Steven Schulman Quoted in Law360 on Administration’s Planned Elimination of Legal Services Corporation
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Akin Gump pro bono partner Steven Schulman has been quoted in the Law360 article “Trump Budget Axes Federal Funding For Legal Services Corp.” regarding President Trump’s proposal to eliminate funding for the Legal Services Corporation (LSC).
The LSC, as the article notes, is the largest source of funding for civil legal services for low-income Americans. The organization’s budget was $385 million in 2016, and it had asked for $502.7 million in federal funding in 2017.
Schulman said full elimination of funding for the LSC would be “catastrophic,” as many people who need lawyers would not be able to find them. He noted, however, that this is just a preliminary budget and that it is ultimately up to Congress to determine the ultimate funding levels.
“We’re a long way from here to there and this is just the opening salvo,” Schulman said. “It is one we are disappointed in, but I don’t want to concede for even a second that this foretells the result.”
Akin Gump was one of more than 150 law firms whose leaders signed a letter last week to the director of the Office of Management and Budget calling for the continued funding of the LSC. To read more about that, please click here.
