January 30, 1974
Page 1400
LEGAL SERVICES CORPORATION: A COMMITMENT TO EQUAL JUSTICE
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, today the Senate is once again considering legislation to continue and strengthen the legal services program, and to protect its independence, by establishing a Legal Services Corporation to administer Federal legal aid to the poor. The goal of a strong, independent legal services program – and the vehicle of a Federal legal services corporation – have the widespread support of concerned citizens, the organized legal profession, Senators and Congressmen of both parties, and the President. I hope the Senate will respond to this support with prompt and enthusiastic approval of S. 2686, the Legal Services Corporation Act, so that it may be brought to conference with the House and enacted into law.
The Legal Services Corporation Act before us today is a product of similar legislation which Congress has been considering for the past 3 years. The Senate passed a Legal Services Corporation Act in 1971, and again in 1972. This year, supporters of legal services have worked hard to reach agreement on the specific language contained in S. 2686, and have produced legislation which has broad support, including the support of the administration.
This bill gives protection to the legal services program's strength, flexibility, and independence, while including more than adequate safeguards against potential abuses in the use of legal services funds. S. 2686 would establish a nonprofit corporation with an 11-member Board of Directors, appointed by the President subject to Senate confirmation, with 3-year terms. It also would establish nine member State advisory councils appointed by each Governor from the members of each State bar.
The act in addition would establish a National Advisory Council of 15 members, representative of the bar as well as legal services constituent groups, to consult with the Corporation's Board of Directors on rulemaking and other questions. The Corporation, under the direction of a full-time President elected by the Board, would contract with local agencies to deliver legal assistance as well as back-up assistance. Legal services attorneys would be subject to the bar association's canons of ethics and code of professional responsibility, with specific restrictions on outside remunerative work and direct participation while on duty in demonstrations, picketing, boycotts, strikes, riots, or illegal acts. The Corporation and attorneys receiving its funds would also be prevented from lobbying except when requested to submit views to a legislative body.
Mr. President, the record of legal services demonstrates that the program has made an important contribution toward attaining social justice in America. By providing the poor with access to our legal system, the legal services program has given hope that justice in America will truly be available without regard to wealth – by allowing the low-income citizen as well as his more fortunate neighbor to invoke judicial protection for his rights.
We in Maine are particularly proud of the legal services program in our State – Pine Tree Legal Assistance, Inc. Since it was established 6 years ago, Pine Tree has handled more than 34,000 cases. Most of those cases have involved problems for which citizens in our system of justice have traditionally sought recourse to civil legal remedies: Consumer problems, employment problems, problems with administrative agencies, housing problems, and family problems. And the overwhelming majority of those cases – over 80 percent – have been handled, in the best legal tradition, by settlement without recourse to court litigation. And for its work Pine Tree Legal Assistance has won congratulations and support throughout the State, documented by editorials from the Brunswick Times Record, the Portland Evening Express, and the Biddeford- Saco Journal, which I will ask to be inserted in the RECORD at the conclusion of my remarks.
But unless the legal services program is strengthened, the "access to justice" which Pine Tree provides will be jeopardized. Since 1971, the ratio of potential low-income clients to legal services attorneys in Maine has increased by almost 40 percent – from 7,600 to 1 in 1971, to 10,520 to 1 today. According to Pine Tree's legal director, Marshall Cohen, in 1973 Pine Tree provided help to fewer people than in any year since 1968 – as a result of increased costs but stable resources. And without new legislation, Pine Tree's continued existence is threatened.
The Legal Services Corporation bill we are considering today would insure that the worthwhile legal services program is continued, and would provide a vehicle for granting it increased resources while protecting its independence and professional integrity. Our commitment to equality and social justice argues for giving the bill our speedy approval.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that editorials in support of the Pine Tree Legal Assistance, Inc., be inserted in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the editorials were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
[From the Brunswick (Maine) Times Record, Feb. 18, 1973]
SUPPORT LAWYERS FOR THE POOR
The Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), the agency set up by the Johnson Administration to spearhead the war on poverty, has run into a lot of snags, and the plan in Washington now is to abolish it as such and transfer the worthwhile functions it does perform to other agencies. It is a decision we have, on the whole, endorsed.
There is one component of OEO, however, that has been generally acclaimed across the nation, and that is its legal branch which provides legal services to the poor.
