Copyright 1999 The Times-Picayune Publishing Co.
The Times-Picayune
August 15, 1999 Sunday, ST. BERNARD
SECTION: PICAYUNE; Pg. 1G
LENGTH: 316 words
HEADLINE: UP
TO 600 CASES HANDLED YEARLY
BYLINE: By Michelle Mahl
Buuck St. Bernard/Plaquemines bureau
BODY:
Low-income St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parish residents in need of legal
assistance can obtain a lawyer free of charge through the New Orleans Legal
Assistance Corporation.
The office, at 9001 W. Judge Perez Drive in
Chalmette, is one of three branch offices in the New Orleans area that offers
free legal assistance to indigent residents. According to James Welch, managing
attorney, the St. Bernard office handles as many as 600 cases in one year.
The office does not handle criminal cases, but only civil cases for
eligible residents, and each case is reviewed for merit before being accepted,
Welch said.
To qualify, family size is taken into consideration, and the
family must fall at or below the poverty level.
In addition to
representing clients from the Battered Women's Shelter in St. Bernard, the two
attorneys handle other domestic cases such as divorce, custody, child support
and adoptions.
Simple successions, bankruptcy, Social Security,
disability and landlord/tenant matters are other cases that the attorneys
handle..
"Legal costs are high, and any involved case can run up into
thousands of dollars," Welch said. "And if there weren't legal services
available, they would get crushed under the weight."
But there are
certain fees that the clients still must pay, such as court costs, cost of
filing lawsuits, depositions and document searches.
The program began
with legislation passed in the 1970s to put free legal services in every county
in the United States.
And although the program is primarily financed
through the Legal Services Corp. of Washington, D.C., it is
also paid for by state grants and the state bar association.
"It is a
federally funded program, but not a federal agency," Welch said.
Anyone
interested in applying for representation can stop by the office from 9 a.m. to
5 p.m. weekdays, or call for an appointment at 277-8211.
LOAD-DATE: August 17, 1999
