Legal services funding sources considered.

• Date: 05 May 2004
• Author: Barker, April Rockstead

Byline: April Rockstead Barker

Despite budget woes plaguing many states, including Wisconsin, state appropriations may still be one of the most promising potential sources of funding for civil legal services programs serving the indigent.

"I prescribe long-range planning, because things are eventually going to get better," says Meredith McBurney, the director of the American Bar Association's Project to Expand Resources for Legal Services (PERLS). The Wisconsin Law Journal spoke with McBurney last week about the release of the project's 2003-2004 version of an annually prepared chart that shows sources of legal services funding in all states.

"States are going to pull out of this, down the road, over the long haul," she said. "The states that have done very well in getting state money for legal services started working on it 20 years ago."

In recent years, the Wisconsin Legislature set aside $100,000 in funding annually for distribution to civil legal services providers serving low-income families across the state through a program called the Wisconsin Family Law Project. But civil legal services advocates in Wisconsin say it now appears that program, which made use of federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds allocated through the state Department of Workforce Development, will not be funded in the new budget.

If it fails to provide any state money, Wisconsin will be in the company of a small minority of states that...