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Bar News - March 21, 2003 Year One: Bar Foundation's Campaign for Legal Services a Success By: W. John Funk & Emily Gray Rice $450,000 pledged to date THE FIRST YEAR of the Bar Foundation’s three-year Campaign for Legal Services will be wrapping up at the end of May. Campaign volunteers are busy making sure that nearly every Bar member has had an opportunity to give in this first year. In the next two months, volunteers will be talking with your firms, writing you letters or reaching out to your organizations to ask you to support the campaign. Please respond quickly, and generously, to be counted as a "first year" leader of this campaign. The goal of the Campaign for Legal Services is to raise a minimum of $750,000 over three years to support basic operating needs of New Hampshire’s primary legal services organizations – New Hampshire Legal Assistance, The Bar Association’s Pro Bono Referral Program, and the Legal Advice and Referral Program. Since this ambitious goal was established, our economy has slowed and these organizations have experienced increasing demand for services coupled with further cuts in federal funding. This means that we are working with an increasing sense of urgency to not only meet but exceed our goal of $750,000 in order to make a significant difference in the operations of the organizations. To date, the campaign has raised over $450,000 in pledges through 2005 from leading law firms and individual members of the private Bar. We are asking you to make a contribution because we strongly believe in the obligation of every member of the legal community to help make sure that courthouse doors remain open to all of our citizens. We believe that such access is central to the choice that we have all made to become lawyers. If we who practice law do not support this Campaign for Legal Services, how can we ask others outside the system to do so? Everyone has a stake in a strong and accessible justice system, and it is our goal to move outside the legal community for support from corporations, foundations and members of the public in years two and three of the campaign. But we will not be successful in broadening our appeal unless we can demonstrate that members of the legal community who are closest to the legal problems of low-income and disadvantaged people want to be part of the solution. Attorneys and staff who work for legal assistance organizations do so at tremendous personal cost. They work long hours for little pay, are under constant threat of funding loss and restructuring, and some are limited in what they can do by Congress. Some of them have developed such expertise in areas of the law such as housing, domestic violence, elder law, etc. that the entire Bar relies upon them for their wisdom and skill. Please support your legal aid colleagues so that they can continue to do the fine work that they do on behalf of low-income and disadvantaged people. A hearty thank you to those firms and individuals who have already made generous, sacrificial gifts to the campaign. We know that many law firms and lawyers are feeling the impact of the difficult economy right now, but we also know that the economy is having a devastating effect on the poor, who have few resources to fall back on. Thank you for your help. We welcome your questions and feedback as we move towards completion of the first year of the campaign.
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