The Maryland Legal Aid Bureau: Decades of Service and Reform

9 Pages Posted: 20 Sep 2013

See all articles by José F. Anderson

José F. Anderson

University of Baltimore - School of Law

Date Written: 2013

Abstract

In a legal and judicial career that spans nearly five decades, few issues have affected retiring Chief Judge Robert Mack Bell more than access for the poor to civil justice. As a student at Harvard University in the late 1960s, he would work at the Boston Legal Aid Society. As a young lawyer at a prominent Baltimore law firm, he did community and poverty law work and impressed his colleagues as one "committed to the use of the law not only to serve his clients, but also to improve society. The zeal of Chief Judge Bell for supporting access to civil legal services was mirrored by the growth during his career of the powerful and influential Maryland Legal Aid Bureau, Inc.

In fall of 2011, the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau celebrated its centennial. From its modest beginning in the Baltimore legal community as a charitable endeavor, to its growth into a major law office serving Maryland's poor, the agency's history is a unique story in the American legal experience.

Keywords: Chief Judge Robert Mack Bell, Maryland Legal Aid Bureau, legal services to the poor, indigent, Baltimore, poverty law, access to civil legal services, law offices, pro bono legal aid, charitable endeavors

JEL Classification: I39, J79, K19, K39, K49, L84

Suggested Citation

Anderson, Jose F., The Maryland Legal Aid Bureau: Decades of Service and Reform (2013). Maryland Law Review, Vol. 72, No. 4, 2013, pp. 1133-1140, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2327894

Jose F. Anderson (Contact Author)

University of Baltimore - School of Law ( email )

1420 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21218
United States

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