Legal Services Not Serving Well Cut It: Having Lost Its Way, Agency Should Lose Funding, Too

The Legal Services Corp. casts itself as a friend of poor people, valiantly manning courthouse ramparts to protect them from illegal eviction, abusive mates, bill collectors, blah, blah, blah.

And maybe some legal-aid beagles do these things - when they’re not busy defending drug dealers from public-housing evictions, fighting to expand the welfare system, stumping for prisoners’ rights, and harassing farmers and small-business owners under the pretense of protecting workers’ rights.

With its barrage of lawsuits, this legal leech has created a multibillion-dollar drag on our economy. It should be eliminated or, at least, limited to basic lawsuits, like landlord-tenant disputes, debt collection and denial of government benefits.

In the May 15 issue of National Review, Rael Jean Isaac provided numerous examples of Legal Services abuse, including:

In the 1980s, Legal Services suits shut down all commercial orchards in western Maryland and cost minority workers 9,000 jobs in the Florida sugar-cane industry. Meanwhile, Texas Rural Legal Aid nearly wiped out vegetable farming in the state’s “salad bowl.” Thousands signed petitions calling for “an end to political activism, racism, fear, violence and economic destruction being promoted in our midst with our own tax dollars.”

Some five years ago, public-housing directors cited Legal Services as the main obstacle to eliminating drug dealers from their premises. Legal-aid lawyers were quick to say their clients were innocent till proven guilty - and just as quick to sue projects for allowing the drug infestation their lawsuits protected. Crazy, huh?

Today’s plague of fatherless families can be traced to a series of successful assaults by Legal Services against any moral conditions being placed on welfare - like limiting family-assistance programs to married couples with children. As a result, children who have children are entitled to a welfare check and their own governmentfunded apartment.

Not surprisingly, the American Bar Association is spending $200,000 this fall lobbying for Legal Services. The corporation not only provides jobs for thousands of lawyers, but it also keeps the heat off private lawyers to render free service to the poor.

But someone needs to help the poor. Legal Services isn’t.

, DataTimes MEMO: For opposing view, see headline: Justice must not become private club

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