Finding a lawyer if you can’t afford one: legal aid in civil cases

And California has initiated a program: A Push for Legal Aid in Civil Cases Finds Its Advocates – NYTimes.com.

One particular paragraph encapsulates the problem:

Free legal assistance in noncriminal cases is rare and growing rarer. A recent study in Massachusetts found that two-thirds of low-income residents who seek legal help are turned away. Nationally, important civil legal needs are met only about 20 percent of the time for low-income Americans, according to James J. Sandman, president of the Legal Services Corporation, a federal agency that finances legal aid groups.

Of course the reason why there is so little civil legal assistance for needy people is because of America’s mindless and suicidal passion (thank you, Ronald Reagan) for lower and lower taxes and its consequence: less and less government.

Especially if those taxes and that government in any way, in any amount, help needy people. Which is sort of what I always thought government, among its other duties, was bound to do.

Silly me.

 

 

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