Talk:Legal aid

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Bearian 00:53, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

The opening line under the U.S. heading is a bit odd:

"The U.S. has always been less generous than most other First World industrialized democracies in providing counsel to the poor and indigent."

There are hundreds of public interest firms with government funding that provide representation in civil cases [1][2][3], and nearly every large law firm donates thousands of hours of pro bono work[4]. If the funding provided by other First World countries is that much better or effective, then that line would be plausible. But the pieces on the other countries in the article don't indicate as such. --Whitenoise101 03:57, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] External links

I see that user:PIrish has removed all the external links on the grounds that "these are all commercial linkspam to legal aid programs, companies, or services". While some may constitute linkspam, it seems to me that others constitute reliable sources. -Dhodges 03:11, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I've reproduced parts of the old External links section below. Some comments are original and some I've added:

I concur with your assessment of such links. The links to government agencies/public corporations should remain but the links to Pine Tree and Findlaw should be purged. --Coolcaesar 07:09, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] redirection from legal services questionable!?

Legal services is not the same as legal aid.

I concur. That redirect is just plain wrong. Legal services refers to the whole range of legal services provided by all kinds of legal professionals and staff in all public and private contexts, not just legal aid! --Coolcaesar 07:51, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Legal aid for a practising solicitor

Are solicitors in England and Wales legally entitled to apply for legal aid when they are out of practice due to a period of unemployment? The article says nothing to the contrary, so I pose the question . Gilgamesh007 (talk) 16:48, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Addition of external links

There's an unusually bossy little notice at the foot of the article stating that further external links are not to be added. The (solely US) links there don't seem to have any particular sanctity. What on earth was behind that notice, I have no idea; but agreeing with Dhodges and Coolcaesar above I have reinstated a very short list of links to national legal aid schemes and hope they may be allowed to remain! ariwara (talk) 00:42, 28 January 2008 (UTC)