Legal Services Corporation
Encyclopedia
The Legal Services Corporation (LSC) is a private, non-profit corporation established by the United States Congress
. It seeks to ensure equal access to justice under the law for all Americans by providing civil legal assistance
to those who otherwise would be unable to afford it. The LSC was created in 1974 with bipartisan congressional sponsorship and the support of the Nixon administration, and is funded through the congressional appropriations process.
LSC has a board of eleven directors, appointed by the President of the United States
and confirmed by the United States Senate
, that set LSC policy. By law the board is bipartisan; no more than six can come from the same party. LSC has a president and other officers who implement those policies and oversee the corporation's operations.
For 2007, LSC had a budget of some $350 million to allow the federal government to provide civil legal aid.
(OEO). The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964
, a key part of President Lyndon B. Johnson
's Great Society
vision, established the OEO. From 1965 on, starting with a budget of $1 million, the OEO created 269 local legal services programs around the country, such as California Rural Legal Assistance
, which made a name for themselves suing local officials and sometimes stirring up resentment against their federal funding.
By the early 1970s the Nixon administration began dismantling the OEO; funding for legal services for the poor began to wither, and supporters looked for an alternative arrangement. In 1971 a bipartisan congressional group, including Senators Ted Kennedy
, William A. Steiger
, and Walter Mondale
, proposed a national, independent Legal Services Corporation; at the same time, administration officials such as Attorney General John N. Mitchell
and chief domestic advisor John Ehrlichman
were proposing their own somewhat similar solution.
LSC was created by the LSC Act of Congress in 1974. The LSC Act contains certain rules and restrictions regarding what LSC grantees can do. The initial budget was set at $90 million.
Naming and confirmation of the first LSC board was delayed by inaction and opposition, but by July 1975 President Gerald R. Ford had named, and the Senate approved, the first board, with Cornell University Law School Dean Roger Conant Cramton as its first chair. Debate existed from the start among the board members as to whether LSC's role should be the OEO's one of using lawsuits and other means to attack broad underlying difficulties of the poor, or whether the focus should be more narrowly defined to addressing small, specific situations. The LSC Act said that the organization was to pursue "equal access to justice," but Cramton wrote that while the law was intended to proscribe the blatantly political objects of the 1960s OEO work, it was worded ambiguously.
nominated Hillary Rodham to the board of directors of the LSC, for a term to expire in July 1980. Rodham, an attorney with Rose Law Firm
in Little Rock, Arkansas
and the wife of Arkansas Attorney General
Bill Clinton
, had a background in children's law and policy and had worked in providing legal services for the poor while at Yale Law School
. She had also done 1976 campaign coordination work for Carter in Indiana
. This was a recess appointment
, so Rodham took her place on the board without immediate Senate confirmation. Rodham was nominated again in January 1978 as a regular appointment. In mid-1978, the Carter administration chose the thirty-year-old Rodham to became chair of the board, the first woman to become so. The position entailed her traveling monthly from Arkansas to Washington, D.C.
for two-day meetings.
During Rodham's Senate confirmation hearings, she subscribed to the philosophy that LSC should seek to reform laws and regulations that it viewed as "unresponsive to the needs of the poor." Rodham was successful in getting increases in Congressional funding for LSC, stressing its usual role in providing low-income people with attorneys to assist them in commonplace legal issues and framed its funding as being neither a liberal nor a conservative cause. By her third year on the LSC board, Rodham had gotten the LSC budget tripled. Opposition to LSC during this time came from both Republican Congressman James Sensenbrenner, who favored a "judicare" approach of compensating private lawyers for work done for the poor, and Conservative Caucus
head Howard Phillips, who objected to LSC representing gay
s.
LSC funding was at its highest-ever mark, in inflation adjusted dollars, in fiscal 1980, with a budget of $303 million. Some 6,200 poverty lawyers filed suits using its funds on behalf of 1.5 million eligible poor clients; the lawyers won almost 80 percent of their cases, which mostly involved divorces, evictions, repossessions, and interrupted payments from federal agencies. For fiscal 1981 it was budgeted at $321 million.
In June 1980, Carter renominated Rodham for another term on the board, to expire in July 1983. Sometime between about April 1980 and September 1980, F. William McCalpin
replaced her as chair of the board. He would remain chair through late 1981.
in the 1960s, Ronald Reagan
had advocated elimination of all federal subsidies for free legal services to the poor in civil cases, and had tried to block a grant to California Rural Legal Assistance
in 1970. Indeed Time
magazine would state, "Of all the social programs growing out of the Great Society, there is none that Ronald Reagan dislikes more than the Legal Services Corporation." CRLA's executive director would characterize Reagan's attitude towards the organization as akin to that of Darth Vader
.
