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Rethinking Iolta, Dru Stevenson
Rethinking Iolta, Dru Stevenson
Missouri Law Review
IOLTA (Interest on Lawyers' Trust Accounts) is a popular mechanism for funding legal services for the poor, and such programs now operate in every state. IOLTA programs suffer from badly depleted resources due to the current financial environment, causing painful cutbacks at the nonprofit legal aid entities that depend on IOLTA for their operating expenses. This shortfall casts doubt on the wisdom of widespread dependence on IOLTA. The previous academic literature about IOLTA focused on input-side issues: the original owners' property rights in the interest taken to fund the programs, the compliance of lawyers with the program's requirements, and the …
Walking Out On The Check: How Missouri Abandoned Its Public Defenders And Left The Poor To Foot The Bill, Chris Dandurand
Walking Out On The Check: How Missouri Abandoned Its Public Defenders And Left The Poor To Foot The Bill, Chris Dandurand
Missouri Law Review
This Note looks at the Pratte decision, which arose primarily from the MSPD's most recent effort to cope with its drastically insufficient level of funding. In Missouri, as in many other states, the funding crisis has manifested itself in the form of extremely high caseloads for public defender offices. Straining to prevent a system-wide collapse, the Missouri Public Defender Commission (Commission) enacted regulations that gave each district office of the public defender the power to manage its caseload. These regulations effectively gave each district office the discretion to deny representation to indigent defendants who were otherwise entitled to counsel under …