It has, of course, also been attacked, for government agencies in particular do not appreciate seeing public funds used to launch legal assaults against some of their practices.
But, as we say, in general this particular function of OEO has met with general approval. The Nixon Administration itself has proposed the formation of a separate corporation to run the program so that it will not be so vulnerable to political pressure.
In Maine the OEO's legal branch is represented by Pine Tree Legal Assistance, headquartered in Portland and with branch offices around the state.
It is an agency we probably don't hear about as often as we should but it has accomplished some very significant things in recent years. The cases they have won not only benefit the poor, but all of us.
Some examples:
Elimination of debtor's prison in the state.
Requiring that housing units meet standards of livability.
Right of legal counsel to anyone facing imprisonment, including juveniles.
Right to a fair hearing in cases involving termination of Medicaid benefits.
Right to fair hearing in cases where the state is trying to remove children from their mother's care.
Elimination of indefinite bread and water solitary confinement in state prison.
There are more accomplishments of Pine Tree Legal Assistance in the state, but those listed provide a fair sample of what the agency has been able to accomplish in the short time it has been organized.
The agency's federal funding for the year is $506,000, but this is not enough to meet the almost overwhelming task of meeting the legal needs of the state's poor.
Accordingly, the agency has launched an annual fund drive to supplement this federal funding, and we were pleased to see in the news media that a major bank is one of the first organizations in the state to make a contribution.
We hope more contributions, corporate and private, will be forthcoming, for this is an agency that genuinely deserves our support.
Contributions, which are tax deductible, may be made to Pine Tree Legal Assistance, 565 Congress St., Portland.
[From the Portland (Maine), Evening Express, Mar. 1, 1973]
KEEP PINE TREE LEGAL ALIVE
One of the projects authorized by the White House, in its program of turning the clock back to the good old days, is dismantling of the legal assistance system organized by President Nixon's predecessor. This will cut off funds for 2,200 lawyers now employed to aid the poor in securing rights hitherto denied them, so that if the program is continued it will have to be funded by other means.
By a coincidence, although its own federal funds will be cut off before the end of the year, Pine Tree Legal Assistance, Inc., has launched a campaign to raise hopefully, $100,000 so that it can meet the demands now put upon it. Mr. Marshall Cohen, administrative director of the project, says "we simply can't provide the same level of services," and we are pleased to find the Casco Bank, the Maine Bar Association, and a number of other organizations and individuals rallying to Pine Tree's side.
These attorneys for the poor are handling over 5,000 cases a year, nearly all of which are individual service cases. Poor people, to a larger extent than other elements of the population, have little knowledge of their legal rights. Occasionally Pine Tree Legal Assistance initiates class action suits, and it is this type of litigation that annoys the people around the President.
We hope the fund drive succeeds, all the more so since Pine Tree will run out of federal money this fall, if not sooner. The bar itself now recognizes its duty to help those less fortunately situated, and it finds many young lawyers turning from corporate law to the type of personal assistance to the underprivileged that renders Pine Tree Legal Assistance so valuable here in Maine. Even so, they cannot live without financial help.
[From the Biddeford-Saco (Maine) Journal, Feb. 19, 1973]
IN OUR OPINION PINE TREE LEGAL IS WORTH SUPPORTING
One worthwhile agency that will be hurt with the dismantling of the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) will be Maine's Pine Tree Legal Assistance program.
Since its inception in Maine in 1967 Pine Tree Legal has handled close to 25,000 legal matters for the state's estimated 200,000 poor people.
A few of the cases made dramatic headlines like the breakthrough in getting the State Health and Welfare Department to let foster children visit their parents.
However, Pine Tree's list of accomplishments goes on for pages. Some examples: elimination of debtor's prison, a consumer protection organization, the right to fair hearing if the state tries to remove children from a mother; the right of an attorney for anyone facing imprisonment including juveniles, the requirement that housing units meet standards of livability, and the right to fair hearing in cases involving termination of Medicaid benefits.
Many of its accomplishments involve class actions – making changes that affect a large number of people. But Pine Tree also handles many individual cases, too. An example: a woman was fired from her job because she refused to work on Sunday which is a religious holiday to her. Pine Tree got her job back with retroactive pay.
But Pine Tree's federal grant has been frozen at the same level for the past two years, and prospects for additional funding are dim.
So we support Pine Tree's efforts in starting its first fund-raising campaign, including an application for United Fund support and participation in federal revenue sharing.