When President Reagan took office in January 1981, he attempted to eliminate the LSC by zero funding it. Supporters of LSC rallied to defend it; American Bar Association
president W. Reece Smith Jr.
led 200 lawyers to Washington to press its case. The U.S. House Judiciary Committee blocked Reagan's zero-funding action in May 1981, but did cut financing to $260 million for both of the next two years as well as place additional restrictions on LSC lawyers. By the following month, the now Republican-controlled U.S. Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee had cut proposed financing to $100 million, as part of what The New York Times
deemed an "increasingly bitter ideological struggle". Moreover, Reagan administration officials accused LSC of having "concealed and understated" its lobbying activity and support for politically-motivated legislation.
In November 1981, the Reagan administration, although still hoping to eliminate LSC, decided to replace all eleven LSC board members with nominations of their own. For the new chairman they chose Ronald Zumbrun, president of the ideologically opposite Pacific Legal Foundation
, which had previously defended the state of California against several legal aid lawsuits. For fiscal 1982, LSC's budget was reduced by 25 percent to $241 million, with new rules prohibiting most class action suits and lobbying. Zumbrun's nomination was sufficiently controversial that in January 1982, the Reagan administration dropped it, and instead made a recess appointment
of William J. Olson to be chair. Olson had headed the Reagan transition team dealing with LSC and had personally recommended its abolition, so LSC advocates were not mollified.
At the same time, the Reagan administration had named six other board members as recess appointments. In February 1982, the Carter-appointed members of the previously existing board filed suit to against the recess appointments, claiming they were unlawful and that they should be enjoined from holding meetings. Rodham hired fellow Rose Law Firm
associate Vince Foster
to represent her in the case and to seek a restraining order against Reagan. The Reagan nominees may have been prohibited from meeting with the Legal Service Corporation before confirmation.
Rodham also prodded Senate Democrats to vote against Reagan's nominees. The nominees did undergo heavy criticism in Congress, with one labeled a bigot and Olson lambasted for his transition position. In March 1982, yet another new chair was named, Indiana University
law professor William F. Harvey
, although Olson would remain on the board. Harvey and Rodham had a conference call in which Rodham reiterated her desire for the lawsuit. That action, McCalpin v. Dana, was decided in favor of the defendants by summary judgment
in October 1982.
By December 1982, the Senate was willing to confirm six of Reagan's more moderate nominees, but not Harvey, Olson, and another; the Reagan administration instead pulled the names of all of them. This board then closed its last meeting in a public debacle, with Olson lambasting LSC as full of "abuses and rampant illegality" and a "waste of the taxpayers' money through the funding of the left," while being harangued by a hostile audience. And too, the Reagan appointees to the board were being criticized for collecting substantially higher fees than previous board members.
In September 1983 the General Accounting Office found that in early 1981, LSC officials and its local affiliates had used federal funds in assembling opposition to Reagan's efforts to eliminate LSC, and that this use had been in violation of the LSC Act's restrictions against such political activity. Such actions against the LSC Act were not crimes, and the GAO report did not claim any crimes had taken place. The investigation had been initiated by the LSC of 1983 ordering a series of "raids" on their own offices to attempt to discover evidence of LSC of 1981 actions questionable, prompting Time
magazine to declare LSC "an organization at war with itself."
More recess appointments were made by Reagan in late 1983, in 1984, and in early 1985, with again none of them being confirmed by the Senate. Indeed, LSC's board would go a total of three and a half years populated by recess appointments. Finally in June 1985 the Senate confirmed the latest batch of Reagan nominations. The Carter board lawsuit, since renamed and appealed as McCalpin v. Durant to the United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit, was then decided later in June 1985 as moot.
Hillary Rodham Clinton
. Funding rose to a high mark in absolute terms of $400 million for fiscal years 1994 and 1995.
Things turned upon advent of the Republican Revolution
. In fiscal 1996, once the Republican party had taken over Congress the year prior, LSC had its funding cut again, from $400 million to $278 million. A new set of much more extensive restrictions were added to LSC grantees. The organization's supporters expressed disappointment that the Clinton administration did not make LSC a critical priority in its budget battles with the Republican Congress, especially given Hillary Clinton's former role in it.
As part of a comprehensive "welfare reform
" of federal welfare laws beginning in 1996, most significantly the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act
, Congress imposed restrictions on the types of work that LSC grantee legal services organizations could engage in. For example, LSC-funded organizations could no longer serve as counsel in class action lawsuits challenging the way public benefits are administered. Additionally, LSC grantees faced tightened restrictions on representing immigrants, specifically those illegally in the country. However in 2001, the restriction on welfare advocacy was ruled unconstitutional in Legal Services Corp. v. Velazquez
.
However, non-LSC funded organizations are not subject to these restrictions leading the legal services community to adopt a two-track approach: LSC restricted counsel taking on individual clients but not engaging in class actions, and non-restricted counsel (using private donor funding) both taking on individuals as well as engaging in otherwise restricted litigation. Poverty lawyers in both tracks still work together where they can, being careful not to run afoul of LSC restrictions.
.
However, the LSC came under criticism from Senator Charles Grassley, who said, "There's just a lot of money being wasted," citing several General Accounting Office and Inspector General
reports.
