Former WV Chief Justice Larry Starcher Appeals to Rep. Mollohan to Lift LSC Restrictions
To download the letter, click here.
Former Chief Justice of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, Larry Starcher, sent a letter to Rep. Mollohan (D-WV), Chairman of the House Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science Subcommittee, on September 10, 2009, passionately urging the repeal of the federal legal services restriction on non-LSC funds (the restriction on state, local, private, and other non-LSC funds).
Very familiar with the civil legal aid system, as a legal services lawyer himself in the 1960's and 70's, Chief Justice Starcher notes that the era of "modest restrictions" came to end when the "axe" of the funding restrictions was dropped in 1996. With the restrictions relegating legal aid lawyers to "second class professionals," and with the economy pushing more and more families to the doors of local legal aid offices, the Chief Justice calls for the imminent repeal of the restriction on non-LSC funds:
Now is the time to restore authority to legal services lawyers, now is the time to give them proper tools to work with, and now is the time to increase funding, so that those who will otherwise go without legal representation will have some chance at a more level playing field in our legal system.
