Legal aid in the United States is different for criminal and civil law. Criminal legal assistance with legal representation is guaranteed for the defendant under criminal prosecution (related to the indictment) who is unable to hire a lawyer. Civil legal aid is not guaranteed under federal law, but is provided by public and private law firms free of charge or reduced costs.
Video Legal aid in the United States
Criminal legal aid
In a series of cases, the US Supreme Court ruled that poor Americans have the right to consult, but only in criminal cases. See Gideon v. Wainwright . The federal government and some states have a public defender's office that helps defendants who can not afford, while other countries have systems to outsource jobs to private lawyers.
Maps Legal aid in the United States
Civil legal assistance
Legal aid for civil cases is currently provided by law firms of public interest and community law clinics, who often have "legal aid" or "legal services" on their behalf. Such companies can impose revenue and resource limits and restrictions on the types of cases they will take, because there are always too many potential clients and not enough money to spin. Common types of cases include: rejection or appropriation of government benefits, evictions, domestic violence, immigration status, and discrimination. Some legal aid organizations serve as outside advisors to small non-profit organizations that do not have internal counselors.
Most legal aid work involves counseling, informal negotiations, and appearances in administrative proceedings, as opposed to formal litigation in court. However, the discovery of severe or recurrent injustice with large numbers of victims will sometimes justify the cost of large scale litigation impacts. Educational and legal reform activities are also sometimes done. Funding usually comes from the federal government Legal Services Corporation (LSC), charities, private donors, and some state and local governments. Legal aid organizations using LSC money tend to have more staff and services and can help more clients, but must also comply with strict government regulations that require careful timeliness and prohibit lobbying and classroom action. Many legal aid organizations refuse to take LSC money, and can continue to apply classroom action and directly lobby the legislature on behalf of the poor. Many organizations that provide civil law services rely heavily on Interest on Truster Accounts Trust for funding.
However, even with additional funding from the LSC, the total amount of legal aid available for civil cases is still very inadequate. According to the widely released 2005 LSC report "Documenting the Justice Gap in America: Current Unfulfilled Civil Law Requirements for Low-Income Americans", all national legal aid offices, funded by the LSC or not, together can only meet about 20 percent of the estimated legal needs of low-income residents in the United States.
Civil legal aid emerged as early as the 1870s. In the early 1960s a new model for legal services emerged. The Foundation, especially the Ford Foundation, began funding legal services programs located in multi-service social institutions, based on the philosophy that legal services should be a component of overall anti-poverty efforts. In 1974, Congress created the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) to provide federal funds for civilian (non-criminal) legal aid services.
Pro bono
The problem of a chronic shortage of legal aid funds entraps the lower middle class in the no man's land: too rich to qualify for legal aid, too poor to pay lawyers in private practice. To correct the ongoing shortfall of legal aid services, some commentators have suggested that pro bono obligations should be required from all lawyers, such as the emergency room physician needed to treat all patients regardless of ability to pay. However, most of the proposals have been successfully championed by bar associations. An important exception is the Orange County Bar Association in Orlando, Florida, which requires all bar members to participate in the Legal Aid Institute either by serving in pro bono capacity or contributing fees in lieu of service. Even where there is a pro bono duty, however, funding for legal aid remains largely inadequate to provide assistance to most of those in need.
Administrative legal help
Some states (for example, California) also guarantee the right to advise poor defendants in "quasi-criminal" cases or administrative law such as the forced termination of parental rights and paternity measures.
See also
- Contract lawyer
- Legal clinic
- Public Defender
- Legal Aid Institute
- The Cleveland Legal Aid Institute
- The Louisville Legal Aid Institute
- Law Student in Action Project
- The New York Legal Aid Group
- Legal Aid in Texas: Texas Legal Services Center, Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid
References
Further reading
- Batlan, Felice. Women and Justice for the Poor: A Legal Aid History, 1863-1945 . (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015) xx, 232 pp.
- Houseman, Alan W. and Linda E Perle. Securing Equal Justice for All (Washington, DC: CLASP, 3rd ed., 2013)
- Johnson, Earl. To Build Justice for All: The Past and Future of Civil Law Assistance in the United States: Past and Future Civil Law Assistance in the United States (ABC-CLIO, 2013)
- Spiegel, Mark. "Legal Aid 1900 to 1930: What Happened to Legal Reform?" DePaul Journal for Social Justice (2015). online
External links
- Company Legal Services (lsc.gov)
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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