“Working for Their Clients”

An October 8th New York Times editorial calls once again for Congress to lift restrictions on legal services providers. 

The Legal Services Corporation was created to help provide
essential civil legal services to low-income Americans. In the
mid-1990s, the Republican-controlled Congress imposed sweeping and
unwarranted restrictions that continue to hamper the work of local
legal services offices.

One egregious rule bars legal
services providers from representing clients in class-action lawsuits —
even though such suits can be an efficient way to obtain relief for
problems affecting a large number of people. Another eliminates one
deterrent to consumer fraud against the poor by preventing attorneys
paid by legal services from claiming or collecting fees from opposing
parties.

In coming days, the Senate is expected to pass a Justice
Department appropriations bill that would allow legal services offices
to use money raised from other sources to provide these and other
important services to clients. Such offices often get the bulk of their
financing from private foundations, wealthy individuals and state and
local governments. Congress certainly has no business dictating how
that money is used.

Senator Barbara Mikulski, a Democrat of
Maryland, has tirelessly championed this reform in the Senate. The
House version of the Justice Department spending bill lifts the
class-action ban but leaves in place the restriction on how legal
services providers can spend non-federal money. Once the measure clears
the Senate, Ms. Mikulski and the White House will have to work hard to
ensure that the final version includes the Senate provision.

The
House bill does have one clear advantage: It provides $440 million to
pay for legal services — $40 million more than the current Senate
version.

In these difficult times, the demand for help is so
high that legal aid offices around the country are being forced to turn
away at least half their potential clients. Congress needs to make sure
that the Legal Services Corporation is well financed, and it must lift
these restrictions so lawyers can fully represent their clients.

Click here to read the article at its source.