The US government’s quest to provide civil legal assistance to low-income Americans took shape during President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “war on poverty” and the creation in 1964 of the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) as an executive agency headed by Sargent Shriver. A year later, OEO launched its Legal Services Program, which had won the support of the American Bar Association, led by Lewis F. Powell Jr., who would later serve on the United States Supreme Court.
Following is a list of persons on this website who were staff of OEO division of legal services. This list does not include everyone who worked at other OEO divisions, or who served on legal services division committees, which would be a much larger list and also hard to determine. This website contains information about the following persons, including oral histories for most of them. This list may be incomplete. We welcome corrections and updates if you know of more persons on this website who were OEO Legal Services staff.
Directed New Mexico Legal Aid. Chaired NM Civil Legal Services Commission. Longtime consultant on legal aid to ABA, NLADA and numerous state/local organizations. Started with OEO Legal Services.
Senior positions with OEO Legal Services, LSC, NLADA. Later on LSC Board for nine years.
First Director of the Legal Services Program (LSP) within OEO). Then Executive VP of LSC. Was also President of NLADA.
Seminal figure who with his wife Jean Camper Cahn authored landmark 1964 article for the Yale Law Journal proposing national system of legal services to the poor. He founded Antioch School of Law and Time Bank.
One of the initial staff leaders of the OEO Legal Services. One of the architects of the design and development of LSC.
Senior positions with OEO Legal Services and Neighborhood Legal Services Project in DC. Later on California Court of Appeal.
Directed OEO Legal Services in the Nixon administration. Authored and personally served the first cong'l subpoena of a sitting U.S. President. Later private investigator.
President of NLADA. Chaired LSC. Led ABA committees. Board member of Legal Aid Society of St. Louis. Private practice.