ALSC is important, needs its funding

Janell Hafner's "My Turn" article in Sunday's Empire, criticizing Gov. Frank Murkowski's veto of the legislature's appropriation to the Alaska Legal Services Corp., is excellent. Her analysis of its effect on "the little guy" is right on the mark. We have to hope that the governor's veto will be overridden.

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ALSC has been helping low-income Alaskans since 1967. Organized under Alaska law, it is part of a nationwide program that provides free civil-law assistance - legal advice as well as representation in court. It helps assure that people without much money can have their rights and interests protected, whether in matters of domestic violence, housing, subsistence, improper governmental action, and a range of other issues. It helps protect basic human dignity and traditional American values. Clearly, this activity is to the benefit of all Alaskans.

Attorneys in Alaska - those in private as well as those in public practice - support one of the best pro bono publico programs in the country by donating their time and effort to cases for which the litigants cannot afford to pay. Alaska Legal Services , as an organization, along with a couple of other organizations, serves as a structural foundation for this kind of work, and it needs to pay its employees - the lawyers, the paralegals, the secretaries, and other staff - who have their own families to support.

The great cost-efficiency of the legal-aid program, represented by ALSC in Alaska, is astounding. The lawyers work for a fraction of the salary they could receive in the private sector, and typically they put in huge amounts of uncompensated overtime, simply because they are dedicated to the principle of equal access to the legal system. It's a program that provides the biggest "bang for the buck." Apparently, Murkowski believes in neither this principle nor this degree of efficiency.

Hafner is to be praised for her efforts, the ALSC staff is to be thanked for its continued work on behalf of low-income Alaskans, and the governor's veto of the ALSC appropriation needs to be overridden.

Art Peterson

Juneau