Legal Aid history

In addition to small donations from individuals, the Society was supported by a 10 percent commission it charged on collecting money for clients, a practice begun in 1879.

Around 1885, a "New York Legal Aid Society" began advertising its "free" services in the city's German newspapers.

America's second legal aid society was established in Chicago in 1888 as the Ethical Culture Society, the first to offer legal assistance regardless of nationality, race, or sex.

In 1889, Salomon was succeeded by patent attorney Arthur von Briesen, who during the first year of his presidency oversaw a change in the Society's constitution that eliminated the restriction of clients to those of German heritage.

In 1900, a Seaman's Branch was opened, which became instrumental in the elimination of the lucrative practice of shanghaiing sailors.

The National Legal Aid and Defender Association (NLADA), organized in 1911 as the National Alliance of Legal Aid Societies, served as a catalyst for the emerging development of the American civil legal aid system.

His connection to the Society was instrumental in raising the profile of the organization, which led to significant growth during the 1920s.

Because the Society could only help the indigent, in 1948 it established Legal Referral Services, which connected clients with a marginal ability to pay, or those with unusual cases, to a list of volunteer lawyers who had been recruited by the bar association.

Because contributions from both lawyers and the general public increased significantly after the war, by 1950 the Society was able to start reopening the branch offices closed during the Depression.

The government’s quest to provide civil legal assistance to low-income Americans took shape during President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “war on poverty” and the creation in 1964 of the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) as an executive agency.

The federal Legal Services Program began in the Office of Economic Opportunity in 1965.

To supplement the Society's staff of lawyers, a formal internship program was established in 1967.

Henry Freedman on Please help the NEJL with photo identification from 1968 Conference on Welfare Law in NYC, part 1

President Nixon, who took office in January 1969, sent a special message to Congress in February, saying that “the blight of poverty requires priority attention” and asking Congress to extend appropriations for OEO.

The president made the memo public in February 1971 and in May sent a special message to Congress proposing establishment of the Legal Services Corporation.

The legislative effort to establish LSC was pursued again in 1972 but was dropped because an agreement could not be reached between Congressional supporters and the President over the selection of the Board.

Earl F. Landgrebe wrote in the June 1973 “minority views” section of the House report on the LSC legislation.

President Nixon signed the LSC Act on July 25, 1974.

In 1975, Archibald Murray became attorney in chief and executive director of the Society, a post he held for 20 years.

In 1978, the Volunteer Division was created to facilitate a partnership with members of the private bar.

Later, pursuant to the findings of the Delivery System Study completed in 1980, LSC encouraged the development of pro bono programs and subsequently required programs to use 12.5% of the funding for private attorney involvement, most of which went to increase pro bono efforts.

In October 1994, 919 staff attorneys, whose annual average salary was $45,000, went on strike against the Society, seeking a 4.5 percent raise in salary as well as parity in caseload with the district attorney's office.

Despite the cuts in city funding, however, the Society established a Capital Division in 1995 in order to address cases affected by the state's new death penalty law.

In 1998, in response to New York State’s adoption of a mandatory continuing legal education requirement for attorneys, our Legal Support Unit became a state-accredited provider of Certified Legal Education (CLE) and now provides CLE training to over 2,500 individuals each year.

In September 2001, Mayor Giuliani, who was set to leave office at the end of the year because of term limits, prepared a parting shot in his feud with the Society.

Budget cuts and an increased caseload began to take its toll on the organization, so that by the time Michael Bloomberg took office as New York's new mayor in 2002, the future of the Society was very much uncertain.

The LSC Board of Directors marked the 35th anniversary of the law’s enactment on July 24, 2009, at an observance at the Brown v.