30 Ways in 30 Days: Legal Aid

Senate Budget Would Eliminate State Legal Aid

Plan would completely eliminate state funding for legal aid, which is utilized by many low-income working families.

HARRISBURG (June 12, 2009) - For more than 30 years, Pennsylvania has provided state funding to help struggling Pennsylvanians obtain legal advice and representation. In the current recession, civil legal aid programs are especially vital, representing families in eviction or foreclosure proceedings, helping keep utilities on, assisting the unemployed by removing barriers to employment, helping families keep or obtain health insurance coverage, and securing essential benefits to obtain safety net levels of income for families in need.

But a Senate-passed budget bill would completely eliminate that $3.2 million funding line in the 2009-10 Fiscal Year. The result would be devastating for the many low-income Pennsylvania families who will not be able to afford legal representation in a variety of matters.

Legal aid funding helps Pennsylvanians in every county of the state, serving nearly 100,000 clients per year.  Federal funding cuts have already cost state legal aid programs, including the Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network (PLAN), and an $8 million annualized cut in support from the Interest on Lawyers' Trust Accounts program (IOLTA), due to low interest rates, is especially devastating.

"General fund support for legal aid remains very close to the actual amount of funding appropriated in 1976," said Sam Milkes, Executive Director of PLAN, a network of non-profit civil legal aid programs.  "Twenty years ago, all of PLAN's funding from all sources supported 358 legal aid lawyers. Today, PLAN can support only 264 lawyers at an average starting salary of about $35,000."
 
Eliminating state funding will alone result in the loss of 60 jobs, the closure of four county-based offices, and the denial of services to about 7,500 individuals and families, noted Charles Gibbons, a Pittsburgh attorney and President of the PLAN Board.

"This denial would exacerbate the fact that over one-half of the eligible individuals contacting legal aid offices are already turned away, and in the current recession, with higher unemployment, even more people are eligible for, and are coming to legal aid in need of help," Gibbons said.
 
Increasing demand and a drastically reduced supply of legal services will lead to distressing effects on many working families across Pennsylvania that rely on state-funded legal aid because they have nowhere else to turn, Gibbons said.

To learn more about this issue, contact Sam Milkes, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network (PLAN), at 717-236-9486 Ext. 208 or by email at smilkes@palegalaid.net. You can contact Charles B. Gibbons, President of the PLAN Board, at 412-392-2025.

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