New York’s state funding for its civil legal aid delivery system has doubled, to $25 million. The funding increase was in response to a request by Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, who in 2010 created a task force to study the crisis in access to civil legal services and funding to support civil legal services for New Yorkers who could not afford to pay for a lawyer. The funding is from an increase to the state’s budget for the judiciary, created to rescue civil legal services funding after revenues from interest on lawyer trust accounts dropped significantly in 2009. To read more, click here.