Official proceedings of the annual meeting: 1923

THE LEGAL POINT OF VIEW-BRADWAY

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interviewing desk. He listens to the story and gives advice, or writes a letter, or turns
the case over to the court attorney if the circumstances justify such action. He may
assign an investigator to look into the case and report back to him. Cases are kept up
to date by a special follow-up system which brings out all cards for attention at least
once a week. The place is a law office except that more cases are handled there than in
any other law office in Pennsylvania, and no bills are sent out.
This picture has been in the minds of the organized bar of this country. The
organized bar, which is our other foster parent, is likewise making a rapid advance in
giving adequate assistance to these law offices for the poor man. A number of local
bar associations personally supervise the action of the local legal-aid organizations,
witness Philadelphia, Detroit, and Columbus. In Connecticut a state-wide act provides legal aid in criminal cases for the poor man. In Illinois the state bar association
has arranged to supply legal aid throughout the state. And the American Bar Association, at its meeting last summer, unanimously adopted the report of a committee of
which Reginald Heber Smith, author of Justice and the Poor, was a member, recommending that every local bar association establish a legal-aid committee to care
actively for legal-aid clients in the smaller cities, and in the larger cities to establish
and supervise the actual organizations.
Social workers feel that a legal-aid office should be more than a mere law office.
The time has come for you social workers as well as the bar to show your interest by
determining the real position which legal aid occupies. The organized bar is not at all
sure that legal-aid work is more than mere law work. The bar is awake to the situation
and is promoting the law office. Legal-aid workers themselves, in between the bar
and social workers, are trying honestly to work out their position. Miss Waldo, as
chairman of the committee of the National Alliance of Legal Aid Societies, or the relation between legal aid and social work, has prepared a most remarkable report on this
subject, copies of which are available for distribution. Further study of the problem
is necessary for us. A wrong decision at this time may forever wreck our chance of
usefulness.
I have spoken of establishing an organization in some cities and a committee in
others to do legal-aid work. Of what size must a city be to justify an actual legal-aid
organization? Statistics show that a well-managed legal-aid organization will care
for about one person in every hundred of population. In the smaller cities this group
of people can be cared for by the local bar-association committee. In cities of 5o,ooo
and over there should be an actual organization. Pittsfield, Massachusetts, with a
population of 41,000ooo, has an active organization caring for about 400 persons a year
who need legal aid. In about sixty cities of the United States of this size there are
organizations. In eighty-four cities of similar size there is apparently no trace of legalaid work. Here indeed is a field of activity for socially minded persons.
Let us look at the matter from another point of view. Of the 1io,ooo,ooo people
in the United States, a recent survey has disclosed approximately 8,ooo,ooo who, in
their family groups, receive an income of $800 per year and no more. These persons
cannot ever possibly afford to pay a lawyer for legal services. And yet they are just
as much in need of justice as their richer brethren. Their problems are just as troublesome, their burdens just as heavy to bear as the problems and burdens of any other
class in the community. On the basis of one legal-aid client to every 100 population
of our great urban communities, it is not unreasonable to assume the existence each