For Immediate Release
June 6, 2025
Contact: Laura Tuggle, ltuggle@slls.org, 504-529-1000 x 270
White House Budget Proposes Eliminating Critical LSC Funds that Support Southeast Louisiana Legal Services
WASHINGTON, D.C. – President Trump’s budget, released last Friday, proposes the elimination of the Legal Services Corporation (LSC), putting at risk essential legal protections for veterans, seniors and children in Louisiana and across the country. If Congress approves this budget, Southeast Louisiana Legal Services (SLLS) would lose roughly $4.8 million in LSC funding that supports civil legal assistance for low-income people in southeast Louisiana.
SLLS has been providing vital legal services to Louisianans for over 50 years. Currently, approximately 40% of SLLS’ funding comes from LSC. Every year, SLLS assists about 30,000 people who are facing urgent civil legal problems such as foreclosure, domestic violence, fraud, eviction, or predatory and medical debt. Without LSC grant funding, SLLS’ ability to serve our clients and community will be significantly reduced.
“Civil legal aid is an often overlooked but essential solution to helping strengthen communities, improve public safety, stabilize families in crisis, and protect vulnerable populations,” said Tuggle. “The loss of LSC funding would have a devastating impact, jeopardizing critical services that assist veterans, disaster survivors, the elderly, and other hard-working people in securing the legal support necessary to maintain housing, recover from a crisis, increase their income, and navigate complex systems vital to their stability and security.”
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 nationwide. This includes more than a million children, over 200,000 survivors of domestic violence and nearly 45,000 veterans.
SLLS is one of 130 legal aid organizations that relies on LSC funds. In addition to SLLS, there is one other Louisiana organization that receives LSC grants: Acadiana Legal Services Corporation.
LSC-funded legal aid organizations like SLLS do vital work assisting low-income people who are facing urgent civil legal problems that could cause them to lose their home, income, healthcare, custody of their children or an order of protection from an abuser. These 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—like 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.
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 onto these letters include Attorney General Liz Murrill and Louisiana Supreme Court Chief Justice John Weimer.
Learn more about the local impact of defunding LSC here.
About Southeast Louisiana Legal Services
Southeast Louisiana Legal Services (SLLS) fights for fairness in the justice system. We provide free civil legal aid to low-income people across 22 parishes in southeast Louisiana. We have seven offices: Baton Rouge, Covington, Gretna, Hahnville, Hammond, Houma, and New Orleans. Our mission is to achieve justice for low-income people in Louisiana by enforcing and defending their legal rights through free legal representation, advocacy, and community education. For more information about SLLS, visit www.slls.org and follow us on Facebook (@SLLShelps).