Tough economy takes toll on legal aid

INDIANAPOLIS -- Tough economic times are making economics more difficult for some groups that provide legal help to the poor.\nThe Indianapolis Legal Aid Society, which has six full-time and five part-time attorneys, helped nearly 8,000 people navigate central Indiana's civil courts in 2002 but is facing a big deficit this year.\nLegal Aid was among dozens of groups that saw a 7 percent cut this year in United Way funding after a 3.5 percent cut in 2001 as United Way reported a drop in donations.\n"We don't have that many attorneys to begin with," Legal Aid Society director John Floreancig told The Indianapolis Star for a story Wednesday. "They're already asked to do a lot more than what they're paid."\nEach year, about 15,000 people in Marion and surrounding counties who qualify for free legal assistance never get it because not enough lawyers are available, Marion Superior Court Judge David Dreyer said.\n"They get shut out of the system. When that happens, we all lose," said Dreyer, who is chairman of the Heartland Pro-Bono Council, an Indiana Supreme Court-sponsored effort to recruit private attorneys to donate their services to the needy.\nLegal Aid's clients include senior citizens trying to keep their homes, women trying to escape abusive mates or renters seeking to have heat or water service restored. Clients must have incomes no more than 125 percent of the federal poverty level, which is $22,600 for a family of four.\nThe group, which has a budget of about $650,000, is trying to raise $150,000 in donations from local law firms so it can finish the year in the black.\nOther legal groups are feeling a similar pinch.\nIndiana Legal Services, which handles more than 10,000 cases a year, stopped accepting clients at its Indianapolis office for 30 days in 2002.\nLegal Services, which has nine offices around the state, receives about $7.5 million a year, primarily from the federal government.\nThe group has a statewide staff of about 110 people, including 50 lawyers. Fourteen employees were laid off in December.\nSmaller legal groups like the Neighborhood Christian Legal Clinic, which has two full-time and one part-time attorney and works with about 100 volunteers, also are coping with money problems.\n"The demand for our services is out there, and it's big," said Lynn Tyler, the clinic's board president.