FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 17, 2025
For more information, contact:
Sachida R. Raman
Acadiana Legal Service Corporation
(866) 275-2572 x1103
Washington, D.C. – President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law on July 4, 2025. The Administration’s budget, previously released on May 30, 2025, proposed eliminating the Legal Services Corporation (LSC), which would put at risk essential legal protections for veterans, seniors, and children in Louisiana. While the appropriation and markup process are currently underway in Congress, Acadiana Legal Service Corporation (ALSC) would lose an estimated $5.2 million in LSC funding that annually supports civil legal assistance for low-income people in north, central, and southwest Louisiana.
ALSC has been providing vital legal services to Louisianians for over 45 years. Currently, approximately 46% of ALSC’s funding comes from LSC. Every year, ALSC serves over 10,000 people in households, and its service area covers 42 of the 64 parishes in Louisiana. Most of these are rural parishes. Services are provided to hardworking Americans, veterans, children in need of care, families, and seniors in households who face urgent civil legal problems such as foreclosure, domestic violence, eviction, income maintenance, or consumer-related debt. Without the LSC grant funding, ALSC’s ability to serve its clients and rural communities will be significantly reduced.
“Civil legal aid promotes equal access to justice. It ensures that low-income Americans receive high-quality legal assistance, helping them overcome legal challenges that threaten their homes, families, jobs, and financial security. This loss of funding would be devastating,” said Mr. Raman. Additionally, “there are adequate federal regulations that require that extended legal services only be provided to citizens or eligible aliens and victims of domestic violence, provided they have supporting documentation. Enabling Louisianians to be able to get back into the workforce and to be productive and responsible members of their local communities, bodes well for our great State,” Mr. Raman concluded.
LSC is the nation’s single largest funder of civil legal aid. Each year, LSC funding supports legal services for more than five million low-income Americans. This includes more than a million children, over 200,000 survivors of domestic violence, and nearly 45,000 veterans.
ALSC is one of 130 legal aid organizations that rely on LSC funds. In addition to ALSC, there is one other Louisiana organization that receives LSC grants: Southeast Louisiana Legal Services. LSC-funded legal aid organizations like ALSC do vital work assisting low-income people who are facing urgent civil legal problems that could cause them to lose their homes, income, healthcare, custody of their children, or an order of protection from an abuser. Legal services organizations are a lifeline for working families, senior citizens, veterans, people with disabilities, and those recovering from natural disasters.
“The breadth and depth of the damage that eliminating LSC will inflict on the 130 incredible legal aid organizations that LSC funds, and the repercussions for the low-income communities that those programs serve, is difficult to capture and horrific to imagine,” said LSC President Ron Flagg.
“Because our justice system was built for lawyers, it is too often true that there is no hope of accessing justice when legal problems arise for the 52 million Americans who qualify for LSC-funded services and have no means to afford an attorney,” Flagg continued.
Individuals who have a household income at or below 125% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines are eligible for LSC-funded legal assistance. About 20% of Louisianans currently qualify for civil legal services. A Louisiana State Bar Association study recently found that there is only 1 civil legal aid attorney here for every 11,250 people.
According to a recent LSC analysis, civil legal aid yields an average return of $7 for every $1 invested. The demonstrated benefits include cost savings— which include reduced spending on shelters, emergency healthcare, and law enforcement—as well as improved family stability and increased participation in local economies. In Louisiana, civil legal aid has been shown to create a $13.28 social return on investment. Read report here.
In FY 2025, LSC received a Congressional appropriation of $560 million through the Continuing Resolution signed by President Trump. This was flat funding based on the FY 2024 appropriation for the federal government.
Recent letters from external stakeholders have called for Congress to provide robust funding for LSC in FY 2026. These include a letter from leaders of 160 U.S. law firms with offices across all 50 states, a letter from 40 bipartisan state attorneys general, and a letter from 37 bipartisan chief justices of state supreme courts. Supporters from Louisiana who signed these letters include Attorney General Liz Murrill and Louisiana Supreme Court Chief Justice John Weimer. See NAAG press release and Bloomberg article on State Chief Justices
### Acadiana Legal Service Corporation (ALSC) is a private, non-profit law firm, providing free legal assistance in civil cases and community education to the low-income communities throughout 42 parishes in south, central, and north Louisiana.