
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, April 18, 1995                   TAG: 9504210031
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

LEGAL AID TARGETED AGAIN

LEGAL AID for the poor survived Ronald Reagan's efforts to shut off federal funding. Though the funds were significantly reduced, the program survived - with the help of former Rep. M. Caldwell Butler of Roanoke, one of its staunchest public defenders.

Now, again, legal aid is on the chopping block. House Republicans are pushing various proposals to downsize or eliminate the Legal Services Corp., which supports agencies such as the 29-year-old Legal Aid Society of Roanoke Valley. Once again, Butler - fiscal conservative and party loyalist - is arguing this is a misguided, anti-conservative idea.

``If we do not ensure access to the justice system, we run the great risk that millions of citizens will remain or become poor rather than self-sufficient, and will burden the society in ways far more costly than the modest dollars that go to this program,'' Butler recently wrote to House Republicans.

He's right about that. But beyond the dollars and sense of it, Butler also happens to believe in equal protection under the law. That's always been a sound - one might say, conservative - tenet, requiring that all people, poor as well as rich, have a shot at legal redress of grievances and enforcement of rights.

House Republicans aren't so crass as to suggest the poor have no claim to effective legal representation in matters of civil law. But their proposals to ax funding for the Legal Services Corp. would effectively deny thousands of poor citizens the ability to stake such a claim.

As Butler notes, the 1.7 million cases resolved annually by LSC-financed attorneys - 90 percent of these are resolved out of court, by the way - may be insignificant in jurisprudence, but they are ``crucial in the lives of the people represented.'' A farmer may be helped to refinance his property to avoid foreclosure, a grandmother to gain custody of her grandchildren, a worker to get medical treatment needed to preserve health and job, a consumer to stand up for his rights, a woman to escape domestic violence. No lawyers joke: The poor, too, encounter legal entanglements.

One beef of federal lawmakers is that LSC-funded lawyers sometimes focus on political causes via class-action suits brought against the federal government. An example: the precedent-setting case that Legal Services of Roanoke successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1986, to preserve the right of public-housing tenants to sue their federally funded landlords.

But class-action suits can save money and time for the courts when many people have the same grievance. And why should one class of tenants be denied a right that's available to others?

Recognizing that legal-aid programs had sometimes veered away from congressional intent, Butler helped write some restrictions in the early '80s. But he remains convinced of LSC's worth. It is cost-effective. (Average cost per case: less than $250.) It also is necessary to leverage private-sector contributions - both dollars and donated services - that help support legal aid.

Some Republicans believe private lawyers can fill the gap pro bono publico if LSC is eliminated. That's not realistic, and it is not justice for all.

by CNB