Judicial Budget Cuts and the Need for Legal Advocacy

By Matthew Feinberg

As global economies continue to suffer from the financial meltdown, our local municipalities have been forced to make tough budget cuts. The economic downturn hurts everyone and can erode substantive due process safeguards. The cuts in local budgets are forcing jurisdictions to significantly decrease budget allocations for their judiciary and court-related services. Eventually, these cuts will adversely affect the general public as jobs will be unavailable, people will be unable to seek relief from the courts, and the constitutional rights of the public stand to suffer, especially for those with limited financial resources. The demand for organizations that further such public interest, like the National Lawyers Guild, will sharply rise.

Judicial budget cuts are occurring all over our country. The New York Office of Court Administration plans to cut approximately $170 million, which would be a reduction of approximately 6.3 percent of the State Court’s current budget. New York has tried to avoid layoffs and has ordered the Courts to terminate proceedings at 4:30 p.m. in an attempt to save jobs by cutting excessive overtime expenses. Time restrictions aside, heavy job loss is expected in the New York State Court system and litigants, lawyers, and support staff will all suffer the loss.

Similarly, Florida is facing a crisis and the judicial branch was forced to take an odd course of action when the Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice sought financing to fill the gap. According to the Florida Supreme Courts Information Office, the Florida Governor and the Chief Justice reached an agreement to provide the judicial branch with a loan that will fill a budget gap that otherwise would have required furloughs and curtailing court services through the end of May. The remaining June shortfall is covered by an additional stipend that was not part of the Chief Justice’s original request. One would think that this incredible scenario could never happen in our country, yet economic depression nearly caused Florida to close their courts.

The Massachusetts Judiciary has also been negatively affected by the economic downturn. In a statement from the Chief Justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and the Massachusetts Superior Court, a Massachusetts House SubCommittee “recommended $25.4 million in additional cuts to the Trial Court budget. That budget, which was issued in April, recommends Trial Court funding of $518.7 million, significantly below last fiscal year’s appropriation of $544.1 million… A reduction of more than $25 million requires greater management flexibility than ever. The Massachusetts Judiciary has already cut jobs, and the Chief Justices responded to the budget cut stating that the outlook is poor “[w]ith 1,007 fewer employees than in July 2008, we know that our dedicated court staff is stretched beyond capacity in many locations. Already, 76 of 116 court divisions are staffed below 85 percent of the staffing level prescribed by the staffing model and 28 divisions are below 70 percent. As a result of staff shortages, our backlog of cases pending beyond time standards has climbed by 23,000 over the past three years.”

Despite the constitutional disasters on the horizon, hope lies within legal education and public advocacy. Jobs in the legal field are scarce, yet the volumes of court cases show no indication of slowing. Even with a conservative assumption that the rate of court business remains constant, the current budget numbers indicate a future backlog of justice. When people are denied justice they will need law students, lawyers, and the NLG to help inform them of their rights. If people cannot get their day in court because of a fiscal crisis, the public will need to become more aware of their rights, and then they can avoid the need to seek judicial intervention. If law students, working with the NLG, can educate the public about their rights, it will help society access information that the courts are too busy to provide.

Fortunately, the newly formed University of Massachusetts School of Law- Dartmouth was founded on the principles of public interest law. As the first public law school in Massachusetts, it offers students a high quality legal education for far less tuition than that of private law schools in the Commonwealth. In conjunction with the NLG and other local law schools, UMASS Law will help ease the ramifications of budget cuts by informing the public about their rights. UMASS Law is proud to establish an NLG chapter and looks forward to working with other educational institutions to serve society.

Matthew Feinberg, JD Candidate 2012, is a student at the University of Massachusetts School of Law from which he was awarded an honorary public interest law stipend.”