Getting Help from Legal Services

photo of hotline attorneys Guidelines
and Procedures
Legal Services’ mission in New Jersey historically has been to achieve its vision of affording the greatest possible degree of access to essential civil legal aid for economically disadvantaged people who cannot secure a lawyer on their own, and through that legal aid to secure for them equal justice, both substantive and procedural. It is clear that the core, root political consensus which supports funding of civil legal assistance to indigents comes from a sense of fair play, and a conviction that somehow society should address important basic legal needs of individuals. Past opinion polls suggest a majority, and fairly deeply held, public accord on this vision.

Consequently, at bottom Legal Services’ core vision and mission cannot deviate significantly from this accord, and the program must continue to maintain principal focus on meeting these basic needs. Any other course will drain majoritarian public support. At the same time, conducting this basic representation in the most effective and efficient way inevitably compels Legal Services to pursue complementary actions, most particularly legal representation which tends to help rebuild impoverished, deteriorated communities, and which addresses in a single forum or legal action recurrent problems which repeat themselves hundreds and thousands of times in cases involving low-income people. Moreover, Legal Services must place special emphasis on representation which actually secures fair outcomes for clients, and which protects and enforces their legal rights. All of these activities – and emphases – are essential if disadvantaged individuals are to believe and participate in our ordered legal processes for resolving disputes.