Homeless Man (Photo: Jubalj)
The recession is making it harder for poor Americans to get legal assistance, a new report from the left-leaning Center for American Progress (CAP) suggests.
The report, entitled “And Justice for All: Prioritizing Free Legal Assistance during the Great Recession,” says cash-strapped states are cutting funding for legal clinics that cater to the indigent.
A forum sponsored by CAP and the Washington Council of Lawyers, Tuesday, discussed ways to expand legal assistance to the poor.
“In the recession we have right now, I don’t think it takes a great deal of depth or insight to see people’s legal needs have increased,” Peter Edelman, a Georgetown University Law professor who specializes in poverty law, said.
Edelman said that only 20 percent of the poor’s legal needs are being met, and that funding for the legal needs of the poor remains stagnant even as it becomes harder for the poor to access legal services.
Ted Frank of the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, however, said that increasing government funding for legal services that help poor people would be unwise.
“Let’s use the resources we have before we ask the taxpayers to kick in,” Frank said. “We spend more of our GNP on lawyers than other societies [do].”
Frank said that increased funding for legal aid might not lead to more cases being judged, since law firms have limited resources for their pro bono departments, and only take the cases which they have the best chances of winning.
But Edelman said investing more in legal services for the poor would actually save the government money in the long run.
For instance, every time a lawyer prevents a landlord from wrongfully evicting a tenant, Edelman said, the government saves the money that it would have spent dealing with that tenant’s homelessness.
Frank said that Edelman’s landlord example does not take into account the landlord’s legal fees, which could force the landlord to raise rents on the other tenants in the building.
Though the panelists disagreed on many issues, they all agreed that America needs more pro bono attorneys.
“All of the work that needs to be met for low income people by full time lawyers will never be met,” Edelman said. “We need pro bono lawyers.”
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