoy citizenship and protection of their rights.

As a matter of principle, our association opposes any limitations on the representation of eligible clients by staff attorneys and hopes that this Subcommittee will oppose efforts to restrict representation of eligible clients. Poor people should have access to legal forums, and local legal services programs should establish priorities for the allocation of monies to their

7

Loren Siegel and David Landau, "No Justice for the Poor Cutbacks are Destroying Legal Services." American Civil Liberties Union Public Policy Report, March, 1983.

How