State Judiciary Budget Requests Major Increase in Funding for Civil Legal Services

New York State Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman (right) has proposed a $100
million increase in state financing for lawyers who represent the poor
in civil cases that deal with “the essentials of life” such as eviction and
child support. The proposal would be phased in over four years, with an increase of $25 million beginning next year. The proposal comes at a time when major funding cuts combined with unprecedented need are stretching the resources of legal services providers like never before.

From the December 2nd New York Law Journal :

A
centerpiece proposal of the Judiciary budget is a $25 million
allocation to better fund civil legal services for the poor. The funding
would be the first increase in an allotment that would grow to $100
million a year in four years under a plan advocated by Chief Judge
Jonathan Lippman to improve "access to justice" for those on the bottom
rung of the economic ladder.

The funding was recommended by a task
force appointed by Judge Lippman on ways to improve civil legal
services for the indigent in New York.

Read the rest of the article at www.nylj.org.

Earlier this week the New York Times published a piece in anticipation of the announcement:

If approved by the Legislature, it would provide a major source of
financing for lawyers for the poor and be a striking acknowledgment that
the state’s court system is being overwhelmed by some 2.3 million
people a year who cannot afford representation. While criminal
defendants are guaranteed a lawyer, people fighting civil cases are not.

“This would be by several measures the most significant commitment to
civil justice any state legislature has made in the country,” said Don
Saunders, a vice president of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association, the largest national group of lawyers for the poor. “There is nothing even close to that.”

The proposal would be phased in over four years, with an increase of $25
million beginning next year, permitting a far-reaching expansion of
legal service programs across the state that have long been starved of
resources. The $100 million proposal would be a small part of the
state’s nearly $3 billion judicial budget for 2011, which includes
comparable savings in other areas, according to those who have worked on
it.

The proposal would propel New York to the forefront of a national debate
about whether to expand government support for lawyers who represent
low-income people in a range of civil disputes, over topics like
foreclosures, access to health care, and eligibility for disability and
other subsistence benefits. These battles have grown more acute because
of the recession.

Data shows that, statewide, 98 percent of tenants fighting evictions and
95 percent of parents fighting for child support go to court without
lawyers. This can slow proceedings to a crawl and essentially force the
courts to work to avoid unfair rulings that could devastate families or
leave people homeless as a result of inadequate representation.

The move by Judge Lippman — who has cast himself as a pragmatic liberal since he was nominated by Gov. David A. Paterson
last year — seemed likely to test his influence in Albany, gained over
many years as a senior administrator in the sprawling court system.

The new financing would represent a 50 percent increase in the $200
million spent annually in the state for civil legal aid offices and
other programs that provide legal representation to low-income people.
The current financing for the network of independent programs comes from
a patchwork of federal, local and private sources, including about $40
million in state money.

The Legislature passed a joint resolution in June that essentially
invited Judge Lippman to make the financing proposal. The resolution
said fairness required that everyone who must use the courts “have
access to adequate legal representation.”

Read the rest of the November 28th article at www.nytimes.com.

The proposal comes after a series of hearings conducted by Chief Judge Lippman and the Task Force he appointed to study the issue of civil legal services funding in New York State. Legal Services NYC Board Chair Mark G. Cunha was a member of the Task Force, and a number of Legal Services NYC clients testified at the hearings. (Click here to read the Task Force's Report, which quotes LS-NYC client John Brown's testimony; click here to read the OCA's budget proposal press release).

In testimony submitted to the panel in September, Legal Services NYC Interim Executive Director Michael D. Young summed up the case for civil legal services funding:

We as a society pay an enormous social and fiscal price for
failing to provide counsel.  The inequity
created because of lack of access to the courts breeds, at best, a lack of
faith in the justice system and, at worst, contempt for the system, because it
simply doesn't work for those who are forced to rely on it to adjudicate
matters of basic survival.  The cost to
households who are denied legal assistance is reflected in homelessness, broken
families, lack of medical care, education and other public benefits. The
indirect costs are ultimately reflected in the criminal justice system. These
hardships are immeasurable.  Providing
counsel when needed not only saves people from immediate trauma and long-term
hardship, it also saves public dollars.   

Read the rest of the testimony by clicking here.