{"id":17242,"date":"2012-05-07T18:32:14","date_gmt":"2012-05-07T23:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=17242"},"modified":"2012-05-07T18:32:14","modified_gmt":"2012-05-07T23:32:14","slug":"funding-civil-legal-aid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2012\/05\/funding-civil-legal-aid\/","title":{"rendered":"Funding Civil Legal Aid"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Alberta Darling had a lot on her plate in the late winter of 2011. As co-chairman of the Joint Finance Committee in the Wisconsin Legislature, the 66-year-old senator from River Hills, described on her website as having “a passion for protecting, educating, and improving the lives of children,” was one of the chief stewards of Governor Scott Walker’s Budget Repair Bill, the legislation that would spark one of the fiercest protests in the history of Wisconsin, and in fact, force Senator Darling to face a recall election.<\/p>\n

But if threats of protests and recalls and the prospect of voter dissatisfaction would not cause her to veer off course, it was not surprising that the promise and presence of $2.6 million in civil legal aid — money designated to help poor people with legal problems — was no deterrent. That the funding did not come from tax revenue but instead from a court surcharge was meaningless. That Wisconsin had been the second last state in the country to fund civil legal aid was irrelevant. The money disappeared.<\/p>\n

Well not quite disappeared. In a twist that still rankles those who worked so hard to get that money into the budget, Senator Darling’s committee did not cut the funding from the budget, it gave the money to district attorneys.<\/p>\n

Lack of funding for representation of poor people with civil legal issues is an enormous problem that is getting worse. As the economy sputters, creating more legal problems for the poor, the people with control of the wallets decide that the life-changing issues faced by the poor are no different than the care and maintenance of a public park. Cutbacks are required. No apologies are given.<\/p>\n

So Wisconsin’s Joint Finance Committee can undo civil legal aid without a hiccup. Congress can cut funding for the Legal Services Corporation, the agency that helps fund many of the legal service organizations, with ease. And our Wisconsin Supreme Court can refuse to endorse a system to appoint lawyers for poor people in civil cases, in part because it worries about what it would cost.<\/p>\n

The result is that the organizations that are in existence to provide legal representation to the poor have to eliminate jobs and serve fewer people. Already the estimate is that 80% of the poor who need representation do not get it, and the number is growing. The court system slows to a crawl under the weight of unrepresented litigants.<\/p>\n

Associates with Ivy League degrees in large law firms take days to write memoranda about issues that the unrepresented poor have to deal with alone, on the spot. The lawyers don’t own the problems; they get to turn off the lights and go home at night. The poor carry their problems wherever they go.<\/p>\n

As Tom Cannon, the Executive Director of the Legal Aid Society, wrote in an opinion column in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in support of the so-called Civil Gideon petition:<\/p>\n

If you are poor and face 10 days in jail for a bar fight, you are entitled to a free lawyer under state and federal law. If you are poor and face eviction, foreclosure, bankruptcy, domestic violence, repossession of the family car, garnishment of your wages, loss of child custody or denial of disability benefits to which you are entitled, you are on your own.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is one of society’s embarrassments. Frustrating and disappointing, it is most of all impossible to comprehend the ease with which the plight of impoverished civil litigants is dismissed. It gets no media attention. The bar’s advocacy on the issue is often tepid.<\/p>\n

And legislators, like Senator Darling, don’t care.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alberta Darling had a lot on her plate in the late winter of 2011. As co-chairman of the Joint Finance Committee in the Wisconsin Legislature, the 66-year-old senator from River Hills, described on her website as having “a passion for protecting, educating, and improving the lives of children,” was one of the chief stewards of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,44,120,122,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-practice","category-political-processes-rhetoric","category-poverty-law","category-public","category-wisconsin","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17242\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}