Legal Services Monitor

NLPC makes the case for an end to taxpayer funding for the Legal Services Corporation (LSC). We also make the case for the provision of legal aid to the poor through private voluntary efforts. NLPC is regarded as the nation's leading LSC critic. NLPC Chairman Ken Boehm, former Counsel to the LSC board, is considered the leading expert on LSC outside LSC itself. NLPC exposes and publicizes instances of abuse and lawbreaking by LSC officials and grantees on a regular basis.

New Evidence Shows Fraud, Inefficiency Among Legal Services Grantees

Submitted by: Carl Horowitz 07/26/2010 - 14:36

LSC logo Misuse of Legal Services Corporation funds is nothing new. The most publicized cases typically involve lawsuits by affiliated nonprofit legal groups that run contrary to the LSC charter. Recent months, however, have witnessed a different kind of problem: use of public money for private pleasure. New reports by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the LSC Office of Inspector General, plus a lengthy summary article by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Public Integrity, highlight acts of theft or excessive spending at recipient organizations of LSC funds and a lack of internal controls by top LSC officials. As the Legal Services Corp. budget is currently $420 million, taxpayers have every reason to be concerned.

Submitted by: Carl Horowitz 04/29/2010 - 19:04

Cheri Logue had a lot of unpaid credit card and other bills. To pay them off, she stole from the law firm at which she worked. Logue, a secretary-bookkeeper for Southwestern Pennsylvania Legal Services Inc. (SPLS), pleaded guilty in Pittsburgh federal court on Tuesday, April 27 to embezzling slightly over $188,000 over about three years from the federally-funded law group based in Washington, Pa. She faces sentencing on August 27. A member of the SPLS board of directors, Chris Blackwell, said that she has paid back all of the money, a fact that might keep her out of prison.

Submitted by: Peter Flaherty 04/28/2010 - 08:07

Boehm testifying photo At a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing, NLPC Chairman Ken Boehm was the lone witness opposed to reauthorization of the taxpayer-funded Legal Services Corporation (LSC). The April 27 hearing was chaired by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), who favors the reauthorization bill that increases the LSC budget to $750 million and strips out important reforms instituted in 1996.

Boehm warned that the reauthorization would mean a new round of problems for the scandal-plagued program. LSC funds a network of lawyers in dozens of communities to provide civil (not criminal) day-to-day legal help to poor people. Many LSC-funded lawyers spend their time on left-wing political and social causes, instead of helping the poor. Click here to download a 14-page pdf of Boehm’s testimony.

Submitted by: Carl Horowitz 08/12/2009 - 15:23

Italian marble Legal Services Corporation (LSC) hasn't been known as of late for skimping on luxuries. And one expense in particular, an elevated three-story slab of white stone in Ft. Worth, Texas, might be a catalyst for instituting overdue cost controls at the nonprofit legal network whose annual budget is set to rise to more than $400 million from the current $390 million. On Monday, August 10, the LSC Office of the Inspector General released the results of its audit of the purchase of a slab of imported Italian stone costing $188,582 adorning the building occupied by an LSC grantee, Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas. The addition, part of a renovation project, has received continuous attention since its revelation two weeks ago. The original reported cost was $150,000, a figure representing the amount paid for out of funds on hand.

Submitted by: Carl Horowitz 07/23/2010 - 14:04

Senator Charles Grassley, R-Iowa When it comes to oversight of federal programs, President Obama and key Democratic allies appear mired in self-contradiction. On one hand, they demand more accountability from the programs. On the other, they advocate increasing budgets for agencies with documented weak internal controls. Legal Services Corporation (LSC) may be the most glaring example of this syndrome.

Submitted by: John Carlisle 06/16/2009 - 09:01

Mollohan photo A key congressional appropriations committee recently took the first step in removing restrictions on the ability of legal aid programs funded by the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) to use taxpayer dollars to engage in politically-motivated litigation. On June 4, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies, chaired by Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV), voted to lift the restriction on the ability of LSC-funded programs to collect attorneys' fees.

