Florida Bar Foundation Suspends Legal Aid Summer Fellowship Program
Another great legal aid program bites the dust.
The Florida Bar Foundation is the only statewide organization in Florida that provides funding for legal aid (and does so without strings) and promotes improvements in addressing the civil legal needs of the poor.
The FBF has already suspended funding for the Florida Law School Civil Clinics and Florida Public Service Fellows programs. Now, the Foundation’s Legal Aid Summer Fellowship program is also being suspended. The good people at the FBF expect that funding for the Summer Fellowship program will be suspended for several years, possibly.
This is a sad day for civil legal aid in Florida. I was a Legal Aid Summer Fellow in 2010 and the amount of legal work fellows accomplish in ten weeks is incredible. In ten weeks, I was able to meet and interview with more than 60 clients, offer advice to almost all of them, and draft over 20 legal documents for pending litigation. And that was just me. The other 39 fellows did the same, if not more, I’m sure.
Let’s do a bit of math, shall we? In theory, the 2010 summer fellows funded by the FBF helped 2,400 clients and wrote 800 legal documents. That’s a big hit for legal aid organizations in Florida.
The benefits that the fellows received from the program are immeasurable. Fellows were able to build relationships with attorneys, save some money (the pay is $5,000 for rising 2Ls and $7,000 for rising 3Ls — paid for my Barbri course!), learn the ropes and do some really satisfying work.
I hope the program comes back sooner than later.
The Foundation’s main source of support comes from the Interest on Trust Accounts (IOTA) Program. However, Foundation grants also are supported by gifts from Florida attorneys, law firms, corporations, foundations and other individuals.
