Access to Justice Coalition urges more state funding as eviction and immigration legal needs rise

Justice Carroll, chair of the Access to Justice Coalition and a justice on the Vermont Supreme Court, told the House Judiciary Committee on Feb. 8 that the coalition — created by the Supreme Court in 2004 — is asking for state support to expand civil legal services statewide.

"For every dollar invested in Vermont low income legal services, the state and Vermonters see a return of $11," Justice Carroll said, citing an independent economic impact study commissioned by the Vermont Bar Foundation and completed in fall 2019. She described civil cases — evictions, small claims, relief-from-abuse and stalking matters — as "life changing" and said many litigants appear without counsel and are at a severe disadvantage.

Sam Abel Palmer, executive director of Legal Services Vermont, told the committee the organization fields roughly 100 to 120 requests for help per working day and manages the statewide legal helpline and the btlawhelp.org site. "It's housing. It's housing followed by family and health, but it's housing," Palmer said, summarizing intake data. He said the coalition's most recent needs assessment (completed December 2024) showed an overall increase in requests for assistance of about 20–25 percent compared with the previous five-year study, and roughly a 40 percent increase in housing-related requests; within housing, nonpayment and no-cause eviction calls rose sharply.

Palmer described online and phone metrics the agencies use to target services: the statewide information site has more than 600,000 page hits a year (about 200,000–250,000 from in-state users), and intake coding now captures who appears in court with counsel and who does not. He said Legal Services Vermont reported 1,039 accountable cases in the year covered by their federal report, and "something like 780" of those involved eviction work (figures reported in testimony; approximate). He and other witnesses said constrained staff and funding leave many callers unserved and that nationally many legal aid agencies must turn away roughly half of callers for lack of resources.

Hannah King, executive director of the Vermont Bar Foundation, said the foundation received a 300% increase in grant requests in its current competitive cycle and that the foundation distributes grants to roughly 20 organizations annually. King described the foundation's grant review process and said IOLTA (Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts) revenue — a mainstay of grant funding — has declined since interest rates fell, reducing available dollars for legal services.

Yasin Doodar, executive director of Vermont Legal Aid, described how Vermont Legal Aid and Legal Services Vermont coordinate statewide intake and litigation work. Doodar said that Vermont Bar Foundation grants provide relatively flexible funds that pay for clinics, impact litigation and pilots in areas with low service capacity, such as Southern Vermont and the Northeast Kingdom. He said the foundation money is critical for projects the state and federal grants will not support, naming consumer law, poverty law and expansion of clinics as examples.

Jill Martin Diaz, executive director of the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, told the committee that Vermont lacks an institutional immigration legal-services capacity and that her startup program is the state’s only community-based supervising immigration practice. She said roughly half of her small program's funding is federal and that those federal streams are at risk. "We're finding ourselves unable to reach people with viable claims for regularized status who are on our intake wait list," Martin Diaz said. She urged expanded, sustained funding so immigrant workers can obtain counsel needed to become work-authorized and contribute to the state economy; she also noted the policy proposal for an Office of New Americans is before the Senate as S.56 (testimony referenced the bill; committee action not recorded in the transcript).

No formal vote or committee decision was recorded in the transcript. Witnesses and legislative members discussed where existing funding comes from — Legal Services Corporation (federal grantee funding), the Vermont Bar Foundation and IOLTA, state AHS subgrants to Vermont Legal Aid, the Center for Crime Victim Services, and occasional federal or private grants — and described a FY2026 budget request centered on expanding the Bar Foundation's grantmaking and bolstering direct legal services capacity across providers.

Committee members asked clarifying questions about how much of legal-aid funding is unrestricted, how foundation grants are allocated, the demographics and geography of unmet need (Bennington, Brattleboro, Winooski, the Northeast Kingdom and other rural areas were cited), and the impact of decreased IOLTA revenue. Several members encouraged the witnesses to provide written budget details and for agencies to return with more specific asks; the committee scheduled follow-up appearances.

The testimony made clear the groups are seeking a mix of state appropriations and strengthened foundation support to maintain existing services and to pilot and expand clinics, immigration representation, consumer projects and housing-focused legal work. The testimony also highlighted dependency risks: several programs rely on federal grant streams that speakers said are unstable or at risk of reduction, and witnesses said some needed positions are funded temporarily by grants and would be lost without sustained state or foundation support.

The committee did not take formal action during the hearing; several legislators asked witnesses to provide budget numbers and follow-up information to inform FY2026 appropriations discussions.