At Colorado Legal Services, we help hundreds of domestic violence survivors, veterans, people with disabilities, and seniors with civil legal challenges each year. Every day, our staff see how standing beside someone as they face down an abuser and fight for their children in court, or helping an older Coloradan reinstate medical benefits that were illegally stripped away can bring someone hope in the face of adversity and injustice.
Now, we and the people we serve face a new threat. The Trump administration’s proposed budget for 2026 would eliminate the federal Legal Services Corporation, or LSC, a heartbreaking blow to thousands in Colorado who seek justice and dignity through our court system each year. Last month, the House proposed an unprecedented 46% cut, but the Senate so far has avoided proposing any cuts.
Congress established LSC in 1974. It operates as an independent, nonprofit funder of civil legal aid nationwide, ensuring low-income and working-class people have a chance at the justice that is a core principle of our Constitution. Colorado Legal Services, the recipient of LSC funding in Colorado, has provided legal assistance to Coloradans for the past 100 years. About one-third of our funding comes from LSC.
You may never have heard of us at Colorado Legal Services. We don’t seek the spotlight. We are not political — we are a community resource. Day in and day out, we work to fulfill the promise of equal justice for all by providing free legal services to Coloradans who cannot afford an attorney. Our approximately 180 resourceful and dedicated staff serve the entire state, opening about 1,000 cases for Coloradans each month. So far in 2025, 37% of our clients are victims of domestic violence.
We represent the single mother of three children who is trying to escape her abusive husband and start a new life for her family. We represent the elderly veteran stripped of his income because of a bureaucratic mistake in an overcomplicated system. We represent the homeowner whose house may be foreclosed over a family member’s $400 medical bill. We serve victims of human trafficking and abused workers and working people getting steamrolled by the IRS.
Recently, we helped seniors in Greeley when their landlord refused to fix their elevator, leaving them trapped on the third floor of their building. We went to court and immediately secured an order for the landlord to fix the elevator so they could simply leave the building to attend medical appointments or just go to the store.
Sadly, Colorado will be harmed even more than many other states by defunding legal aid. According to a 2024 study by the Colorado Access to Justice Commission, Colorado is already far behind our Western neighbors, placing 10th out of 14 in per capita state funding for legal aid. In the 2023-24 fiscal year, Wyoming spent over three times as much per capita on legal aid funding as Colorado. Colorado made some progress with a new law in the 2024 legislative session (House Bill 1286), but we still lag.
It is against that backdrop that President Donald Trump’s budget would eliminate federal legal aid funding nationwide of $560 million, which is a mere 0.035% of the federal discretionary budget. State funding will not step in to replace the loss of federal dollars because, even though Colorado’s grant of roughly $6.5 million — all of which the White House’s budget proposal would eliminate — is a nearly invisible sliver of the federal pie, the state is in the midst of a difficult budget year and has more challenges ahead.
Every Coloradan should care, even beyond the obvious reasons: the intrinsic values of justice and dignity. Legal aid helps the local economy to a staggering degree. A 2022 study we commissioned showed that our work provides a 619% social return on investment. Of course, we know this to be true intuitively: If we help someone get their life back in order after having had all their identification documents stolen, that helps not only them and their family, but the whole community.
Without federal legal aid funding, there will be more victims of domestic violence facing their abusers alone. There will be more people losing their homes to improper foreclosures, more victims of trafficking with nowhere to turn, more Coloradans trapped in bureaucratic purgatory.
For the past 100 years, legal aid in Colorado has remained relatively unknown. We quietly do the work of justice without fanfare. But now is our time of need — so that we can go on serving families in need. We do this work for Colorado’s most vulnerable. And in so doing, we benefit every single person in the state.
Matthew Baca, of Denver, is the executive director of Colorado Legal Services, Colorado’s statewide nonprofit legal aid program, which has provided civil legal assistance to low-income people since 1925.
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