Justice system hangs in the balance
Legal Services cuts impact a lifeline for the poor
Today, a sense of profound inequity permeates our most sacred institutions, weaving itself deep into the very core of this democracy.
A belief that our country will defend some but not others; that equal protection is not a promise but a privilege.
For those of us who carry a JD after our name … this is our fight. Because we are pledged to serve a justice system built not just on law but on a promise we make to each other. That we will be treated fairly whether we are weak or strong, good or bad, rich or poor. That our sacred scales cannot be tipped by birth, or luck, or fate, or fortune.
It’s a lesson I learned from my very first law school professor.
And if anyone would like to know what that class was like, please Google, Elizabeth Warren / Wells Fargo CEO.
But if you could survive the mortification of being called on in her class and not having the answer … she would go on to teach you the most precious truth about American justice, one reinforced every day in our courtrooms: Our laws have human consequences.
And with that, comes profound responsibility. “A law is only as powerful as its enforcement,” she used to say.
My teachers taught that being a “nation of laws” is not sufficient.
What makes us who we are is the access we provide to those laws and the force we put behind them.
It’s a lesson that echoed through my experience as a young legal aid attorney in Boston’s housing courts.
The inequities in our criminal side are well-chronicled:
Punitive federal mandatory minimums that have locked up a generation of black and Hispanic men. Relationships between law enforcement and communities of color that are dangerously frayed. Parole and probation policies that actively disenfranchise the already disenfranchised.
But down in Washington, D.C., the civil side gets less attention. Despite the fact that for most Americans, this is where they touch our justice system. And where — from housing to health care to employment and domestic abuse — the consequences shape the rest of their lives.
Our country’s commitment to civil legal aid is bone-thin. Taking inflation into account, the amount of funding provided to the Legal Services Corp. in 2013 was the lowest it has ever been in its nearly 40-year history.
In 2014, Americans spent $15 million more on Halloween costumes for their pets than we as a nation spent on Legal Services basic field grants. Only one-fifth of lowincome Americans can access the legal assistance they qualify for.
President Trump’s budget would eliminate all federal funding for Legal Services. Not reduce it. Not cut it in half. Zero it out.
Because we come from a commonwealth that prides itself on being both compassionate and smart. Merciful and fair. Our leadership — on civil rights, health care, climate change — it is a testament to what happens when you make choices with your heart and your head.
That is the real story of legal aid. It’s not about a handout, or a subsidy, or a liberal pet project.
It’s about a lifeline for working families. An investment we make in people not just because it is the good and decent thing to do, but because they will reinvest that capital back into our society 100 times down the line. In homes kept, families held together, communities strengthened, jobs saved, and lives lifted up.
It is the story of what American justice was built to be. A backstop. A gut check. A guarantor. The enduring firewall our citizens have against a system that can too easily slide toward power and privilege.
Our laws matter only as much as we’re willing to fight for them. They count only as far as the lives they reach.
It is a fragile, imperfect, deeply human system. But it is the best one we’ve got.
And today — right now — we need to be reaching and fighting further and fiercer than we ever have before.
For the student with disabilities denied an equal education.
For the transgender tenant denied housing with a smile.
For the patient battling substance-use disorder denied treatment by their insurer.
For the factory worker denied retirement by a company exporting jobs.
Our laws reflect the promises we make. Our justice system reflects the promises we keep.