Unique to Minnesota

The reasons are diverse, but the theme is clear: Attorneys support The Fund because they support the concept of Justice for All.

As Board Chair Andrea Kaufman and Board Member John Gordon relate in the audio files to the right, you don’t have to be a Legal Aid attorney to support Legal Aid.

In fact, Minnesota is unique nationwide is its consistent and passionate support for Legal Aid—regardless of economic conditions.

Andrea Kaufman Transcript

My name is Andrea Kaufman, and I’m currently chair of The Fund for the Legal Aid Society. I’ve been involved with The Fund for 17 years. Legal Aid has always been important to me because I feel very strongly about everyone having the ability to have a legal advocate. I also really admire that lawyers have decided to make that their career. I haven’t decided to make it my career, but instead I’ve focused on fundraising to enable the lawyers who have chosen that as their career to do more.

The idea of giving back is very much on lawyers’ minds, and I think they’re very aware of what Legal Aid does. Legal Aid has a very good reputation in this community.

I also volunteer myself, here at the Brian Coyle Legal Center. Every time I go to the clinic, I’m able to help someone just because I understand our system so much better than someone in this position.

In these economic conditions, the demand for Legal Aid services is only going up, and the resources unfortunately do not match the demand—and never will match the demand. We’ve got to do what we can to preserve what we have and not let that deteriorate.

All the other funding sources for Legal Aid are going down, whether it’s the state appropriation, IOLTA interest funds—those are all going down. Grants are going down. But the legal community here in Hennepin County has really mirrored what it’s done in prior years to keep Legal Aid stable, and that’s through the contributions and donations from the private legal community.

We’re very fortunate to have a community where people are very generous, and want to help low-income people and people with disabilities. We’re able to do amazing things in this community because of all the people out there who are contributing to Legal Aid, and we should feel really good about that.

John Gordon Transcript

My name is John Gordon. I’ve been involved with the Fund for the Legal Aid Society since 1985. I got involved in that and the boards of several other law-related organizations, but this was the one I stuck with over the years, and I’ve been on the board ever since.

“Justice for All” means not just that you’re free to walk into the courthouse. You don’t have any meaningful access to it unless you’ve got someone on your side. You can’t really make the system work without a lawyer, and if you haven’t got any money, you haven’t got a lawyer—except for organizations like this.

What we as private practitioners do in terms of pro bono legal services is both rewarding for us and enormously important for the community. But frankly, the people who are at the Legal Aid Society have so much broader and deeper experience with social/medical/educational/family sorts of issues that there would be thousands of people in this community who would just be lost without access to them.

There’s no better way to get as much bang for the buck as you possibly can as there is with a donation to The Fund for the Legal Aid Society. The lawyers are so competent, so dedicated, so devoted to their jobs and their clients. There is no fat. There is no waste. There is no malarky. There is no cushion. You’re buying as much legal services as you possibly can.

I think the One Hour of Sharing makes a lot of sense to people because it’s not uncommon for lawyers to bill 1,600 hours a year, 1,800 hours a year, 2,000 hours a year, sometimes more. It seems to me pretty reasonable to say “well, how about taking one of those hours and offering it to people who really are the most vulnerable and the neediest people in our community?”