By fiscal 2011, the annual budget amount for the LSC was $420 million. In early 2011, House now-majority Republican proposed a $75 million reduction in that current-year amount, while contrastingly Obama's suggestion budget proposed a $30 million increase for the subsequent year.
The chairs of the LSC board throughout its history have included:
Alaska
American Samoa
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
District of Columbia
Florida
Georgia
Guam
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Micronesia
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Puerto Rico
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virgin Islands
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
. It seeks to ensure equal access to justice under the law for all Americans by providing civil legal assistance
Legal aid
Legal aid is the provision of assistance to people otherwise unable to afford legal representation and access to the court system. Legal aid is regarded as central in providing access to justice by ensuring equality before the law, the right to counsel and the right to a fair trial.A number of...
to those who otherwise would be unable to afford it. The LSC was created in 1974 with bipartisan congressional sponsorship and the support of the Nixon administration, and is funded through the congressional appropriations process.
LSC has a board of eleven directors, appointed by the President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
and confirmed by the United States Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
, that set LSC policy. By law the board is bipartisan; no more than six can come from the same party. LSC has a president and other officers who implement those policies and oversee the corporation's operations.
For 2007, LSC had a budget of some $350 million to allow the federal government to provide civil legal aid.
Background
LSC is one of the organizational descendants of the former Office of Economic OpportunityOffice of Economic Opportunity
The Office of Economic Opportunity was the agency responsible for administering most of the War on Poverty programs created as part of United States President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society legislative agenda.- History :...
(OEO). The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964
Economic Opportunity Act of 1964
Signed by Lyndon B. Johnson on August 20, 1964, the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 was central to Johnson's Great Society campaign and its War on Poverty. Implemented by the since disbanded Office of Economic Opportunity, the Act included several social programs to promote the health, education,...
, a key part of President Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
's Great Society
Great Society
The Great Society was a set of domestic programs in the United States promoted by President Lyndon B. Johnson and fellow Democrats in Congress in the 1960s. Two main goals of the Great Society social reforms were the elimination of poverty and racial injustice...
vision, established the OEO. From 1965 on, starting with a budget of $1 million, the OEO created 269 local legal services programs around the country, such as California Rural Legal Assistance
California Rural Legal Assistance
California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc. is a 501 non-profit legal and political advocacy group that promotes the interests of migrant laborers and the rural poor. The organization provides legal assistance in the areas of housing and eviction, public benefits, and educational access...
, which made a name for themselves suing local officials and sometimes stirring up resentment against their federal funding.
By the early 1970s the Nixon administration began dismantling the OEO; funding for legal services for the poor began to wither, and supporters looked for an alternative arrangement. In 1971 a bipartisan congressional group, including Senators Ted Kennedy
Ted Kennedy
Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. Serving almost 47 years, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and is the fourth-longest-serving senator in United States history...
, William A. Steiger
William A. Steiger
William Albert "Bill" Steiger was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1967 until his death in 1978. He served as a Republican from Wisconsin.-Early life:Steiger was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin...
, and Walter Mondale
Walter Mondale
Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale is an American Democratic Party politician, who served as the 42nd Vice President of the United States , under President Jimmy Carter, and as a United States Senator for Minnesota...
, proposed a national, independent Legal Services Corporation; at the same time, administration officials such as Attorney General John N. Mitchell
John N. Mitchell
John Newton Mitchell was the Attorney General of the United States from 1969 to 1972 under President Richard Nixon...
and chief domestic advisor John Ehrlichman
John Ehrlichman
John Daniel Ehrlichman was counsel and Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon. He was a key figure in events leading to the Watergate first break-in and the ensuing Watergate scandal, for which he was convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and perjury...
were proposing their own somewhat similar solution.
Creation and the Ford era
The idea behind the LSC was to create a new corporate entity that would be funded by Congress but run independently, with eleven board members to be appointed by the president subject to senate confirmation.LSC was created by the LSC Act of Congress in 1974. The LSC Act contains certain rules and restrictions regarding what LSC grantees can do. The initial budget was set at $90 million.
Naming and confirmation of the first LSC board was delayed by inaction and opposition, but by July 1975 President Gerald R. Ford had named, and the Senate approved, the first board, with Cornell University Law School Dean Roger Conant Cramton as its first chair. Debate existed from the start among the board members as to whether LSC's role should be the OEO's one of using lawsuits and other means to attack broad underlying difficulties of the poor, or whether the focus should be more narrowly defined to addressing small, specific situations. The LSC Act said that the organization was to pursue "equal access to justice," but Cramton wrote that while the law was intended to proscribe the blatantly political objects of the 1960s OEO work, it was worded ambiguously.
The Carter era
In December 1977, President Jimmy CarterJimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
nominated Hillary Rodham to the board of directors of the LSC, for a term to expire in July 1980. Rodham, an attorney with Rose Law Firm
Rose Law Firm
Rose Law Firm is headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas. It is the oldest law firm in the United States west of the Mississippi River and the third oldest in the United States....
in Little Rock, Arkansas
Little Rock, Arkansas
Little Rock is the capital and the largest city of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 699,757 people in the 2010 census...
and the wife of Arkansas Attorney General
Arkansas Attorney General
The Arkansas Attorney General is an executive position and constitutional officer within the Arkansas government. The Attorney General is the chief law enforcement/legal officer and lawyer for Arkansas. The position is elected every four years, e.g...
Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
, had a background in children's law and policy and had worked in providing legal services for the poor while at Yale Law School
Yale Law School
Yale Law School, or YLS, is the law school of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Established in 1824, it offers the J.D., LL.M., J.S.D. and M.S.L. degrees in law. It also hosts visiting scholars, visiting researchers and a number of legal research centers...
. She had also done 1976 campaign coordination work for Carter in Indiana
Indiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...
. This was a recess appointment
Recess appointment
A recess appointment is the appointment, by the President of the United States, of a senior federal official while the U.S. Senate is in recess. The U.S. Constitution requires that the most senior federal officers must be confirmed by the Senate before assuming office, but while the Senate is in...
, so Rodham took her place on the board without immediate Senate confirmation. Rodham was nominated again in January 1978 as a regular appointment. In mid-1978, the Carter administration chose the thirty-year-old Rodham to became chair of the board, the first woman to become so. The position entailed her traveling monthly from Arkansas to Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
for two-day meetings.
During Rodham's Senate confirmation hearings, she subscribed to the philosophy that LSC should seek to reform laws and regulations that it viewed as "unresponsive to the needs of the poor." Rodham was successful in getting increases in Congressional funding for LSC, stressing its usual role in providing low-income people with attorneys to assist them in commonplace legal issues and framed its funding as being neither a liberal nor a conservative cause. By her third year on the LSC board, Rodham had gotten the LSC budget tripled. Opposition to LSC during this time came from both Republican Congressman James Sensenbrenner, who favored a "judicare" approach of compensating private lawyers for work done for the poor, and Conservative Caucus
The Conservative Caucus
The Conservative Caucus, or TCC, is an American public policy organization and lobbying group emphasizing grassroots citizen activism and headquartered in Vienna, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1974 by Howard Phillips, who continues to lead it today...
head Howard Phillips, who objected to LSC representing gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
s.
LSC funding was at its highest-ever mark, in inflation adjusted dollars, in fiscal 1980, with a budget of $303 million. Some 6,200 poverty lawyers filed suits using its funds on behalf of 1.5 million eligible poor clients; the lawyers won almost 80 percent of their cases, which mostly involved divorces, evictions, repossessions, and interrupted payments from federal agencies. For fiscal 1981 it was budgeted at $321 million.
In June 1980, Carter renominated Rodham for another term on the board, to expire in July 1983. Sometime between about April 1980 and September 1980, F. William McCalpin
F. William McCalpin
F. William McCalpin was an American attorney, who throughout his career was a strong advocate for legal services within the American Bar Association. He was involved in a variety of leadership positions supporting both the private bar and legal services...
replaced her as chair of the board. He would remain chair through late 1981.
The Reagan era
LSC was strongly opposed by some political groups. As Governor of CaliforniaGovernor of California
The Governor of California is the chief executive of the California state government, whose responsibilities include making annual State of the State addresses to the California State Legislature, submitting the budget, and ensuring that state laws are enforced...
in the 1960s, Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
had advocated elimination of all federal subsidies for free legal services to the poor in civil cases, and had tried to block a grant to California Rural Legal Assistance
California Rural Legal Assistance
California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc. is a 501 non-profit legal and political advocacy group that promotes the interests of migrant laborers and the rural poor. The organization provides legal assistance in the areas of housing and eviction, public benefits, and educational access...
in 1970. Indeed Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine would state, "Of all the social programs growing out of the Great Society, there is none that Ronald Reagan dislikes more than the Legal Services Corporation." CRLA's executive director would characterize Reagan's attitude towards the organization as akin to that of Darth Vader
Darth Vader
Darth Vader is a central character in the Star Wars saga, appearing as one of the main antagonists in the original trilogy and as the main protagonist in the prequel trilogy....
.
When President Reagan took office in January 1981, he attempted to eliminate the LSC by zero funding it. Supporters of LSC rallied to defend it; American Bar Association
American Bar Association
The American Bar Association , founded August 21, 1878, is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. The ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of academic standards for law schools, and the formulation...
president W. Reece Smith Jr.
W. Reece Smith Jr.
William Reece Smith Jr. is an American lawyer. Smith served as the interim president of the University of South Florida, and the president of the American Bar Association....
led 200 lawyers to Washington to press its case. The U.S. House Judiciary Committee blocked Reagan's zero-funding action in May 1981, but did cut financing to $260 million for both of the next two years as well as place additional restrictions on LSC lawyers. By the following month, the now Republican-controlled U.S. Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee had cut proposed financing to $100 million, as part of what The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
deemed an "increasingly bitter ideological struggle". Moreover, Reagan administration officials accused LSC of having "concealed and understated" its lobbying activity and support for politically-motivated legislation.
