Abstract

A labor union employs a lawyer to handle the workmen's compensation claims of its members. An association of motel owners retains a lawyer to give advice and other services to its members on legal problems peculiar to motel ownership and operation. An employer provides the services of a lawyer to employees threatened with wage garnishment. A group of property owners whose interests are harmed by the construction of a public facility near their several properties join together to hire a lawyer to handle all of their individual claims. A nonprofit motor club, as a benefit of membership, provides a lawyer to represent individual members in traffic cases. A civil rights organization furnishes lawyers to individuals in cases involving racial discrimination.

These and similar activities, usually denominated "group legal services," have been the subject of a long and sometimes bitter controversy The latest chapter in this controversy was written by the American Bar Association's Special Committee on Availability of Legal Services in a recent report to the ABA House of Delegates. This report, one of the most provocative ever to be made by an ABA committee, recommends that the ABA acknowledge group legal service programs as acceptable methods of making lawyers' services more readily available to the public, provided that such programs comply with certain minimal safeguards.

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