Talk Justice, an LSC Podcast: How Civil Legal Aid Can Use Opioid Settlement Funds
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Carl Rauscher
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WASHINGTON– Legal aid leaders discuss how their organizations acquired opioid settlement funds and the impactful legal services they are providing to those affected by opioid use disorder on the latest episode of LSC's “Talk Justice” podcast, released today. LSC President Ron Flagg hosts the conversation with guests Helen Gratil, project director of the Arkansas legal aid partnership Beyond Opioids; Robert Johns, executive director of Legal Aid of the Bluegrass in Kentucky; and Betty Balli Torres, executive director of the Texas Access to Justice Foundation.
In the face of the widely devastating opioid crisis, states, cities, counties and tribes brought multiple lawsuits against opioid manufacturers, distributors and pharmacies. Two major settlements reached in 2021 and 2022 that have resulted in $40 billion designated for supporting opioid abatement strategies will flow to many state and local governments over the next several years.
These strategies can include remedies like funding treatment centers, acquiring Narcan for first responders and creating educational campaigns about the dangers of opioid use. They can also fund civil legal services that help people with opioid use disorder overcome barriers to recovery.
Gratil says these are often services like driver’s license reinstatement, which people need in order to attend treatment or to secure employment, or visitation and reunification with their children, without which some parents will be unmotivated to remain in treatment or recovery. Record sealing and expungement are also important for people whose criminal history related to opioid use disorder would bar them from securing housing or employment.
A major key to the success of Beyond Opioids, Gratil explains, is training staff to use language and approaches that avoid stigmatizing clients and their families. Through engaging clients without judgment and partnering with medical providers to become part of the treatment team, the legal aid attorneys have been able to demonstrate their desire to be supportive.
“The greatest needs that our clients face is, number one, a support system that they can trust. Our clients tend to be distrustful of [legal professionals] in general because their encounters have been negative and devastating,” she says. “So, through this project, we were able to build that community trust.”
In her role at the Texas Access to Justice Foundation, Balli Torres spearheaded an effort to pursue opioid settlement funding for Texas legal aid organizations. She explains that LSC’s 2019 Opioid Task Force report on the critical need for civil legal services to be part of the response to the opioid epidemic inspired her to ask the legislature for this funding.
“We spent the entire legislative session educating legislators about the opportunities that legal aid would provide for people who are suffering from this addiction, and it was a hard sell—it was not something that was intuitive to anybody,” Balli Torres says. “So we really used the LSC report and everywhere we went, we had our report talking about the difference that legal aid could make.”
Ultimately, the Texas legislature dedicated $5 million in funding for legal aid.
Kentucky legal aid organizations collaborated around Project Renew and were also able to successfully assert that civil legal aid is an essential part of the opioid recovery ecosystem, says Johns. Collectively, the legal aid organizations received $1 million, accounting for an eighth of the state’s total available settlement funds. Johns says this substantial portion reflects how crucial these services are to recovery.
“In the face of the devastation of the opioid epidemic, we are making a difference in the lives of individuals in recovery by helping them be more stable and employable, which not only benefits them, but also benefits their families and their communities,” Johns says.
Talk Justice episodes are available online and on Spotify, Stitcher, Apple and other popular podcast apps. The podcast is sponsored by LSC’s Leaders Council.
Future episodes of the podcast will feature an interview with Judge David Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, a former LSC general counsel, as well as a look at Legal Aid of North Carolina’s new Innovation Lab.
Legal Services Corporation (LSC) is an independent nonprofit established by Congress in 1974 to provide financial support for civil legal aid to low-income Americans. The Corporation currently provides funding to 132 independent nonprofit legal aid programs in every state, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories.
Source: https://www.lsc.gov/press-release/talk-justice-lsc-podcast-how-civil-legal-aid-can-use-opioid-settlement-funds