In November 1981, the Reagan administration, although still hoping to eliminate LSC, decided to replace all eleven LSC board members with nominations of their own. For the new chairman they chose Ronald Zumbrun, president of the ideologically opposite Pacific Legal Foundation
Pacific Legal Foundation
Pacific Legal Foundation is the first and oldest conservative/libertarian public interest law firm in the United States. PLF was established for the purpose of defending and promoting individual and economic freedom in the courts...
, which had previously defended the state of California against several legal aid lawsuits. For fiscal 1982, LSC's budget was reduced by 25 percent to $241 million, with new rules prohibiting most class action suits and lobbying. Zumbrun's nomination was sufficiently controversial that in January 1982, the Reagan administration dropped it, and instead made a recess appointment
Recess appointment
A recess appointment is the appointment, by the President of the United States, of a senior federal official while the U.S. Senate is in recess. The U.S. Constitution requires that the most senior federal officers must be confirmed by the Senate before assuming office, but while the Senate is in...
of William J. Olson to be chair. Olson had headed the Reagan transition team dealing with LSC and had personally recommended its abolition, so LSC advocates were not mollified.
At the same time, the Reagan administration had named six other board members as recess appointments. In February 1982, the Carter-appointed members of the previously existing board filed suit to against the recess appointments, claiming they were unlawful and that they should be enjoined from holding meetings. Rodham hired fellow Rose Law Firm
Rose Law Firm
Rose Law Firm is headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas. It is the oldest law firm in the United States west of the Mississippi River and the third oldest in the United States....
associate Vince Foster
Vince Foster
Vincent Walker Foster, Jr. was a Deputy White House Counsel during the first few months of President Bill Clinton's administration, and also a law partner and friend of Hillary Rodham Clinton...
to represent her in the case and to seek a restraining order against Reagan. The Reagan nominees may have been prohibited from meeting with the Legal Service Corporation before confirmation.
Rodham also prodded Senate Democrats to vote against Reagan's nominees. The nominees did undergo heavy criticism in Congress, with one labeled a bigot and Olson lambasted for his transition position. In March 1982, yet another new chair was named, Indiana University
Indiana University
Indiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000...
law professor William F. Harvey
William F. Harvey
William F. Harvey is an American law professor who is the Carl M. Gray Professor Emeritus of Advocacy at Indiana University McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis, IN....
, although Olson would remain on the board. Harvey and Rodham had a conference call in which Rodham reiterated her desire for the lawsuit. That action, McCalpin v. Dana, was decided in favor of the defendants by summary judgment
Summary judgment
In law, a summary judgment is a determination made by a court without a full trial. Such a judgment may be issued as to the merits of an entire case, or of specific issues in that case....
in October 1982.
By December 1982, the Senate was willing to confirm six of Reagan's more moderate nominees, but not Harvey, Olson, and another; the Reagan administration instead pulled the names of all of them. This board then closed its last meeting in a public debacle, with Olson lambasting LSC as full of "abuses and rampant illegality" and a "waste of the taxpayers' money through the funding of the left," while being harangued by a hostile audience. And too, the Reagan appointees to the board were being criticized for collecting substantially higher fees than previous board members.
In September 1983 the General Accounting Office found that in early 1981, LSC officials and its local affiliates had used federal funds in assembling opposition to Reagan's efforts to eliminate LSC, and that this use had been in violation of the LSC Act's restrictions against such political activity. Such actions against the LSC Act were not crimes, and the GAO report did not claim any crimes had taken place. The investigation had been initiated by the LSC of 1983 ordering a series of "raids" on their own offices to attempt to discover evidence of LSC of 1981 actions questionable, prompting Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine to declare LSC "an organization at war with itself."
More recess appointments were made by Reagan in late 1983, in 1984, and in early 1985, with again none of them being confirmed by the Senate. Indeed, LSC's board would go a total of three and a half years populated by recess appointments. Finally in June 1985 the Senate confirmed the latest batch of Reagan nominations. The Carter board lawsuit, since renamed and appealed as McCalpin v. Durant to the United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit, was then decided later in June 1985 as moot.
The George H. W. Bush era
Overt White House hostility towards LSC ended with the George H. W. Bush administration, for calls for level funding rather than decreases. Under board chair George Wittgraff, LSC began to ease relations with private lawyers and with state grantees. In fiscal 1992, LSC saw a funding increase back to $350 million.The Clinton era
The first two years of the Clinton administration saw more growth for LSC, as former chair McCalpin returned to the board and the previous former chair was now First Lady of the United StatesFirst Lady of the United States
First Lady of the United States is the title of the hostess of the White House. Because this position is traditionally filled by the wife of the president of the United States, the title is most often applied to the wife of a sitting president. The current first lady is Michelle Obama.-Current:The...
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is the 67th United States Secretary of State, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama. She was a United States Senator for New York from 2001 to 2009. As the wife of the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, she was the First Lady of the...
. Funding rose to a high mark in absolute terms of $400 million for fiscal years 1994 and 1995.
