"Judicare "for the poor
My husband used to beat me all the time," recalls Dorothy Harris, 23, of Huntington, W. Va. "He threatened to shoot me." Because she was poor, Harris could not afford to hire a lawyer. Then she discovered that there was a way of obtaining a divorce at no cost and thanks to Huntington Lawyer Mike Woelfel, a statewide legal aid program, and some federal funds, she is now divorced.
Legal help was long beyond the reach of most poor Americans. Since the mid-'60s, however, storefront offices staffed by full-time poverty lawyers have sprung up across the country to...