In 1981, the Legal Services Corp. was on the chopping block. President Ronald Reagan, who viewed its lawyers like burrs under his horses’ saddles, called for disbanding it. His appointees to the corporation’s board actually lobbied against further funding by Congress.

“It became pretty quickly apparent that something unusual had to be done to help the Legal Services Corp. weather the storm that was happening,” recalled William Reece Smith Jr., a shareholder at Carlton Fields in Tampa, Fla.