Things turned upon advent of the Republican Revolution
Republican Revolution
The Republican Revolution or Revolution of '94 is what the media dubbed Republican Party success in the 1994 U.S. midterm elections, which resulted in a net gain of 54 seats in the House of Representatives, and a pickup of eight seats in the Senate...
. In fiscal 1996, once the Republican party had taken over Congress the year prior, LSC had its funding cut again, from $400 million to $278 million. A new set of much more extensive restrictions were added to LSC grantees. The organization's supporters expressed disappointment that the Clinton administration did not make LSC a critical priority in its budget battles with the Republican Congress, especially given Hillary Clinton's former role in it.
As part of a comprehensive "welfare reform
Welfare reform
Welfare reform refers to the process of reforming the framework of social security and welfare provisions, but what is considered reform is a matter of opinion. The term was used in the United States to support the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act...
" of federal welfare laws beginning in 1996, most significantly the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 is a United States federal law considered to be a fundamental shift in both the method and goal of federal cash assistance to the poor. The bill added a workforce development component to welfare legislation, encouraging...
, Congress imposed restrictions on the types of work that LSC grantee legal services organizations could engage in. For example, LSC-funded organizations could no longer serve as counsel in class action lawsuits challenging the way public benefits are administered. Additionally, LSC grantees faced tightened restrictions on representing immigrants, specifically those illegally in the country. However in 2001, the restriction on welfare advocacy was ruled unconstitutional in Legal Services Corp. v. Velazquez
Legal Services Corp. v. Velazquez
Legal Services Corp. v. Velazquez, , was a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States concerning the constitutionality of funding restrictions imposed by the United States Congress. At issue were restrictions on the Legal Services Corporation , a private, non-profit corporation established...
.
However, non-LSC funded organizations are not subject to these restrictions leading the legal services community to adopt a two-track approach: LSC restricted counsel taking on individual clients but not engaging in class actions, and non-restricted counsel (using private donor funding) both taking on individuals as well as engaging in otherwise restricted litigation. Poverty lawyers in both tracks still work together where they can, being careful not to run afoul of LSC restrictions.
The George W. Bush era
According to LSC's 2005 report "Documenting the Justice Gap in America: The Current Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-Income Americans", all legal aid offices nationwide, LSC-funded or not, are together able to meet only about 20 percent of the estimated legal needs of low-income people in the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
The Obama era
In 2009 during the Obama administration, the LSC was on the path to getting a a $50 million increase in its $390 million budget.However, the LSC came under criticism from Senator Charles Grassley, who said, "There's just a lot of money being wasted," citing several General Accounting Office and Inspector General
Inspector General
An Inspector General is an investigative official in a civil or military organization. The plural of the term is Inspectors General.-Bangladesh:...
reports.
By fiscal 2011, the annual budget amount for the LSC was $420 million. In early 2011, House now-majority Republican proposed a $75 million reduction in that current-year amount, while contrastingly Obama's suggestion budget proposed a $30 million increase for the subsequent year.
LSC Board of Directors
LSC is headed by an 11-member Board of Directors appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. By law, the Board is bipartisan: no more than six members may be of the same political party. The current composition of the board is:- Board Chair: John G. LeviJohn G. LeviJohn G. Levi was nominated to serve on the Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation by President Barack Obama on August 6, 2009, and his nomination was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 19, 2010. He was elected Chairman of the LSC Board by his fellow Board members on April 7,...
- Vice Chair: Martha MinowMartha MinowMartha Louise Minow is the Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Professor of Law and the Dean of Harvard Law School. She teaches civil procedure, constitutional law, family law, international criminal justice, jurisprudence, law and education, nonprofit organizations, and the public law workshop...
- Members: Sharon L. Browne, Jonann C. Chiles, Thomas A. Fuentes, Robert Grey Jr., Charles N. W. Keckler, Victor B. Maddox, Thomas R. Meites, Laurie Mikva, Sarah M. Singleton
The chairs of the LSC board throughout its history have included:
- Roger Conant Cramton
- Hillary RodhamHillary Rodham ClintonHillary Diane Rodham Clinton is the 67th United States Secretary of State, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama. She was a United States Senator for New York from 2001 to 2009. As the wife of the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, she was the First Lady of the...
- F. William McCalpinF. William McCalpinF. William McCalpin was an American attorney, who throughout his career was a strong advocate for legal services within the American Bar Association. He was involved in a variety of leadership positions supporting both the private bar and legal services...
- William F. HarveyWilliam F. HarveyWilliam F. Harvey is an American law professor who is the Carl M. Gray Professor Emeritus of Advocacy at Indiana University McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis, IN....
- Robert Emmett McCarthy
- William C. Durant III
- George W. Wittgraf
- Douglas S. Eakeley
- Frank B. Strickland
Headquarters
By law LSC's headquarters is located in Washington D.C. In the 1970s and 1980s LSC also had regional offices. Now LSC has one office in Washington that administers all of LSC's work. LSC itself does not provide legal representation to the poor. The LSC grantee in Washington D.C. is Neighborhood Legal Services.LSC programs
Alabama- Legal Services Alabama, Inc.
