Tossing a Legal Lifeline to Working Poor and Low-income

• Jurisdiction: California,United States
• Citation: Vol. 12 No. 2015 Pg. 02
• Publication year: 2015
• Pages: 02
• Year: 2015
• topic: Family Law

Tossing a legal lifeline to working poor and low-income No. 2015 #02 California Bar Journal December, 2015

Amy Yarbrough Stiff Writer.

At an inaugural meeting of the Civil Justice Strategies Task Force last year, Gillian Hadfield offered an alarming statistic.

Speaking before the task force, which looked at ways to bridge the so-called justice gap, the University of Southern California Gould School of Law professor noted that given today's law firm structure, more than 90 percent of households cannot afford the legal services they need.

Long aware of the dearth of affordable legal services, county bar associations around the state have been stepping up to help low and moderate means residents in their communities, connecting them with low-cost or free legal help on everything from immigration to landlord-tenant disputes.

Lida Sideris, executive director of the Santa Barbara County Bar Association, said her...