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Chief Judge Lippman of the state of New York continues to advocate for greater funding for legal services for the poor. Given the economic climate, there has been a surge in the number of low-income folks who need legal representation.

From NY Law Journal:

With grim economic realities persisting in New York, Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman will renew his efforts beginning next week to drive home to the governor and the Legislature the need for greater state funding for civil legal services for the poor.

The chief judge will preside over the first of four planned hearings Tuesday in White Plains along with Chief Administrative Judge Ann Pfau, New York State Bar President Vincent E. Doyle III of Connors & Villardo in Buffalo and A. Gail Prudenti, presiding justice of the Appellate Division, Second Department. Presiding justices of the other three departments will appear at later hearings in Manhattan, Albany and Buffalo.

The hearings are a response to a 2010 legislative resolution requesting an annual update from the courts about the state of civil legal services. As in last year’s sessions, speakers will argue that many lower-income New Yorkers need legal help to maintain such essentials as housing, health care, unemployment insurance and even an adequate diet (NYLJ, Sept. 29, 2010). Testimony is by invitation of the court system only.

“We are certainly aware of what is going on in this economy,” Judge Lippman said in an interview. “The economic climate is the worst that it has been, perhaps since the Great Depression. But it is above all the time that civil legal services have to be funded by the state.”

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