The New York State Senate has begun a series of unprecedented hearings on access to justice for low-income New Yorkers. Legal Services NYC was invited to present to the Senate on December 9, 2009, regarding the increased need for critical legal services for low-income New Yorkers in the current economic downturn. Both staff and clients testified regarding the services we provide.
UPDATE: The IOLA and Civil Legal Services Task Force now has a home on the New York State Senate Website! Click here for all the latest updates.
Watch Legal Services NYC's testimony the the NYS Senate's YouTube channel.
Click here to read testimony by Andrew Scherer, Executive Director and President of Legal Services NYC.
Click here to read testimony by Carolyn Davila, a client of South Brooklyn Legal Services (a program of Legal Services NYC). Carolyn's testimony was also featured as a Success Story in the December 9th issue of LSC Updates, the newsletter of the Legal Services Corporation.
Senator Ruth Hassell-Thompson (pictured above), who chairs the NYS Senate Committee on Crime Victims, Crime and Correction and who facilitated the hearing, penned an Op-Ed on Syracuse.com highlighting the importance of the hearings:
Civil legal services need New Yorkers' support
By Ruth Hassell-Thompson
During the budget negotiations, I listened carefully to the leaders of the teachers unions, communication workers, transit workers, health care workers and scores of other hard-working unions and associations. I have also listened to leaders from corporate America and heads of federal and state agencies.
In the end, there will be negotiation and compromise — and this will happen because all of these interests are represented at the decision-making table. They have a voice.
Poor people do not have a voice at the table. They do not have highly-paid lobbyists and unlimited monies to shape public opinion in their favor. And so, I am going to ask the people of the state of New York to support civil legal services for at-risk and indigent families across the state..
In New York state, the Interest On Lawyer Account Fund (“IOLA”) is the largest funder for civil legal services. IOLA receives no tax dollars and is funded by the interest earned on small or short-term funds held by New York attorneys in escrow accounts.
The historically low interest rates set by the Federal Reserve in response to the Wall Street collapse and subsequent economic crisis have been the cause of IOLA’s revenue plunge. Last year, IOLA had nearly $32 million available to fund 71 programs. This year, IOLA will have less than $8 million available, a decline of more than 75 percent.
Right now, the IOLA fund cannot provide monies to organizations like the Legal Aid Society, the Empire Justice Center, the Legal Service Corporation of New York and law firms associated with legal aid. These organizations help families deal with foreclosure actions, evictions, denial of unemployment and Social Security benefits, denial of disability benefits, domestic violence cases and scores of other legal proceedings.
Advocates for the poor argue persuasively that outlays for civil legal services are budgetary pennies that save many dollars. A home saved from auction, an eviction of a family denied and repairs ordered by the court, women protected from abuse, and a homeless child given a roof over her head for the time being — these events happen in court every day.
Civil legal service attorneys win administrative cases for your neighbors. Federal awards for disability and Social Security benefits bring millions of dollars into New York. More importantly, these legal victories keep families intact and stable.
Steve Banks of the Legal Aid Society told me this year that his organization turns away one in every seven people seeking help. As a result of this eye-opening conversation with Mr. Banks, I enlisted the help of Sen. John Sampson and organized public hearings in New York City, Buffalo and Albany.
The purpose of these hearings is to invite the best and brightest legal minds in the nation to come to the table to suggest practical solutions to the problem. Sens. Eric Schneiderman, Liz Krueger, Eric Adams, Velmanette Montgomery, Antoine Thompson and Neil Breslin quickly supported us.
I have invited experts in finance and the law to come together to talk about a better structure — to devise a better way to care for fellow New Yorkers who need our help the most. The financial crisis with civil legal services is not a New York problem — it is a national problem. Massachusetts, California, Connecticut, Texas and many other states in the union have confronted the same problems.
New York needs to learn from our sister states and assess the crisis carefully. With our talent and compassion, I believe we can do better than helping “one in seven” families in need.
I invite all New Yorkers to join me in this effort.
Ruth Hassell-Thompson serves in the New York State Senate representing Westchester-Bronx counties.
More coverage:
From the December 7th Legislative Gazette
New York: State Legal Aid Funding Spirals Downward
by Allison Roselle
This year's economic crisis and historically low interest rates have reduced by 75 percent a fund that assists organizations that help New York's less affluent residents pay for legal services in civil proceedings.
The Senate's Crime Victims, Crime and Correction Committee and its Judiciary Committee are holding a series of hearings this month and next on what the Senate Democratic majority conference is calling a funding crisis facing New York's Interest on Lawyer Account fund. And the state Office of Court Administration has released a judiciary budget request to the Legislature that includes a proposal to provide $15 million in IOLA funding.
In 2008, there was approximately $32 million in IOLA dollars available to fund 71 programs, but the economic downturn and low interest rates is expected to leave the fund with just $6.5 million available to distribute in the 2010-2011 fiscal year.
According to the Senate majority conference, the clients of lawyers paid for with IOLA grants won nearly $250 million in wrongfully denied benefits, mostly federal benefits.
"IOLA cannot meet soaring demands for civil legal services at the very time New Yorkers most need them," said Gerard Savage, deputy chief of staff to Sen. Ruth Hassell-Thompson, D-Mount Vernon, who chairs the Crime Victims, Crime and Correction Committee. "Civil legal service providers form a vital web of programs that help protect at-risk New Yorkers and their families."