The Changing Nature of the Legal Profession

Gregg Lombardi - Executive Director

At the 40th Anniversary of the creation of the Legal Services Corporation, there were lots of speeches by impressive dignitaries. There were also lots of impressive and surprising facts bandied around about the changing nature of the legal profession.

Here are a number of noteworthy facts and statistics that I came away with and which might be of interest to you. I have not done any confirmation of these, but can only tell you that they come from credible sources:

--The cost of litigation is resulting in alternative dispute resolution processes that are outside of the legal system. For example, in 2013, e-Bay resolved 6 million on-line disputes without the assistance of any attorney;

--In 2013, there were 335,000 cases brought in federal court in which the court provided an interpreter for a party or a witness who did not speak English;

--Washington State is considering issuing limited licenses to practice law, that would allow students to graduate from law school in substantially less time if they were only going to focus their practice on a specific type of work (for example, divorces on municipal court cases);

--New York State now allows law students to skip their final term of law school and take the bar exam in February, if they spend their final term working for a not-for-profit organization;

-- Justice Scalia at the conference said: "Access to justice is the most fundamental American ideal."

--The United Kingdom has de-regulated law. They now allow non-lawyers to own law firms;

--According to a 10-year Harvard study, the average new attorney changed jobs roughly 4 times between 2002 and 2012; 

--In half of the cases filed in the 7th Circuit in 2013 at least one party was not represented by counsel;

--In 90% of the divorce cases filed in Connecticut in 2013 at least one party was not represented by counsel;

--In 1978, federal funding for legal aid programs nationally was $205 million. That equates to $747 million in funding in 2014 dollars, when adjusted for inflation. That is more than twice the current level of federal funding for the legal aid programs’ work;

--Discretionary funding in the federal budget (which is where Legal Aid funding comes from) is now about one-third of the budget. In 2024, it’s estimated the discretionary funding will account for only 15% of the budget;

--In 1994, the largest 200 law firms in the country did about 900,000 of pro bono work. In 2013, they did over 5 million hours of pro bono work.

--Attorneys in Texas in 2013 did 2.5 million hours of pro bono work.

LSC's 40th Anniversary Kick-Off Conference

Gregg Lombardi - Executive Director

For the last three days, I have had the good fortune to be the guest, along with all of the other legal aid program directors, of the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) at the 40th anniversary of LSC in Washington, D.C.

Guest speakers included Attorney General Eric Holder, Vice President Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (who was one of the first presidents of the Legal Service Corporation Board), Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Antonin Scalia, as well as the deans of Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Duke law schools. Every living U.S. President sent a congratulatory letter.

From all, the essential underlying message was the same: the work of the legal aid programs is critical to the justice system and to the very success of the country as a whole. As Justice Scalia, of all people, put it: "Access to justice is the most fundamental American ideal."

We were repeatedly thanked profusely for our work, but those thanks really belong to the people who do the work on the front lines every day. So, to everyone who works for the cause-- attorneys, paralegals, secretaries, intake staff, volunteers and even the folks in administration-- please know that at the highest levels of government and the judiciary in our country, your work is known, understood and appreciated.  

And you should also know that, almost uniformly among the speakers we heard, there was a clear recognition that the work of the legal aid programs is grossly underfunded. 

There are a lot of good people at the Legal Services Corporation, the ABA, the Justice Department and the NLADA working hard to translate the appreciation we heard into increased support for our work. 

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There were lots of amazing facts and statistics bandied about at the conference. Later this week, I hope to get out another post with some of the more memorable ones.

Getting Missourians Access to Healthcare

by Gregg Lombardi - Executive Director

I’m excited to report, albeit belatedly, about the work that Stacy Schaub and others have been doing on the Legal Aid Family Support Division Work Group in regard to problems the State of Missouri has been having in processing Medicaid applications. Other members of the Work Group include: Billie Orr, Alicia Johnson, Lisa Gentleman, Jeffiner Thompson, Emily DeStefano and Abbie Rothermich.

In the last year, the State has made major funding cuts and office reorganization in the Family Support Division (known as the FSD), which processes applications for public benefits, including Medicaid, Food Stamps, and Temporary Assistance. 

Medicaid provides health insurance for low-income Missourians who are permanently and totally disabled and, because of their disability, are not capable of gainful employment. It also pays for or subsidizes health insurance for children in low to moderate income families. For thousands of low-income Missourians, Medicaid is their only viable means of accessing long-term, pro-active medical care and the prescription medications they need to bring the pain and other aspects of their maladies under control.

The FSD funding cuts and reorganization have meant that for many Medicaid applicants there is no one to talk to from the State about questions they have on their applications and no one even to give them a receipt when they submit required documentation supporting their applications. We have had many situations in which we have actually faxed in information, like an income verification to the FSD for a client only to have the FSD send the client a letter several weeks later, saying that their application has been denied because they did not provide the FSD with the birth certificate.

The FSD also has gotten much slower in processing applications for Medicaid. So, now it can take several months to get a decision back from FSD, which is a long time to wait when you have a serious medical issue. 

Because of these obstacles and others, from September 2013 through March 2014, Medicaid enrollment in Missouri dropped 3.9% (approximately 33,800 people, one of the largest drops in Medicaid enrollment in the country. While this saves the State and the federal government money in the short-term, it greatly damages the health of the people who need Medicaid and leads to major costs for the hospitals that treat people who are wrongly denied Medicaid when they have catastrophic health crises as a result of not receiving the care they need.

Stacy Schaub, who is the Supervisor of Legal Aid’s Public Benefits Team in our central office, is part of a team of Legal Aid attorneys and other staff who are strategizing on how to respond to problems in the FSD’s processing of Medicaid applications and the processing of other public benefits. 

In early August, the Missouri HealthNet Oversight Committee held a meeting in Jefferson City on the status of Missouri’s Medicaid system. At the meeting, FSD leadership testified that, although there were problems that needed to be addressed, FSD had adequate funding and staffing to handle them. Stacy provided powerful testimony at the meeting bringing to light the numerous problems that the FSD is having.

I’m very proud of the work that Stacy and the other members of Legal Aid’s FSD Task Force have done on this issue. It’s a major step towards getting lots of Missourians in need the healthcare they need and that, under the law, they deserve.