Financial aid for Legal Aid

Like the people it serves, Legal Aid is scrambling to find money to stay afloat.

Those charged with crimes who cannot afford a lawyer are provided one by the state. Poor people facing legal challenges like eviction, foreclosure and bankruptcy have no guarantee of a lawyer's help. Legal Aid fills that gap.

Legal Aid provides free legal services to poor people in civil litigation. Their numbers are legion.

There are nine Legal Aid programs, with 38 offices in the state including in Norfolk, Hampton, Williamsburg and the Eastern Shore. Mark Braley, executive director of the nonprofit Legal Services Corp. that oversees those offices, said the understaffed service used to turn away about half of those seeking help. Now it turns away two-thirds.

Its clients range from veterans suffering from health problems to people working multiple jobs to make ends meet. The number of people seeking help with unemployment claims has skyrocketed.

Cuts of about 20 percent in federal grants since last year mean the service has fewer lawyers, who often have time only to offer advice, rather than accompany a client to court.

There's a fix that could help in the long run, and Virginia should approve it in this legislative session.

The state should require that lawyers use interest-bearing accounts for money held in legal trust, and that the interest be used to support Legal Aid. Currently lawyers may choose to do so. Virginia is one of only six states not to mandate such accounts be used to support Legal Aid.

With interest rates hovering around zero, even doubling the number of interest-bearing accounts fails to quickly produce much extra cash, although it could guarantee better cash flow in the future.

So Legal Aid will also ask legislators for more immediate help, with a request to increase the amount of civil filing fees that go to the service by $4.

In the meantime, lawyers in Hampton Roads and elsewhere should participate in the program to fund Legal Aid. It does not cost a cent for those lawyers or their clients, and it will go a long way toward ensuring that everyone has access to the legal system.