The New Serfs

In 1970 Stephen Elias was a lawyer with a brand-new JD degree and a commitment to serving the poor; he went into legal services. For almost a decade, Elias worked in various legal-aid programs funded by the Legal Services Corporation. He challenged laws restricting welfare eligibility, he organized class-action lawsuits, he did everything but what he had set out to do: help poor clients. “Looking back on it, I don’t know what good we did,” says Elias, who now writes self-help law manuals geared to the poor’s legal needs. “Programs that were trying to deliver services were basically looked down upon. You were considered a much better agency if you concentrated on trying to change the system. In the end we shifted money around. What did it do for people? I don’t know.” Elias’s dedication to helping indigent clients remains. What has changed is his ideas on the way to go about it. And therein lies a tale.

The Legal Services Corporation, an independent corporation created and funded by the Federal Government, has been the bane of conservatives since it emerged in the Seventies as the Left’s secret weapon: a $300-million cornucopia for rebel lawyers with a cause. In the guise of helping the poor, taxpayers’ money goes to radical legal think-tanks, strategy sessions, and class-action lawsuits that have sought, in many cases successfully, to expand the welfare state and undermine bourgeois social values (see box, next page). Meanwhile thousands of poor people with ordinary legal difficulties cannot obtain a lawyer.

About the Author

Maggie Gallagher

Maggie Gallagher is the author of four books on marriage and is a longtime contributor to National Review.

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In 1970 Stephen Elias was a lawyer with a brand-new JD degree and a commitment to serving the poor; he went into legal services. For almost a decade, Elias worked in various legal-aid programs funded by the Legal Services Corporation. He challenged laws restricting welfare eligibility, he organized class-action lawsuits, he did everything but what he had set out to do: help poor clients. “Looking back on it, I don’t know what good we did,” says Elias, who now writes self-help law manuals geared to the poor’s legal needs. “Programs that were trying to deliver services were basically looked down upon. You were considered a much better agency if you concentrated on trying to change the system. In the end we shifted money around. What did it do for people? I don’t know.” Elias’s dedication to helping indigent clients remains. What has changed is his ideas on the way to go about it. And therein lies a tale.

The Legal Services Corporation, an independent corporation created and funded by the Federal Government, has been the bane of conservatives since it emerged in the Seventies as the Left’s secret weapon: a $300-million cornucopia for rebel lawyers with a cause. In the guise of helping the poor, taxpayers’ money goes to radical legal think-tanks, strategy sessions, and class-action lawsuits that have sought, in many cases successfully, to expand the welfare state and undermine bourgeois social values (see box, next page). Meanwhile thousands of poor people with ordinary legal difficulties cannot obtain a lawyer.