This restriction was part of a series of provisions Congress enacted 13 years ago in an attempt to end the practice of legal services lawyers using taxpayer money to file lawsuits advancing liberal political causes. In addition to the prohibition on collecting attorneys' fees, the restrictions included bans on filing class action lawsuits, challenges to welfare reform, representation of undocumented aliens, and abortion advocacy.

Submitted by: John Carlisle 05/12/2009 - 08:44

projects photo Congressional Democrats have made clear that they intend to remove restrictions on the ability of legal services lawyers, funded by the Legal Services Corporation, to engage in controversial political advocacy. On March 26, Senator Tom Harkin introduced a bill that ends such restrictions. Likewise, at an April 1 hearing of a House appropriations subcommittee, several Democratic congressmen called for lifting restrictions on ideologically-motivated lawsuits.

One of the results of abolishing these reforms, enacted by congress in 1996, will be more drug crime in public housing. Currently, legal services lawyers are prohibited from representing individuals being evicted from public housing for drug use. For years, legal services lawyers perversely contributed to rampant crime in troubled public housing projects by systematically thwarting efforts by authorities to kick out tenants who engaged in illegal drug activity.

Submitted by: John Carlisle 06/12/2009 - 14:10

Harkin The Obama Administration and the Democratic Congress may soon gain another valuable ally in their effort to radically expand government. On March 26, Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) introduced legislation that ends the restrictions on the ability of legal services organizations, funded by the Legal Services Corporation (LSC), to file ideologically-motivated lawsuits. In addition, Harkin's bill, "The Civil Access to Justice Act of 2009," nearly doubles the LSC budget from $390 million to $750 million. If Harkin's bill is enacted, thousands of legal services lawyers will unleash a barrage of lawsuits in the nation's federal and state courts to advance a liberal political agenda.

Submitted by: John Carlisle 03/24/2009 - 16:22

In March 2008, the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago (LAFC), which is funded by the Legal Services Corporation (LSC), tried to stop U.S. immigration authorities from deporting a Pakistani man for covering up his involvement with a dangerous terrorist organization.

The case began in August 1994 when Mohammad Azam Hussain, then 26, entered the U.S. from his native Pakistan and five years later became a lawful permanent resident. In 2003, he applied to become a naturalized U.S. citizen. During his years of residence in the Chicago area, Hussain worked in a variety of jobs such as cab driver and restaurant worker.

On September 30, 2004, Hussain was arrested for failing to disclose on his application for U.S. citizenship his membership in a Pakistani terrorist organization and lying to U.S. government officials regarding such membership. On October 7, U.S. District Court Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan denied Hussain's request to be released on bond, agreeing with the government's argument that Hussain was a flight risk. (Throughout these and the following criminal proceedings, Hussain was represented by private lawyers.)

Submitted by: John Carlisle 03/25/2009 - 16:06

This year, Congress may abolish restrictions on the ability of activist legal groups, that receive millions of dollars from the federally-funded Legal Services Corporation (LSC), to file ideologically-motivated lawsuits. Congress imposed these restrictions in 1996 in response to legal services lawyers systematically using taxpayer money to pursue a liberal political agenda that had nothing to do with the LSC's ostensible mission of assisting the poor with their civil legal needs. These restrictions included bans on representing undocumented aliens, abortion-related litigation, prisoner advocacy, class action suits, and challenges to welfare reform.

Even with the restrictions, legal services lawyers still file lawsuits to push their political agenda. This includes litigation to force spending increases for welfare programs. In addition, legal services lawyers file lawsuits against efforts to rein in corruption and abuse in various welfare programs. A prime example of this occurred in 2003 when Legal Services of Northern California (LSNC) filed a lawsuit to stop the State of California from cracking down on welfare fraud by instituting a fingerprinting system. These are the kinds of controversial lawsuits legal services lawyers file under the restrictions. If Congress removes the restrictions, there will most certainly by an avalanche of lawsuits at the federal, state and local level to overturn welfare reforms.

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