LSC President
Helaine M. Barnett
Helaine M. Barnett was appointed President of the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) in January 2004. She is the first legal aid attorney to serve as President of LSC and, now in her sixth year, is the longest serving LSC President.
LSC was created by Congress in 1974 as a private, not-for-profit corporation and is totally funded by Congress. LSC's mission is to promote equal access to justice in our nation and to provide high quality civil legal assistance to low-income persons. LSC, with a budget of approximately $390 million for fiscal year 2009, funds 137 civil legal aid programs with more than 918 offices serving every county throughout the United States.
Under Barnett's leadership, LSC has emphasized strategies to enhance the quality of legal services provided by LSC programs. The centerpiece of this effort has been a revision of LSC's Performance Criteria. Other initiatives include instituting a Pilot Loan Repayment Assistance Program, developing a Leadership Mentoring Program, implementing a private attorney involvement action plan and an improved system of data collection and reporting. LSC also issued in 2005 a groundbreaking report, "Documenting the Justice Gap in America," which provided compelling evidence of the current unmet civil legal needs of low-income Americans. The report, which was updated and expanded in 2009, shows that a continuing, major justice gap exists in our nation -- for every person helped by LSC-funded programs, another is turned away because of a lack of program resources.
Before joining LSC, Barnett devoted her entire 37-year professional career to providing legal services to the indigent with The Legal Aid Society of New York City, the oldest and largest legal services organization in the country. For nearly three decades, she was involved in managing the Society's multi-office Civil Division, which she headed from 1994 until the end of 2003. Under her watch, the division earned universal respect for its legal work, innovative projects, adherence to the highest professional and ethical standards, and its disaster response plan to coordinate the delivery of critical legal assistance to New Yorkers in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks.
Barnett has served on several prominent local, state, and national commissions and committees, including serving as the first and only legal services attorney on the ABA Board of Governors and its Executive Committee.
Among the many awards she has received include the ABA Commission on Women's Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award; the New York University School of Law Alumni Association Alumni Achievement Award; the New York State Bar Association's Gold Medal Award for Distinguished Service in the Law, the association's highest honor; the National Association of Women Lawyers Public Service Award; and the ABA Young Lawyers Division Fellows Award for Public Service. She also was invited to give the Sherman J. Bellwood Lecture at the University of Idaho, was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree from Suffolk University, and was the commencement speaker at the New York University School of Law.
Barnett received her bachelor of arts from Barnard College and her law degree from New York University School of Law.
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