What would happen in your state if LSC were defunded? Click the map below to read stories about the impact LSC defunding would have on your community.
LSC’s map tells a nationwide story

Excerpt from the and article in the Oklahoma Gazette Local impact: Proposed federal budget cuts threaten to reduce or eliminate social services and humanities agencies

Legal lifeline

Michael Figgins describes the role of Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma, Inc. (LASO) with the illustration of a law library, in which one shelving unit contains brown leather-bound criminal law books that list statutes and penalties. The library itself contains countless books stacked on other shelves. Those books represent civil and administrative laws. Those are the laws that affect our lives, even unwittingly.

“Those are the laws that determine whether to take away your kids, take your house, take your car, take your job, take your income and all kinds of things,” Figgins said. “Civil laws are supposedly there to protect you, but they are not self-enforcing.”

The constitutional right to legal counsel is reserved for criminal cases only. In civil matters, people must obtain a lawyer on their own, represent themselves or forego legal relief altogether. Attorney fees are costly, which makes it especially difficult for low-income individuals to obtain representation.

Annually, millions of federal dollars from the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) are distributed to the offices of Legal Aid and Oklahoma Indian Legal Services, Inc. to provide low-income Oklahomans in all 77 counties with legal assistance. Those funds might be eliminated, too, as the federal administration’s budget recommends eliminating the LSC, the largest funder of civil legal aid.

While legal aid groups play an essential role providing legal services, legal aid attorneys meet a vital need in a court system that is often overwhelmed with record-setting caseloads. When people with no legal education whose lives are in crisis try to represent themselves, it mostly leads to costly mistakes or case-closing outcomes, which further impedes the system because justice is foreclosed.

Inside LASO’s Oklahoma City office, Figgins said the organization is granted federal funds from the LSC and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women (to represent domestic abuse victims) and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (to represent people who experience housing discrimination).

In addition to eliminating some federal agencies, the federal budget proposal calls for deep cuts in many federal departments but boosts defense spending by over $50 billion.

In many Oklahoma communities, LASO is an agency of United Way and is also supported by private donations. As Figgins said, LASO is one of many nonprofits in the state faced with possibly losing federal funds.

“This is an effort that is going to hurt a lot of people,” Figgins said. “Legal Aid is in the boat with everyone else.”