Litigating Against Poverty: Legal Services and Group Representation

Abstract

Public debate over the fate of the Legal Services Corporation during the Reagan years came increasingly political, with Reagan Administration officials continuing to call for the total elimination of this poverty law program.New LSC officers seized regional office files, adopted regulations restricting LSC attorneys’ representational and nonrepresentational activities, and regulations restricting financial eligibility of applicants for the program. This article focuses on the thoughtful debate between law reform advocates and equal access defenders in the poverty law community. This article evaluates the objections of equal access advocates like Marshall Breger to see if these objections justify currently proposed restrictions on LSC.

Keywords: Legal Services Corporation, Reagan Administration, poverty law program, Breger, law reform advocates, equal access defenders, poverty law