Alaska
- Alaska Legal Services Corporation
American Samoa
- Uunai Legal Services Clinic
Arizona
- Community Legal Services, Inc.
- Southern Arizona Legal Aid, Inc.
- DNA-Peoples Legal Services, Inc.
Arkansas
- Legal Aid of Arkansas, Inc.Arkansas Legal Services PartnershipThe Arkansas Legal Services Partnership is a consortium of two nonprofit legal services programs, the Center for Arkansas Legal Services and Legal Aid of Arkansas, that works together to provide free civil legal assistance to low-income residents throughout Arkansas.According to its website , its...
- Center for Arkansas Legal Services, Inc.Arkansas Legal Services PartnershipThe Arkansas Legal Services Partnership is a consortium of two nonprofit legal services programs, the Center for Arkansas Legal Services and Legal Aid of Arkansas, that works together to provide free civil legal assistance to low-income residents throughout Arkansas.According to its website , its...
California
- California Indian Legal Services, Inc.
- Greater Bakersfield Legal Assistance, Inc.
- Central California Legal Services
- Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles
- Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County
- Inland Counties Legal Services, Inc.
- Legal Services of Northern California, Inc.
- Legal Aid Society of San Diego, Inc.
- California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc.
- Bay Area Legal Aid
- Legal Aid Society of Orange CountyLegal Aid Society of Orange CountyLegal Aid Society of Orange County, of Orange County, California, United States is a 501 nonprofit corporation that was founded in 1958 by the Orange County Bar Association...
, Inc.
Colorado
- Colorado Legal ServicesColorado Legal ServicesColorado Legal Services is a non-profit corporation dedicated to providing meaningful access to legal services for as many low income people throughout Colorado as possible. Through a clinic run by the Sturm College of Law , it trains legal students interested in public interest law and matches...
Connecticut
- Statewide Legal Services of Connecticut, Inc.
Delaware
- Legal Services Corporation of Delaware, Inc.
District of Columbia
- Neighborhood Legal Services Program of the District of Columbia
Florida
- Community Legal Services of Mid-Florida, Inc.
- Florida Rural Legal Services, Inc.
- Legal Services of Greater Miami, Inc.
- Legal Services of North Florida, Inc.
- Bay Area Legal Services, Inc.
- Three Rivers Legal Services, Inc.
- Coast to Coast Legal Aid of South Florida, Inc.
Georgia
- Atlanta Legal Aid Society, Inc.
- Georgia Legal Services Program
Guam
- Guam Legal Services Corporation
Hawaii
- Native Hawaiian Legal CorporationNative Hawaiian Legal CorporationThe Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation is a non-profit organization dedicated to representing Native Hawaiians in legal disputes over land rights, use of natural resources, sovereignty, and other such issues in Hawai'i.-Sources:**...
- Legal Aid Society of Hawaii
Idaho
- Idaho Legal Aid Services, Inc.
Illinois
- Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago
- Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation, Inc.
- Prairie State Legal Services, Inc.
Indiana
- Indiana Legal Services, Inc.
Iowa
- Iowa Legal Aid
Kansas
- Kansas Legal Services, Inc.
Kentucky
- Legal Aid of the Bluegrass
- Legal Aid Society of LouisvilleLegal Aid Society of LouisvilleLegal Aid Society, Inc., originally incorporated as Legal Aid Society of Louisville, is a non-profit legal aid organization based in Louisville, Kentucky...
- Appalachian Research and Defense Fund of Kentucky
- Kentucky Legal Aid
Louisiana
- Capital Area Legal Services Corporation
- Acadiana Legal Service Corporation
- Legal Services of North Louisiana, Inc.
- Southeast Louisiana Legal Services Corporation
Maine
- Pine Tree Legal Assistance, Inc.
Maryland
- Legal Aid Bureau, Inc.
Massachusetts
- Volunteer Lawyers Project of the Boston Bar Association
- New Center for Legal Advocacy, Inc.
- Merrimack Valley Legal Services, Inc.
- Massachusetts Justice Project, Inc.
Michigan
- Legal Services of South Central Michigan
- Legal Services of Eastern Michigan
- Legal Services of Northern Michigan, Inc.
- Legal Aid of Western Michigan
- Legal Aid and Defender Association, Inc.
- Michigan Indian Legal Services, Inc.
Micronesia
- Micronesian Legal Services, Inc.
Minnesota
- Legal Aid Service of Northeastern Minnesota
- Central Minnesota Legal Services, Inc.
- Legal Services of Northwest Minnesota Corporation
- Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services, Inc.
- Anishinabe Legal Services, Inc.
Mississippi
- North Mississippi Rural Legal Services, Inc.
- Mississippi Center for Legal Services
Missouri
- Legal Aid of Western Missouri
- Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, Inc.
