American Bar Association president Linda Klein, senior managing shareholder at Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz in Atlanta, used declining revenue, increasing need and the words of the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia to urge the U.S. Senate to continue funding legal aid.
Even before President Donald Trump cut legal aid funding to zero for next year’s budget, funding for Legal Services Corp. had decreased 18.8 percent since 2010, Klein told a Senate subcommittee in written testimony the ABA released Wednesday. During the same period, the number of people who qualify for legal aid—meaning their income is below poverty level—increased 25 percent.
