At Issue
Funding for civil legal services - Time for the state to step up to
the plate
About 200,000 low-income Wisconsin citizens do not get the legal
services they need to help them save their jobs, keep their homes, and
obtain health care. Their number is increasing while funding is
declining.
Sidebars:
By Brian Burke
Funding to help provide civil legal services is eroding in Wisconsin,
while the need for such services is increasing. It is time for the state
to join in the partnership of funding sources for civil legal services
for low-income litigants and help assure everyone access to our court
system in Wisconsin.
Current funding sources are varied and unstable
Funding for civil legal services for low-income citizens in Wisconsin
comes from a variety of sources - private contributions and grants,
interest from lawyers trust accounts, and federal funds for the four
Legal Services corporations.
Wisconsin ranks 37th in funding for civil legal services for
low-income citizens when compared to other states. Wisconsin spends only
$14.09 on legal services for each low-income individual. This compares
to more than $20 per low-income individual in Ohio and more than $40 per
low-income individual in Minnesota.
Legislation
Organizations
Past Stories
At the federal level, funding for civil legal services began under
the Nixon Administration with the creation of the Legal Services
Corporation (LSC) in 1974. When signing the bill, President Nixon stated
that providing funds for legal services would improve opportunities for
low-income persons, would best serve justice, and would reaffirm faith
in our government of laws. Unfortunately, since 1994 federal funding for
LSC has been unstable - threatened with extinction and suffering drastic
funding cutbacks.
In light of the federal cuts, many states have started funding civil
legal services for their low-income citizens. In Wisconsin, except for a
one-time grant provided through Wisconsin's new welfare reform program,
W2, there is no state funding support for across-the-board, low-income
civil legal services.
Proposal would help meet needs
Strong private support has come mainly from the Wisconsin legal
community through the IOLTA (Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts) program
and individual attorneys' pro bono work. As federal funds diminished,
the State Bar of Wisconsin created the Equal Justice Coalition to help
raise private funds to make up for the federal cutbacks. Despite these
efforts, many low-income individuals' needs for civil legal services go
unmet.
Estimates suggest that about 200,000 low-income citizens in our state
do not get the legal services they need to help them save their jobs,
keep their homes, end an abusive relationship, or obtain health care. In
Wisconsin, there is one attorney for every 414 citizens but only one
legal services attorney for every 8,476 low-income citizen.
I am working with the State Bar of Wisconsin and the Equal Justice Coalition on a
proposal to establish a state matching grant fund. It would work in the
same way the state currently awards grants to Forward Wisconsin, where the state
matches the funds raised by the nonprofit group - up to a specific level
- to help business promotion efforts. One possibility open to us is to
include our proposal as an amendment to the state budget bill (Assembly
Bill 133 and Senate Bill
45).
Sen.
Brian Burke , Georgetown 1982, is cochair of the Joint
Committee on Finance.
Under our plan, the state would match private funds raised within a
year for civil legal services in an amount up to $500,000. The state
grant would be distributed by the Wisconsin Trust
Account Foundation (WisTAF). Created by the Wisconsin Supreme Court
in 1986, WisTAF receives IOLTA (interest on lawyers trust accounts)
funds and provides grants to a wide spectrum of Wisconsin agencies that
provide civil legal services to low-income individuals. Under the
proposal, WisTAF would distribute the state grants proportionally to the
matching grants provided by eligible grantees.
As many as 20 other states have recognized the need to become a
partner in providing civil legal services to their citizens. Through
this initiative it is my goal to add Wisconsin to that list.
Wisconsin
Lawyer
