A judge, legal aid director and legal aid client came together to discuss the potential impact of the White House’s proposal to eliminate the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) on a recent episode of LSC’s “Talk Justice” podcast.
LSC President Ron Flagg hosts the conversation with Senior Judge of the District Court of Texas Lora Livingston; Executive Director of Maine’s Pine Tree Legal Assistance (PTLA) Tom Fritzsche; and Athena Gough, a former client of Community Legal Aid in Ohio who now serves on its Board.
At the end of May, the Trump Administration announced its proposed federal budget for 2026, calling for the elimination of LSC.
In light of this, Flagg guided the guests through a conversation about the tangible impacts of defunding civil legal services, explaining how the impact will be felt at every level.
Livingston reflected on what losing LSC would mean for our country and everyday Americans’ access to justice.
“I think it would be a devastating loss to our country and to the people that need legal assistance,” Livingston said. “Federal funding for legal services is an investment in the rule of law. It’s an investment in our constitution.
“It’s an investment to our fidelity, to the rule of law, to our democracy and to our citizens — the day-to-day people who benefit from legal services — they benefit from the promise of justice for all that we’ve made as a society.”
Gough shared her struggles that led her to legal aid. She had a protection order against her then-husband due to domestic violence, which she said he continually violated.
Despite fearing retaliation, she reported the violations to the police, and he was arrested. Gough decided that she would file for divorce in hopes that this would deter him from contacting her again but found out that filing would cost $300 that she did not have. She left the courthouse feeling “discouraged and a little bit scared.”
Then, Gough remembered hearing about Community Legal Aid and found out that she was eligible for legal assistance. Legal Aid took her case, and attorneys guided her through each step of the process from her divorce to renewing her protection order, which Ohio requires survivors of domestic violence to do every five years.
“The divorce process took about 18 months because my ex was a bit difficult to deal with, “ she said, “and [by] myself, I never would’ve been able to afford to keep an attorney on retainer while this process played out.”
Considering that legal aid organizations like the one that helped her are already turning away clients for lack of resources and will have even fewer resources if Congress accepts the Administration’s proposal to eliminate LSC, Gough worries about other clients in need.
“I honestly can’t imagine what I would’ve done if I had called in for assistance and legal aid said, ‘well, normally we would be able to help someone in your position, but due to funding cuts, we can’t,’ and I worry about anybody else that would be calling in now for a situation like mine and that they’re getting turned away because there’s not enough funding to help them,” she said.
In addition to access to justice concerns, Livingston also noted how increasing the number of unrepresented litigants if LSC is eliminated would play out in the courts.
“The difficulty from the court’s perspective in part is that the courts can only go so far to provide information to people —we can’t provide advice to people, and so even though we might be able to understand what someone is trying to accomplish…the court system can’t become advocates,” she said. “So, we simply sit back and often times watch people drown in a sea of legal complexity and we can’t really throw them much of a lifeline. That is not what justice looks like.”
Fritzsche said LSC funding makes up 25% of PTLA’s total budget. Currently, there are 18,000 people in the households that PTLA can serve each year.
Fritzsche said that due to limited resources for legal aid now, his organization already has to turn away many people who “need and deserve legal services.”
“In a scenario with no LSC funding, that means we would turn away at least an additional 4,000-5,000 people who need help, and that means more folks who would face homelessness, who would be unable to escape abusive relationships or dangerous situations, who would be saddled with burdensome and unlawful debt, and who generally would find themselves with nowhere to turn during some of the hardest and worst and scariest days of their lives,” Fritzsche said.
He added that “the ripple effect, in addition to the human impact on our clients whom we couldn’t serve, extends even further beyond that because the Legal Services Corporation’s funding for Pine Tree Legal Assistance for over 50 years now has been an anchor and helped us build stable and effective infrastructure that enables us to make the most efficient and impactful use in direct services to clients of other grant programs, as well.”
LSC President Ron Flagg hosts the conversation with Senior Judge of the District Court of Texas Lora Livingston; Executive Director of Maine’s Pine Tree Legal Assistance (PTLA) Tom Fritzsche; and Athena Gough, a former client of Community Legal Aid in Ohio who now serves on its Board.
At the end of May, the Trump Administration announced its proposed federal budget for 2026, calling for the elimination of LSC.
In light of this, Flagg guided the guests through a conversation about the tangible impacts of defunding civil legal services, explaining how the impact will be felt at every level.
Livingston reflected on what losing LSC would mean for our country and everyday Americans’ access to justice.
“I think it would be a devastating loss to our country and to the people that need legal assistance,” Livingston said. “Federal funding for legal services is an investment in the rule of law. It’s an investment in our constitution.
“It’s an investment to our fidelity, to the rule of law, to our democracy and to our citizens — the day-to-day people who benefit from legal services — they benefit from the promise of justice for all that we’ve made as a society.”
Gough shared her struggles that led her to legal aid. She had a protection order against her then-husband due to domestic violence, which she said he continually violated.
Despite fearing retaliation, she reported the violations to the police, and he was arrested. Gough decided that she would file for divorce in hopes that this would deter him from contacting her again but found out that filing would cost $300 that she did not have. She left the courthouse feeling “discouraged and a little bit scared.”
Then, Gough remembered hearing about Community Legal Aid and found out that she was eligible for legal assistance. Legal Aid took her case, and attorneys guided her through each step of the process from her divorce to renewing her protection order, which Ohio requires survivors of domestic violence to do every five years.
“The divorce process took about 18 months because my ex was a bit difficult to deal with, “ she said, “and [by] myself, I never would’ve been able to afford to keep an attorney on retainer while this process played out.”
Considering that legal aid organizations like the one that helped her are already turning away clients for lack of resources and will have even fewer resources if Congress accepts the Administration’s proposal to eliminate LSC, Gough worries about other clients in need.
“I honestly can’t imagine what I would’ve done if I had called in for assistance and legal aid said, ‘well, normally we would be able to help someone in your position, but due to funding cuts, we can’t,’ and I worry about anybody else that would be calling in now for a situation like mine and that they’re getting turned away because there’s not enough funding to help them,” she said.
In addition to access to justice concerns, Livingston also noted how increasing the number of unrepresented litigants if LSC is eliminated would play out in the courts.
“The difficulty from the court’s perspective in part is that the courts can only go so far to provide information to people —we can’t provide advice to people, and so even though we might be able to understand what someone is trying to accomplish…the court system can’t become advocates,” she said. “So, we simply sit back and often times watch people drown in a sea of legal complexity and we can’t really throw them much of a lifeline. That is not what justice looks like.”
Fritzsche said LSC funding makes up 25% of PTLA’s total budget. Currently, there are 18,000 people in the households that PTLA can serve each year.
Fritzsche said that due to limited resources for legal aid now, his organization already has to turn away many people who “need and deserve legal services.”
“In a scenario with no LSC funding, that means we would turn away at least an additional 4,000-5,000 people who need help, and that means more folks who would face homelessness, who would be unable to escape abusive relationships or dangerous situations, who would be saddled with burdensome and unlawful debt, and who generally would find themselves with nowhere to turn during some of the hardest and worst and scariest days of their lives,” Fritzsche said.
He added that “the ripple effect, in addition to the human impact on our clients whom we couldn’t serve, extends even further beyond that because the Legal Services Corporation’s funding for Pine Tree Legal Assistance for over 50 years now has been an anchor and helped us build stable and effective infrastructure that enables us to make the most efficient and impactful use in direct services to clients of other grant programs, as well.”
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