ABA LEGAL SERVICES CORPORATION FACT SHEET

• The Legal Service Corporation was created in 1974 with bipartisan congressional sponsorship and the support of the Nixon Administration. LSC is a private, non-profit corporation established to provide legal assistance in civil matters to low-income individuals. Twenty-six years ago, Congress created LSC because it recognized that federal funding was necessary to ensure that a minimum level of access to the justice system was uniformly available throughout the United States.
• LSC is governed by an 11-member bipartisan board of directors, appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.
• LSC provides grants to independent, locally controlled legal aid programs through a competitive award system. In 1999, LSC's $300 million budget funded 258 programs, serving every county and congressional district in the nation. LSC distributes 97 percent of its funds to these programs. Only three percent of LSC's annual appropriation funds its administrative operation, making it one of the most cost-effective federally funded programs.
• LSC has strong bipartisan support in Congress, but a vocal minority continually seeks to reduce or eliminate the program. Specifically, during the 1980s and again in 1995, LSC became the target of a vocal minority in Congress wanting to eliminate the program. For FY 96, Congress cut LSC's budget from $400 million to $278 million and restricted the types of cases and clients legal services offices represented. In 1999, for the fourth year in a row, a strong bipartisan majority voted on the House floor to partially restore funding for LSC to $250 million after the House Appropriations Committee slashed LSC's budget. The Senate over the past several years has consistently supported LSC funding at a higher level than the House. Since 1996, LSC received small annual increases and by FY2000 its annual budget totaled $305 million.
• Taking into consideration budget cuts and inflation, LSC receives 50 percent less funding strength today than it received in 1980. Yet the need for legal services for impoverished Americans has never been greater. Despite the booming economy, more than 35 million Americans live in poverty and another 10 million live on the verge of poverty, making almost one in every six potentially eligible for LSC-funded services. Despite the work of legal aid lawyers and significant contributions of pro bono work by the private bar, studies show that the legal needs of only 20 percent of the nation's poor are being met.
• Americans strongly support spending federal tax dollars to provide legal assistance to low income individuals and families. An August 1997 Louis Harris poll reported that 70 percent of those queried believed federal dollars should be used to pay for civil legal aid to the poor in such cases as child custody, adoption and divorce. A June 1999 Harris poll reported that 80 percent of those surveyed believed federal funds should pay for legal assistance to low-income victims of domestic violence.
• LSC programs are funded through a public/private partnership. Generally, LSC provides less than 50 percent of the funding for local legal service programs. The rest is raised locally from state governments and private grants.
• Legal services clients are diverse, encompassing all races, ethnic groups, and ages. Statistics show that many LSC beneficiaries were formerly from the middle class, but have become impoverished because of age, natural disaster, unemployment, illness or the breakup of a family. Historically, more than two-thirds of LSC clients are women, most of them mothers with children.
• LSC is legally required to concentrate on the basic legal needs of the poor. The most common cases are related to such basic legal issues as family law, housing, employment, government benefits and consumer matters. Legal services programs allow millions of poor Americans to resolve family law cases such as domestic violence, child custody and support, child abuse or neglect, evictions, foreclosures, wage claims, access to health care, unemployment or disability claims.
• In 1998, LSC grantees using staff attorneys and volunteer lawyers from the private bar handled more than one million cases, benefiting almost 2 million individuals. However, despite the combined effort of LSC program attorneys and the private bar, the legal needs of 80 percent of the nation's poor remain unmet.
• The private bar makes an enormous "in kind" contribution in the form of donated, or pro bono legal services. More than 225,000 lawyers participate in formal pro bono programs affiliated with local legal service offices, and many thousands of others contribute their time through other means. In addition, individuals, bar associations, law firms, corporations and foundations make significant contributions to "access to justice" fundraising efforts.