WATCH THE (JUSTICE) GAP!

The Brennan Center Legal Series and its Steering Committee Members

Michael Waldman (Brennan Center for Justice), Jim Johnson (Brennan Center board chair, Debevoise & Plimpton) Michele Balfour, Jeremy Creelan (Jenner & Block), Beth Golden, Professor Helen Hershkoff (NYU School of Law), Daniel Kolb (Davis Polk & Wardwell), Edward Labaton (Labaton Sucharow), Lawrence Pedowitz (Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz), Roy Reardon (Simpson Thacher & Bartlett), Lee Richards (Richards Kibbe & Orbe), Professor Cristina Rodríguez (NYU School of Law), Charles Stillman (Stillman, Friedman & Shechtman), Sung-Hee Suh (Schulte Roth & Zabel), and Neal Wolin (The Hartford Financial Services Group)

 Invite You to a Conversation on

The Justice Gap: Fixing Legal Services for the Poor

with

Michael Waldman - Executive Director, Brennan Center for Justice

David Udell - Justice Program Director, Brennan Center for Justice

Rebekah Diller - Deputy Director, Justice Program, Brennan Center for Justice

Eric Tirschwell - Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel

Craig Siegel - Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel, former Brennan Center counsel

 In 1996, a two-decade long effort to dismantle the nation's modest system for providing representation to the poor in civil matters culminated in the imposition of binding restrictions on legal services lawyers. These restrictions prevent lawyers funded by federal Legal Services Corporation dollars from, among other things, claiming court-ordered attorney's fee awards, participating in class actions, and engaging in legislative advocacy. Furthermore, a poison pill restriction also prevents legal services programs from using their private funds to finance any of the prohibited activities once they accept their first LSC dollar.

Challenges to these restrictions have thus far met partial success, but a devastating gap remains between the legal needs of the poor and the public resources devoted to meeting them. Brennan Center lawyers, in this fight since the beginning, will discuss the crisis in representation of the poor, the present phase of the litigation, and current efforts to obtain corrective legislation in the new Congress and with the Obama transition team.

Please join us! Thursday, December 18, 2008 12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.

Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel

1177 Avenue of the Americas (between 45th & 46th Streets)

New York, NY 10036

RSVP: Kindly respond by December 15, 2008 to max.scales@nyu.edu or by calling 212.992.8643.