e-Newsletter: May Edition
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Featured Article
MSBA Legal Assistance to the Disadvantaged Committee announces the Minnesota Client Access, Barriers and Solutions Study
Work has begun on the Minnesota Client Access, Barriers and Solutions Study ("MN-CABS Study"), a project of the MSBA LAD committee, in partnership with the Minnesota Legal Services Coalition, the Otto Bremer Foundation, the Minnesota State Bar Foundation, and the Legal Services Advisory Committee. The MN-CABS Study will identify specific groups of legal services-eligible clients around Minnesota, the barriers they face to obtaining legal services, and strategies for overcoming those barriers.
This study is the first of its kind in Minnesota. Its innovative methodology - using direct surveys and focus groups of eligible clients, much of it conducted by staff from legal services and pro bono programs that has been trained by University of Minnesota researchers - provides a model of client-centered analysis that goes well beyond generic needs assessments. The study promises to provide concrete information about client needs that can inform program development and resource allocation decisions.
New Resources
- Sample Forms: Third Party Custody: Family Law
- CLE: Criminal Expungement Basics with Automated Tools: Civil Law
- CLE: Health Care Updates for Single and Childless Adults: Civil Law
- CLE: Fair Housing Implications: Civil Law
- Memo: The Unconscionable Mortgage Loan: Civil Law
- Automated Form Interview: Name Change: Civil Law
Additional Resources You May Have Forgotten About...
- Divorce Client Interview Form: Family Law
- Utility Consumer Protections - Governing Statutes and Rules: Civil Law
- Power Persuasion: Using Visual Tools to Convince Judges and Jurors: Civil Law
- CLE Credit for Pro Bono: Civil Law
Pro Bono News
- Minnesota Supreme Court upends Pawlenty budget cuts: Pioneer Press
Justices rule governor went too far when he reduced spending on his own
The Minnesota Supreme Court poked a small hole in the state's budget Wednesday, ruling that Gov. Tim Pawlenty overstepped his authority by unilaterally cutting a small dietary program for the poor.
- 2009 Poverty Guidelines Extended Again - to at least May 31, 2010: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Congress has taken action to keep the 2009 poverty guidelines in effect until at least May 31, 2010. Congressional actions on this matter have been in response to a decrease in the annual average Consumer Price Index (CPI-U) for 2009, projected during 2009 and announced on January 15, 2010 (see http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/cpi_01152010.pdf, Table 1A). In the absence of legislative change, this decrease--the first since the poverty guidelines began to be issued in 1965--would have required HHS to issue 2010 poverty guidelines that were lower than the 2009 poverty guidelines; that would have led to the "reduction in eligibility" referred to in the Congressional explanatory language quoted below. Congress took several actions on this matter:
- The new legal aid: Do it yourself: StarTribune
In bad economic times, public law libraries boom with visitors needing legal advice. Do-it-yourself legal work has become the way, from bankruptcy filings to fighting an eviction.
Edward McComb wandered into the Anoka County law library, his initial step in trying to gain child visitation rights. He was greeted by longtime library director Gene Myers, who knows how to make the burdensome legal task feel like an information-filled walk in the park.
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