1. The Senate Budget joins the Governor and the House in scheduling MLAC for an appropriation of $9.5 million. This is the same level as this year and represents a victory given the difficult economy. Because IOLTA revenue remains low, MLAC grantees are using up their reserves and facing lay‐offs this year. The LSC‐ funded programs (New Center for Legal Advocacy, Mass Justice Project, Volunteer Lawyers Project and Merrimack Valley North Shore Legal Services) have received modest increases in the last two years and are not under as much financial stress.
Funding for the Committee for Public Counsel Services was much less generous, down $35 million from the current year’s spending rate.
Funding for the Judiciary is cut by more than $8 million, to $744.2 million.
2. The Massachusetts Bar Association has released a report by its Crisis in Court Funding Task Force. Dated May 2010, the report notes that the Trial Court has lost 740 positions since July 1, 2007 (9.7%). The crisis is blamed for raising new impediments to justice, increasing physical danger to the public, harming children and families, hampers the work of judges, leads to increases in fees and allows courthouses to decay.
3. The Mass Bar presented its Daniel F. Toomey Award to Judge Dina Fein, the Trial Court’s Special Advisor on Access to Justice Initiatives. A report of the award on the MBA’s website quotes MBA President Valarie Yarashus as saying “Her judgment is extraordinary, and she knows how to turn goals into action.”
The MBA report continues: “Fein explained her role as the special advisor on Access to Justice Initiatives and as a member of the Access to Justice Commission. She said it’s important to “examine the work of the courts through the access to justice lens” and make as many improvements as possible without significant spending.
Already, she said, the Access to Justice Initiative is using a survey of court personnel last year to create a manual that helps explain to clerks the difference between providing legal help and legal advice, making uniform, multilingual forms that will be available online, planning for a pilot selfhelp center in the Edward W. Brooke Courthouse in Boston and expanding Limited Assistance Representation programs in the Trial Courts.”
4.The ABA Resource Center for Access to Justice (www.ATJsupport.org) reports that four additional states have created Commissions in the past year: Wyoming, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wisconsin. In addition, New York’s Chief Judge, Jonathan Lippman, has appointed a task force to find ways to get services to those that current funding cannot reach. Former LSC President Helaine Barnett is to head the task force. Hearings on barriers to access or statewide conferences were held in Arkansas, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Colorado and Mississippi.
5. The proposed $50 add‐on to the annual Massachusetts attorney registration, with a right to opt‐out if an attorney prefers not to make a contribution for access to justice efforts, is pending before the Supreme Judicial Court. Meanwhile, other states are taking similar steps to support legal assistance programs. Minnesota imposed a temporary $25 increase on top of the current $50 portion of each annual registration fee that already goes to legal services. Texas shifted it’s $150 suggested contribution on top of bar dues from an opt‐in to an opt‐out.
6. A Maryland court has made a cy pres award of $2.4 million of unclaimed funds in a class action case to legal services programs in the state. Initially, a $7.6 million fund was set up to repay Cellular One customers for violation of a state law on late fees; the small amounts available to individuals meant that many eligible claimants did not bother to pursue their rights. Massachusetts Rule of Civil Procedure 23 was amended last year to explicitly authorize similar cy pres awards to legal services programs or the IOLTA program in Massachusetts.
7. The Mass Bar Association’s Lawyers Journal ran a front page article in the May 2010 issue describing the reconstituted Commission and the work of the Trial Court Special Advisor. “Justice Can’t Wait” was written by Bill Archambeault, and can be read online at http://www.massbar.org/media/740887/mlj_may2010_web2.pdf