Katia Garrett is executive director of the D.C. Bar Foundation, the largest private funder of civil legal services in D.C. The foundation gave out about $5 million in grants last year to help aid groups give free legal representation to the poor. The foundation recently announced that it had teamed up with BB&T bank to create a program that will let Washington-area lawyers donate the interest generated by their clients’ escrow accounts to legal aid agencies. It’s the sixth such bank partnership for the foundation.
How is the program with BB&T going to help?
These funds are one of the primary sources of funds for legal aid groups. When I started here it was $600,00 per year. Last year, we got $2.4 million.
Is there a crisis in legal services right now? Why?
Yes. Studies show that between 85 percent and 95 percent of the legal needs of the poor are unmet. That means that poor people in the District need lawyers to keep their home, to get the right services, to get their kids back. Without a lawyer, they may be hamstrung. This is a city with about 10 lawyers for every person. But the poor aren’t getting service.
What difference does it make if people can’t get lawyers?
Take a person that may be fired from his job because he’s sick and doesn’t have any health insurance. He loses his apartment and they’re living on the street. What does that do to the kids, what does that do the family, what does it do to our already overburdened social services system?
With a timely intervention by a lawyer, that might not have happened.
Has the legal profession done enough to address the disparities?
This city has a long tradition of doing pro bono work for people in need. We have one of the most active bars in the country. But the need is significant. And some of the work just has to be done by full-time lawyers who are out there in the streets every day.
