Legal Services NYC’s Executive Director’s Letter to Editor Published in New York Times

To
the Editor:
Re
“Interest
Rate Drop Has Dire Results for Legal Aid Groups” (news article, Jan.
19):

Your
article on the precipitous decline in financing and proposed further cuts for
civil legal services draws welcome attention to this all-too-undervalued
work.

Our
justice system is flawed because it holds out the promise of equal justice for
all and yet denies poor people meaningful access to the courts in civil legal
matters when they cannot afford legal help.

In
2006, the American Bar Association called for the right long-term
solution—recognition of a right to counsel in civil legal proceedings “where
basic human needs are at stake, such as those involving shelter, sustenance,
safety, health or child custody.”

In
the short term—with the legal problems of the poor escalating as rapidly as the
economy is declining—government should expand, not contract, financing for civil
legal services.

Andrew Scherer
Executive
Director
Legal Services NYC
New York, Jan. 21,
2009

See the letter on the New York Times website. 

Read the article “Interest
Rate Drop Has Dire Results for Legal Aid Groups.”

This letter also received coverage in the February 5th edition of the Legal Services Corporation's LSC Update.