Government Funding For Legal Services Lawyers Gets Strong Public Support, Says Poll; Sen. Harkin Looks To Double Budget For Services To Poor, Indigent

The Associated Press reports:

• Americans strongly support government-paid legal services for the poor, says a poll commissioned by the Legal Services Corp. Two-thirds of those polled for the American Bar Association by Harris Interactive said theyfavor federal funding for people who need legal assistance. Legislation introduced in March by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, would nearly double the budget for Legal Services,(1) which Congress created 35 years ago, and lift restrictions on the kinds of cases legal aid lawyers can file. The ABA, the nation's largest lawyers group, backs the bill.

For more, see Americans back legal aid to poor, new poll says.

(1) According to the story, Harkin said his proposal to raise Legal Services' budget to $750 million from the $390 million it is getting in the current government spending year would give legal aid programs roughly the same amount of money, adjusted for inflation, that they received in 1981.