(ATLANTA, GA. October 2009) As the Southeast Georgia floods start to ebb, residents are commiserating about water-logged homes and other property damages. Flood survivors can seek free legal advice about contracts and repairs, real property insurance matters and other disaster-related legal needs from Georgia Legal Services Program and volunteer lawyers from the State Bar of Georgia Pro Bono Project.

“We really care about ensuring that Georgians who have disaster-related legal needs can get their problems resolved quickly,” says Phyllis Holmen, executive director of Georgia Legal Services. Georgia Legal Services sends out lawyers and paralegals to FEMA disaster recovery centers to help survivors sort out legal problems as a result of damages to their homes and possibly loss of income.

Georgia Legal Services in conjunction with the Pro Bono Project and the Younger Lawyers Division of the State Bar of Georgia, the American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division, and FEMA have set up a disaster relief hotline at 1-866-584-8027 for flood survivors who reside in the impacted counties of Carroll, Catoosa, Chattooga, Cherokee, Cobb, Dekalb, Douglas, Fulton, Gwinnett, Paulding, Rockdale, Stephens, and Walker, and who are income eligible for free legal assistance. Georgia Legal Services provides helpful online disaster-related legal resources for the public at www.legalaid-GA.org.

As the largest civil legal aid organization in the state, Georgia Legal Services delivers on our nation’s promise of equal justice for all and provides the fairness promised by our Constitution. Its staff attorneys in ten regional offices offer free legal services to residents whose incomes are at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level.

Georgia Legal Services offers legal help for non-criminal problems involving family/domestic violence; housing; public benefits; consumer; healthcare; education; and employment. Services include advice and counsel; brief service; representation in administrative hearings and court; educational programs; and referrals to private attorneys and to other services. Callers are also referred to www.legalaid-GA.org for information and other resources dealing with legal problems.

In the late sixties, Georgia Legal Services began to take shape when the Younger Lawyers Section (YLS) of the State Bar of Georgia undertook an initial study of the need for lawyers for the poor. The study concluded that there was a “distressing disproportion” between the true need for legal services by the needy and the availability of legal services for them. In addition, the study found that lawyers tend to concentrate in urban areas, whereas many of the needy live in rural areas where legal help is less available. This was followed the next year by another extensive report by the YLS aimed at promoting "provision of legal services to indigent persons to the fullest extent possible." It was through the efforts of individual young lawyers of the YLS that Georgia Legal Services was created in 1971.

Because of the critical need and its demonstrated successes in lifting people out of desperate situations, Georgia Legal Services enjoys financial support from more than 70 funding sources. Funds are received from government agencies, the federal Legal Services Corporation, United Way agencies, foundations, and more than 5,000 individual lawyers across the state. Still, less than 20% of the legal needs of low-income Georgians can be met, and the staff turn away half of those seeking assistance each year, because of insufficient staff resources.

For more information on Georgia Legal Services, log onto www.glsp.org.