The Justice Gap: a nation heading in the wrong direction

As we celebrate our nation this week, it's a good time to take stock of areas in which we have more work to do to measure up to our founding ideals. The Legal Services Corporation recently released a report on “the justice gap” in our country, underscoring the scandalous failure to provide meaningful resources to meet the legal needs of low-income Americans (i.e., those living at or below 125% of the federal poverty level). Among the most striking estimates:

• 86% of the civil legal problems reported by low-income Americans in the past year received inadequate or no legal help;
•  71% of low-income households experienced at least one civil legal problem, including 97% of households with victims of domestic violence or sexual assault, 80% of households with kids under 18, and 80% of households with disabled persons;
• Courts are flooded with unrepresented litigants, even in high-stakes cases -- in New York state courts, for example, 98% of tenants in eviction cases and 95% of parents in child support cases were unrepresented.

Instead of making forward progress, we face an uphill battle even to maintain the status quo.  Last week, the House subcommittee responsible for LSC funding proposed a 24% cut to the agency, which is, sadly, an improvement from the White House's proposal to eliminate the LSC entirely.  We can do better.