Legal Services NYC Staff, Clients Testify at Critical Hearings on the Future of IOLA Funding in NY

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."