Improve the State System of Legal Services Available to the Poor

“Civil legal services” refers to legal assistance for a variety of non-criminal legal matters for which a person often needs the assistance of counsel.   The kinds of issues that low-income people face that can have a major impact on them or their family may include: domestic violence matters; consumer problems such as debt collection, scams and predatory lending; housing, such as landlord-tenant problems, foreclosures and unsafe housing conditions; family law, including child support and child custody issues; and healthcare, such as accessing Medicare and Medicaid programs.  Resolving these issues properly and well many times involves going to court, which costs money or requires expertise.  People in poverty, by definition, have little money and, by circumstance, often have little expertise.  What's more, they need legal assistance more often than do higher income earners, and the resolution of such needs has a much larger impact on their lives.  In fact, getting legal assistance can often make the difference in whether a person is able to begin climbing out of poverty or not.

In some cases, low-income people can get court fees waived, but the waiver is inconsistently offered depending upon where in the state one goes to court.  Sometimes, pro bono help is provided by attorneys.  But pro bono legal help cannot meet the tremendous needs encountered by our state’s high proportion of people living in or near poverty.

In New Mexico, poor people access legal services almost exclusively through a network of non-profit organizations.  Yet this network is overwhelmed by their needs.  For this reason, the Supreme Court has unanimously called for immediate action to address what it calls a severe shortage of civil legal assistance available to low-income New Mexicans (Supreme Court of New Mexico order No. 06-8500).  While New Mexico has a network of non-profit organizations that provides legal assistance in civil matters for low-income New Mexicans, this system is in crisis.  One-fifth of the people in New Mexico—411,000 people; over 128,000 families—meet the financial criteria for receiving legal aid under the federally funded programs.  Each year, the legal services system gives free or reduced-cost legal aid and representation to over 13,000 of these individuals.  But for every 10 people helped, 17 individuals are turned away because the programs don’t have enough capacity to meet the need.

For 30 years the New Mexico civil legal services system has survived financially through federal – not state – financing.  However, as the need for civil legal services continues to rise, its federal funding has been slashed to the point where, when adjusted for inflation, it is actually less than it was in 1980. 

In 2001, the New Mexico state legislature created the NM Civil Legal Services Commission to oversee the Civil Legal Services Fund.  This Commission now collects about $1.4 million dollars annually from court filing fees and then allocates the funds to legal aid programs such as NM Legal Aid, Law Access NM, and DNA People’s Legal Services, which provide direct representation services to the poor.   This has helped, but it remains far too little.

The New Mexico civil legal services system requires approximately $8 million to meet the legal needs of poor people in New Mexico.  The New Mexico Supreme Court and a group of judges, lawyers, and concerned citizens have begun calling for state intervention.    A coalition of advocates, including the Center, has been working to get the state to appropriate $4 million dollars annually to ensure that poor New Mexicans can get the help they need to solve their legal problems.

To learn more about this issue, click here for a report on civil legal services produced by the New Mexico Commission on Access to Justice.

In recent years, the Center also worked to improve the state’s civil legal services system by creating incentives to attract and retain attorneys to public interest law.  In the 2005 Legislative session, the Center shepherded a bill through to law that established a Loan Repayment Assistance Program (LRAP) to help attorneys repay their law school loans in exchange for a commitment to three years of public service.  To read the legislation authorizing the program, click here.

In the 2006 session, we procured recurring funding for the program and worked closely with the NM Department of Higher Education to ensure the program was implemented well.  The application for the new Loan Repayment Assistance Program (LRAP) for public interest attorneys is now available on-line.  Click here to view and print the application in PDF form. 

The Center also sponsors trainings for attorneys and other advocates working to provide civil legal services to low-income New Mexicans.  For more information, please visit the Trainings section of our website.