At Issue

Funding for civil legal services - Time for the state to step up to the plate

About 200,000 low-income Wisconsin citizens do not get the legal services they need to help them save their jobs, keep their homes, and obtain health care. Their number is increasing while funding is declining.

By Brian Burke

Funding to help provide civil legal services is eroding in Wisconsin, while the need for such services is increasing. It is time for the state to join in the partnership of funding sources for civil legal services for low-income litigants and help assure everyone access to our court system in Wisconsin.

Current funding sources are varied and unstable

Funding for civil legal services for low-income citizens in Wisconsin comes from a variety of sources - private contributions and grants, interest from lawyers trust accounts, and federal funds for the four Legal Services corporations.

Wisconsin ranks 37th in funding for civil legal services for low-income citizens when compared to other states. Wisconsin spends only $14.09 on legal services for each low-income individual. This compares to more than $20 per low-income individual in Ohio and more than $40 per low-income individual in Minnesota.

At the federal level, funding for civil legal services began under the Nixon Administration with the creation of the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) in 1974. When signing the bill, President Nixon stated that providing funds for legal services would improve opportunities for low-income persons, would best serve justice, and would reaffirm faith in our government of laws. Unfortunately, since 1994 federal funding for LSC has been unstable - threatened with extinction and suffering drastic funding cutbacks.

In light of the federal cuts, many states have started funding civil legal services for their low-income citizens. In Wisconsin, except for a one-time grant provided through Wisconsin's new welfare reform program, W2, there is no state funding support for across-the-board, low-income civil legal services.

Proposal would help meet needs

Strong private support has come mainly from the Wisconsin legal community through the IOLTA (Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts) program and individual attorneys' pro bono work. As federal funds diminished, the State Bar of Wisconsin created the Equal Justice Coalition to help raise private funds to make up for the federal cutbacks. Despite these efforts, many low-income individuals' needs for civil legal services go unmet.

Estimates suggest that about 200,000 low-income citizens in our state do not get the legal services they need to help them save their jobs, keep their homes, end an abusive relationship, or obtain health care. In Wisconsin, there is one attorney for every 414 citizens but only one legal services attorney for every 8,476 low-income citizen.

I am working with the State Bar of Wisconsin and the Equal Justice Coalition on a proposal to establish a state matching grant fund. It would work in the same way the state currently awards grants to Forward Wisconsin, where the state matches the funds raised by the nonprofit group - up to a specific level - to help business promotion efforts. One possibility open to us is to include our proposal as an amendment to the state budget bill (Assembly Bill 133 and Senate Bill 45).

Under our plan, the state would match private funds raised within a year for civil legal services in an amount up to $500,000. The state grant would be distributed by the Wisconsin Trust Account Foundation (WisTAF). Created by the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 1986, WisTAF receives IOLTA (interest on lawyers trust accounts) funds and provides grants to a wide spectrum of Wisconsin agencies that provide civil legal services to low-income individuals. Under the proposal, WisTAF would distribute the state grants proportionally to the matching grants provided by eligible grantees.

As many as 20 other states have recognized the need to become a partner in providing civil legal services to their citizens. Through this initiative it is my goal to add Wisconsin to that list.

Wisconsin Lawyer