- Mid-Missouri Legal Services Corporation
- Legal Services of Southern Missouri
Montana
- Montana Legal Services Association
Nebraska
- Legal Aid of Nebraska
Nevada
- Nevada Legal Services, Inc.
New Hampshire
- Legal Advice & Referral Center, Inc.
New Jersey
- Legal Services of Northwest Jersey
- South Jersey Legal Services, Inc.
- Northeast New Jersey Legal Services Corporation
- Essex-Newark Legal Services Project, Inc.
- Ocean-Monmouth Legal Services, Inc.
- Central Jersey Legal Services, Inc.
New Mexico
- New Mexico Legal Aid
New York
- Legal Aid Society of Northeastern New York, Inc.
- Neighborhood Legal Services, Inc.
- Nassau/Suffolk Law Services Committee, Inc.
- Legal Services NYCLegal Services NYCLegal Services NYC is a 45 year old non-profit agency that is providing free civil legal assistance to low income people in New York City. The community-based organization serves more than 50,000 clients annually. ' It is the nation’s largest organization] exclusively devoted to providing free...
- Legal Assistance of Western New York, Inc.
- Legal Aid Society of Mid-New York, Inc.
- Legal Services of the Hudson Valley
North Carolina
- Legal Aid of North Carolina, Inc.
North Dakota
- Legal Services of North Dakota
Ohio
- Community Legal Aid Services, Inc.
- Legal Aid Society of Greater Cincinnati
- Legal Aid Society of ClevelandLegal Aid Society of ClevelandThe Legal Aid Society of Cleveland is a legal aid society in Cleveland, Ohio established in 1905. It helped pioneer a nationwide legal aid movement whose leaders held to a simple but profound principle: that rich and poor alike are entitled to equal treatment under the law.The first legal aid...
- The Legal Aid Society of Columbus
- Ohio State Legal Services
- Legal Aid of Western Ohio, Inc.
- Southeastern Ohio Legal Services, Inc.
Oklahoma
- Oklahoma Indian Legal Services, Inc.
- Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma, Inc.
Oregon
- Legal Aid Services of Oregon
Pennsylvania
- Philadelphia Legal Assistance Center
- Laurel Legal Services, Inc.
- MidPenn Legal Services, Inc.
- Neighborhood Legal Services Association
- North Penn Legal Services, Inc.
- Southwestern Pennsylvania Legal Services, Inc.
- Northwestern Legal Services
- Legal Aid of Southeastern Pennsylvania
Puerto Rico
- Puerto Rico Legal Services, Inc.
- Community Law Office, Inc.
Rhode Island
- Rhode Island Legal Services, Inc.
South Carolina
- South Carolina Legal Services, Inc.
South Dakota
- East River Legal Services
- Dakota Plains Legal Services, Inc.
Tennessee
- Legal Aid of East Tennessee
- Memphis Area Legal Services, Inc.
- Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands
- West Tennessee Legal Services, Inc.
Texas
- Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas
- Lone Star Legal Aid
- Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, Inc.Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, Inc.Texas RioGrande Legal Aid is a nonprofit agency that specializes in providing free civil legal services to the poor in a 68-county service area...
Utah
- Utah Legal Services, Inc.
Vermont
- Legal Services Law Line of Vermont, Inc.
Virgin Islands
- Legal Services of the Virgin Islands, Inc.
Virginia
- Southwest Virginia Legal Aid Society, Inc.
- Legal Aid Society of Eastern Virginia
- Central Virginia Legal Aid Society, Inc.
- Virginia Legal Aid Society, Inc.
- Blue Ridge Legal Services, Inc.
- Potomac Legal Aid Society, Inc.
Washington
- Northwest Justice Project
West Virginia
- Legal Aid of West Virginia, Inc.
Wisconsin
- Legal Action of Wisconsin, Inc.
- Wisconsin Judicare, Inc.
Wyoming
- Wyoming Legal Services, Inc.Wyoming Legal Services, Inc.Wyoming Legal Services, Inc. is a federally-funded, non-profit law firm headquartered in Casper, Wyoming. Wyoming Legal Services provides legal assistance to low income individuals who are residents of Wyoming...
External links
- Official site
- Legal Services Restrictions section of the Shriver Center website
- Legal Services Funding section of the Shriver Center website
- United States v. Legal Services of New York City litigation, Brennan Center for Justice
- Velazquez v. LSC and Dobbins v. LSC litigation, Brennan Center for Justice
- Recollections of a Vibrant Start by Roger C. Cramton
- Remarks by Hillary Rodham Clinton on 25th Anniversity of Legal Services Corporation
- American Bar Association on LSC
- Shepard, Kris "Rationing Justice: Poverty Lawyers and Poor People in the Deep South". BAton Rouge, LA.:Louisiana State University PressLouisiana State University PressThe Louisiana State University Press is a nonprofit book publisher and an academic unit of Louisiana State University. Founded in 1935, the press publishes scholarly, general interest, and regional books as part of the university’s mission to disseminate knowledge and culture...
, 2009 ISBN 978-0-8071-3416-0