8 June 19th - June 25st, 2025 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | NEWS | FEATURE | FOOD & DRINK | ARTS & CULTURE | MUSIC | CONCERTS | CANNABIS | “It’s scary to imagine a world where we don’t have the ability to provide those services,” said Pam Bridge, the director of litigation and advocacy for CLS. That scary world may be around the corner. As he has with so many programs that help people, President Donald Trump aims to end the federal program that funds much of the operation of Arizona’s civil legal aid services. In late May, the Trump administration released its 2026 fiscal year budget proposal, which slashed the federal Legal Services Corporation budget from $560 million to $21 million in order to administer an “orderly close out.” LSC, which is a nonprofit established by Congress in 1974, was also a target of Trump’s in his first term, though he wasn’t able to shutter it then. This time, though, he may succeed. If he does, Arizona will be particularly ill-prepared. LSC allocates roughly $16.5 million to Arizona’s three legal aid groups each year, making up the vast majority of their funding. Losing federal funds could effectively end the services that thousands of residents rely upon every year. Arizona is one of three states that spend no state money on civil legal aid. On average, a state civil legal aid system gets 19% of its funding from the federal government, but in Arizona, that number is 80%. “We are largely dependent, almost entirely dependent, on federal funding to protect Arizonans’ rights,” said Chris Groninger, the chief strategy officer of the Arizona Bar Foundation, which provides a small portion of civil legal aid funding. Lawmakers and civil legal aid groups are now scrambling to avert the crisis that Trump seeks to foist upon them. They are batting around ideas and pushing for money in the state budget. At the center of that effort is an unlikely figure: Ann Scott Timmer, the chief justice of the very conservative Arizona Supreme Court. All hands on deck A week before the Trump administration released its budget proposal, Timmer summoned a collection of stakeholders for an “all-hands-on-deck” meeting. At the meeting were judges, lawyers, lawmakers, legal aid representatives and a staffer for Gov. Katie Hobbs — “the people who can do something about this,” Timmer said. “My goal,” Timmer told Phoenix New Times, “was to put it on their plate.” The Arizona Supreme Court can’t blatantly advocate or lobby for a policy. “We can get people together in a nice room,” Timmer said. “We’ll give you a cheap lunch and there you go.” But her involvement underscored the gravity of the problem. “The fact that this was coming from the Supreme Court absolutely elevated this issue to me,” said Democratic state Sen. Analise Ortiz, who was at the meeting. “It is rare that we see the Supreme Court kind of sounding the alarm on issues like this.” The stakeholders largely agree about the magnitude of the issue. Arizona’s civil legal aid system is already small. Other states fund civil legal aid through a direct state appropriation, a court filing fee or both. Arizona does neither. The $16.5 million the state’s three programs currently receive from LCS accounts for 60-70% of their collective budgets. Another 8-10% comes from other federal programs. The rest comes from the Arizona Bar Foundation and other grants. That money pays for fewer than 80 attorneys who provide civil legal aid to the entire state, Timmer said. More than a million low-income Arizonans are eligible for that aid, but the organizations that provide it can handle only about 9,000 cases a year. “The system doesn’t work perfectly for low-income Arizonans,” said Drew Schaffer, the director of the nonprofit William E. Morris Institute for Justice. “If they can’t afford an attorney, they’re essen- tially relying on civil legal aid to fix those problems when they can’t afford to protect their basic health and safety.” For Community Legal Services, whose flyers can be found in Phoenix court- houses, those legal aid services run the gamut. CLS helps domestic violence victims with protection orders and custody agreements. It helps seniors with their benefits. It aids victims of fraud, Another Trump Cut Trump going after funding to help vulnerable Arizonans afford lawyers. BY MORGAN FISCHER A mother seeking to keep her kids away from her soon- to-be ex-husband, who led police on a high-speed chase with their children in the car. A grandmother who is facing evic- tion after she stopped paying rent because her landlord refused to fix her broken air conditioning. A veteran who was kicked off Medicaid after an online scammer stole his identity. All of these people have one thing in common: They need a lawyer, but they can’t afford one. To navigate Arizona’s complicated legal system — to gain full custody of their kids, to stay in their home, to restore access to their health insurance — they will turn to one of three Arizona nonprofits that provide legal aid. Every year, a small army of attorneys, caseworkers and volunteers helps roughly 24,000 low-income Arizonans steer through a crisis. They provide legal repre- sentation in eviction cases, help domestic violence victims obtain protection orders and assist the victims of countless scams. Basically, when something goes wrong and you don’t have the money for an attorney, Arizona’s civil legal aid system is there to help. That safety net is hardly as robust as it should be. Arizona’s three civil legal aid groups — Community Legal Services, DNA People’s Legal Services and Southern Arizona Legal Aid — can accept only about 50% of the cases they receive. But it catches a lot of people at risk of falling through the cracks. A Community Legal Services flyer on display at Maricopa County’s Arcadia Biltmore Justice Court. (Morgan Fischer) “It’s scary to imagine a world where we don’t have the ability to provide those services,” said Pam Bridge, the director of litigation and advocacy for Community Legal Services. (Morgan Fischer) >> p 10 | NEWS |
