Trump Plan to Ax Legal Aid a Conservative Aim Targeting Poor (1)

President Donald Trump’s proposed elimination of the Legal Services Corporation, a longtime conservative goal, threatens representation of 6.4 million low-income people, supporters of the legal aid services funder said.

The 2026 budget appendix requests $21 million for an “orderly closeout” of the LSC, which was established in 1974 to provide financial support for legal aid to low-income people in the US. The independent agency, which provides funding to 130 non-profit legal aid programs, had requested $2.1 billion for fiscal 2026.

With legal aid providers already turning down half of people seeking services ranging from disaster relief to eviction prevention and benefit assistance due to budget limitations, the prospect of the funding cut “is deeply concerning,” LSC President Ron Flagg told Bloomberg Law.

“What’s being proposed is devastation, and I don’t think people truly know how devastating this would be,” said April Frazier Camara, president of the National Legal Aid and Defenders Association. That organization serves as the voice of LSC-funded programs, and focuses on educating Congress on the need to fund the LSC.

Frazier Camara said they will fight for legal aid “until the very end,” calling this the “battle of her lifetime.”

The potential impact would be greatest in rural communities, most notably in the South, Flagg said.

In Louisiana for instance, there’s one legal aid attorney for every 11,250 people eligible for such services, according to the Louisiana Bar Association. Southeast Louisiana Legal Services, which receives about 40% of its funding from the LSC, serves about 50% of people below the poverty line in the state, Executive Director Laura Tuggle said.

Clients rely on legal aid providers to help with the long-term recovery from Hurricane Ida, which struck in 2021, or how to sort out property after a family member dies. These cases can cost about $2,500, and the absence of legal help “can be a real abandonment of a community,” Tuggle said.

Tuggle said eliminating the LSC would result in “catastrophic impacts” for their clients and that staff would be cut off due to a “dramatic reduction in services.”

Similarly, Legal Aid of North Carolina Executive Director Ashley Campbell said eliminating the LSC would put 50% of its funding at risk at a time when clients are recovering from Hurricane Helene, which struck in 2024.

The organization, which closed 27,000 cases last year, would have to slash how many people it serves in roughly half, Campbell said.

Even larger legal aid providers, who receive less funding from the LSC, would also be heavily affected. Legal Services NYC, the largest provider in the US, serves as many as 120,000 people per year, Executive Director Shervon Small said.

In the face of these cuts, LSNYC has enacted a hiring freeze to protect its current staff and clients, but Small said he is hopeful that bipartisan support will continue for the LSC.

Republicans have long tried to eliminate the organization, which the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank, accused of “promoting illegal immigration, helping to destroy public housing, helping criminals, and undermining families” in a 1995 report.

Trump already attempted to eliminate the LSC during his first term. His 2018 budget proposal called for the end of “the one-size-fits-all model of providing legal services through a single Federal grant program” to give more control to state and local governments. Former President Ronald Reagan had also unsuccessfully attempted to abolish the program in 1981.

Legal aid organization leaders said they are hopeful Congress will continue funding the LSC.

“The House and the Senate have consistently acknowledged that civil legal aid is not a partisan issue, it’s about fairness and an effectively-functioning justice system,” Flagg said. “When legal aid is present, justice is faster, fairer, and more consistent.”