Florida Legal Services, Inc. (FLS) will provide,
and serve as a leader in the state to encourage others to provide, high quality legal
services to low-income persons. FLS will also give support and assistance to all providers
of legal assistance to low-income persons ("legal providers") throughout the
state. FLS, when serving the interests of low-income persons and legal providers, may,
within available resources, provide advocacy and support services outside the state of
Florida when such advocacy and support services have a clear nexus to the legal needs of
low-income residents of Florida.
In carrying out its mission, FLS engages in the
following activities:
1. LEGISLATIVE AND ADMINISTRATIVE ADVOCACY - Provides
legislative and administrative advocacy on priority issues impacting the low-income
residents of Florida;
2. LITIGATION - Provide representation to low-income
clients in court and administrative proceedings on matters that have a significant impact
on the well- being of the clients and other low-income residents of Florida;
3. TRAINING - Provides substantive law and skills
training for the staff of legal providers, low-income residents of Florida, pro bono
attorneys and other organizations and persons advocating for low- income persons.
4. ADVOCACY SUPPORT - Provides field support to legal
providers and the low- income community through such activities as sponsoring substantive
law workgroups, serving as a substantive law and technical information clearinghouses and
providing advocacy support and co-counseling; and
5. PROGRAM AND DELIVERY SYSTEM IMPROVEMENT - Provides
assistance to legal providers in efforts to preserve existing funding, develop new
funding, improve efficiency and effectiveness, work cooperatively as a delivery system and
establish and maintain strong relationships with the Florida Bar Foundation, The Florida
Bar and state, regional and national organizations that support equal access to justice.
History of Florida Legal Services
Inc.
FLS was formed in 1972 by The Florida Bar to primarily act as a statewide focal point to
expand the availability of legal assistance to the poor in Florida. As FLS's state support
role developed, it focused on legislative and administrative advocacy, training, support
and coordination of legal services/legal aid substantive workgroups, and funding
development and preservation. These functions were carried out by a small, but very
experienced, staff in Tallahassee, Florida. FLS also supported the activities of the
Florida Clients Council, an organization of low income residents who were members of local
program boards of directors, that focused on community legal education and policy advocacy
on behalf of the poor in Florida.
The FLS Board of Directors is
composed of thirteen (13) lawyers appointed by The Florida Bar and the Florida Project
Directors Association, five (5) client eligible members appointed by the Florida Clients
Council, the Farmworker Association of Florida and the Florida Project Directors
Association and three (3) organization representative members appointed by the NAACP,
Florida IMPACT and the Florida State Long-Term Care Ombudsman Council.
Until 1996, FLS received the federal Legal Services
Corporation (LSC) state support funds through subgrants with six (6) LSC funded programs.
1996 brought dramatic changes to FLS. While all federal funding was terminated, Florida
Bar Foundation funding brought unprecedented expansion of FLS as it became the lead
organization, free from LSC restrictions, in preserving full advocacy for the poor in the
entire state of Florida. The new responsibilities are tremendous. There are over 2.3
million residents living in Florida below the poverty level. The poor population in
Florida has great ethnic and racial diversity and a large number of those living in
poverty are non-citizens. Welfare, health care and Immigration "reform" have
uprooted and changed the programs, laws and regulations, developed over the last 60 years,
that are at the core of the poor's survival.
In response, the FLS staff size has more than doubled
to a total of thirty-four (34) with twenty-one (21) lawyers located in offices in Tallahassee, Miami, Belle
Glade and Jacksonville, Florida. In addition to the state
support functions, with a new emphasis on funding preservation and enhancement, FLS now
also provides advocacy through:
a) The Children's Legal Services Project, a
special advocacy project on behalf of children coordinated by FLS with a focus on special
education and health care access;
b) Team Child, a collaborative advocacy project
between legal services offices and public defender offices to more fully respond to the
legal needs of children and families involved in the juvenile justice system;
c) The Migrant Farmworker
Justice Project, a special project representing migrant farmworkers in significant
class actions and impact cases and on legislative and administrative issues at the local,
state and national level;
d)The Policy Advocacy
Enhancement Project, a special project that focuses on policy advocacy and
impact litigation on health care and welfare reform issues;
e)The Affordable Housing Project, a special
project via a subgrant with a public interest planning and development organization,
1000 Friends of Florida, to do policy advocacy and & provide technical
assistance to help community-based groups and advocates in the development of affordable
housing;
f)Florida Supreme Court Voluntary Pro Bono Attorney Plan, a project through which FLS works to expand pro bono legal
assistance in the state and directs the implementation of the unique Florida
statewide comprehensive pro bono plan which includes specific aspirational goals of
volunteer service and mandatory reporting of pro bono service by members of The
Florida bar;
g)Domestic Violence Hot Line Project, began in
November, 1997, a project in which FLS operates a statewide hotline to respond to legal
questions from victims of domestic violence and refer victims to available legal services
where appropriate; and
h)Environmental Justice Project, a project
through which FLS, via a subgrant with the Legal Environmental Assistance
Foundation, Inc. (LEAF), provides legal and technical assistance to local legal services
/legal aid programs in representing low income communities dealing with hazardous wastes
and health pollution problems in their communities.
FLS continues to be challenged to be a leadership
program in Florida for the preservation and improvement of the delivery of legal
assistance to the poor system. FLS is also, because of restrictions and limitations placed
on many local programs, being called on to establish direct client community links for
impact litigation and policy advocacy. In many ways FLS is a unique program that is being
looked on as a model for other states as they struggle to develop a response to the many
changes impacting the poor and legal services.