"The first duty of society is justice".

• Author: McGrane, Miles
• Position: Florida - President's Page

Those words were penned by Alexander Hamilton, one of our nation's early architects and author of many of the Federalist papers.

Helping to ensure Hamilton's vision that all of our citizens deserve the opportunity to be heard and pursue justice in this great land is the mission of The Florida Bar Foundation, the only statewide organization that provides financial support for legal aid, that promotes improvements in how we address the civil legal needs of the poor and provides project support to help make the court system more responsive to the needs of the people it's pledged to serve. To do that takes time, effort, and--of course--money.

Today, thousands of low-income Floridians are trying to deal with difficult legal problems alone. For them, access to justice often is elusive or, worse, unattainable. But the problems they face are real:

* The disabled veteran who can't buy food if he doesn't get his disability check.

* The elderly widow who is losing her home because she is a victim of mortgage fraud.

* The abused child who deserves a safe and loving place to live.

As lawyers, we know that a helping hand--especially from a lawyer can truly change someone's life. For decades, your Foundation has funded programs across the state to extend that hand by providing the leadership and funding necessary to assist our legal system to work for all Floridians.

But even with more than 90,000 legal problems solved each year by Foundation grantees, three out of four of the most needy Floridians have important legal needs that are going unmet. While the bulk of the Foundation revenue is generated through the IOTA program, the money available to meet these ever-increasing needs is shrinking. Annual IOTA revenue grew from $3.5 million as a voluntary program to $19.4 million in 1990-91, the first full year of the mandatory...