Legal Services Corporation Amendments Act

Summary

Legal Services Corporation Amendments Act - Amends the Legal Services Corporation Act to stipulate that, as soon as practicable, at least three of the eleven members of the Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation shall be representatives of groups or organizations of eligible clients, at least one of whom is to be an eligible client. Requires that the board of an organization established for the purpose of providing legal assistance to eligible clients, under the Legal Services Corporation Act, contain a minimum percentage of such representatives. Subjects the Corporation and each State advisory council established under such Act to Government in the Sunshine Act requirements regarding open meeting. Authorizes the Corporation to carry out its research, training, and assistance functions by means of grant of contract. Permits up to ten percent of the funds appropriated to the Corporation to be used for such purpose. Requires a court appointing an attorney employed by an organization receiving assistance under the Legal Services Corporation Act to provide for reasonable compensation for such attorney, unless the appointment is made pursuant to a law or practice applied generally to all lawyers appearing before the court. States that attorneys receiving more than one-half their annual professional income from an organization established for the sole purpose of providing legal assistance under the Legal Services Corporation Act shall be deemed to be State or local employees for purposes of provisions prohibiting certain activities of such employees in connection with partisan politics. Eliminates from the Legal Services Corporation Act prohibitions against such attorneys participating in certain partisan or nonpartisan political activities. Revises the limitations on the use of funds made available by the Corporation to (1) permit the provision of legal assistance with respect to criminal matters where a person is charged with an offense involving hunting, fishing, trapping, or gathering fruit of the land, a defense asserted involvers rights arising from an Indian treaty, or a person is charged with a misdemeanor or lesser offense in an Indian tribal court; and (2) eliminate prohibitions against providing legal assistance to un-emancipated persons less than 18 years of age, to organize or encourage the formation of any organization or coalition, or in connection with a proceeding relative to school desegregation, selective service or military violation, or nontherapeutic abortion. Directs that hearing examiners presiding over hearings relative to suspending or terminating assistance under the Legal Services corporation Act shall perform no other duties in the Corporation.

This text is taken from the official record. PoliticalRepo does not editorialize.

Timeline

No timeline events have been ingested for this record yet.

Votes

No vote records are attached yet.

Versions

No version snapshots stored. Document URLs remain at the source.

Documents

1 official file

• Introduced in House

  summary · EN · 21 February 1977

  Open at official source

Sponsors

No sponsors or actors listed by the source.

Related records

No cross-record relationships stored yet.