WASHINGTON (By Evelyn Nieves,
Washington Post) October 15, 2005
—
At least 80 percent of
low-income Americans who need civil legal assistance do not
receive any, in part because legal aid offices in this
country are so stretched that they routinely turn away
qualified prospective clients, a new study shows.
Roughly 1 million
cases per year are being rejected because legal aid programs
lack the resources to handle them, according to the study,
"Documenting the Justice Gap in America," by the Legal
Services Corp. (LSC), which funds 143 legal aid programs
across the country.
The 1 million cases
do not include the many qualified people who do not ask a
legal aid program for help — because they do not know
the programs exist, they do not know they qualify or they
assume that the help is not available to them, the study
shows. Nor does the figure include people who received some
service — including simple advice — but not the level of
service that they actually need, the study found.
Nationally, on
average, low-income households experienced approximately one
civil legal need per year. These legal needs arise out of
the everyday problems of poor people — matters relating to
family law, housing, employment, government benefits or
consumer problems, according to the LSC.
Left unresolved,
these problems can affect and cost society much more than
the expense of legal services to address them, LSC President
Helaine M. Barnett said.
But only 1 in 5 or
less of all problems identified is addressed, either with
the help of a private (paid or pro bono) or legal aid
lawyer, the study found. For every client served by an LSC-funded
program, at least one person seeking help will be turned
down.
Poor people also have
few options when it comes to legal help. The study
determined that there is one legal aid lawyer per 6,861
low-income clients vs. one lawyer for every 525 persons in
the general population.
Legal aid programs
served slightly fewer than 1 million people in 2004, with
family problems representing the largest category of cases
(383,484). Family problems — including domestic violence and
abuse, custody issues, and problems involving social service
agencies — also represented the largest number of documented
unmet cases (504,312). Housing problems were second, while
income issues were third on the list of cases met and fifth
on the list of problems that were unmet, after consumer
issues and miscellaneous legal problems.
The LSC report was
the culmination of a year-long study concluded in August
2005. As such, it does not reflect any of the increased need
for legal assistance that will result from the impact of
hurricanes Katrina and Rita, not only in the states where
the hurricanes struck but also in states across the nation
where evacuees have relocated, Barnett said in a statement.
The LSC, which is
funded entirely by Congress, requested about $363 million in
its 2006 budget request, compared to $352.4 million
requested for fiscal year 2005. Its final appropriation for
2005 was $330.8 million, after two across-the-board domestic
budget cuts.
"The Justice Gap"
report concluded that although state and private support for
legal assistance to the poor has increased in the past two
decades, stagnant or declining federal funding and an
increasing poor population have combined to increase the
unmet demand.
