The case for legal aid’s survival

DETAILS

As the executive director of Legal Services Alabama, I know the reality is very different: the real story, versus the “fake news”, is that we service about eleven thousand clients a year who are a thoroughly representative subsection of ordinary Alabamians. They include veterans who have drifted into homelessness: a few weeks ago, five of our lawyers in Birmingham devoted a day to a clinic for these ex-servicemen who are facing very hard times.

The single largest share of our attorney hours are spent on victims of domestic violence, and the largest section of this group is mothers who need court intervention to make their abusers stay away from them and their children. Several of LSA’s attorneys focus full-time on elder law, which can mean everything from guardianships to protect the interests of senior citizens to grandfathers who need wills done for them.