St. Patrick’s Day, Student Activism, and Essential Legal Aid

The following is a blog post written by Kurt M. Denk, the City Bar Justice Center’s Executive Director

Last week I spent St. Patrick’s Day in Albany, advocating for essential legal aid resources in the face of threatened underfunding by New York Governor Kathy Hochul. At a time when so much seems so bleak, including threats to the legal profession’s independence, I was inspired. What inspired me was the fierce support for civil legal aid that my fellow nonprofit leaders and a host of legislative leaders voiced. What also inspired me were the almost deafening chants of hundreds of students who traveled to Albany that day to lobby for everything from immigration reform to environmental stewardship, and education access to civil legal aid funding. What follows below is the story of that day, and what I believe it can mean for the work of the City Bar Justice Center and the New Yorkers in need whom we labor to serve.

Law – my day job – is so often about what we read. Let me contextualize my St. Patrick’s Day 2026 differently, with a focus on what we hear. With its main offices in Midtown Manhattan, the City Bar Justice Center is up close and personal to the sounds of New York City’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Given my Irish roots, I love it – particularly the cascade of bagpipes and beating of drums. (Less so, the after-scent of lots of spilled beer…so let’s keep this focused on sound, not smell.)

I missed all of that last week, because I spent March 17 in Albany with colleagues from across New York’s civil legal aid community to secure full spending authority for the Interest on Lawyer Account (IOLA) Fund in this year’s state budget. That fund supports over 80 civil legal aid providers across New York, including a substantial portion of the City Bar Justice Center’s annual budget, which allows our services to benefit over 27,000 New Yorkers in need each year. I spoke about IOLA in a City Bar Justice Center statement last month, when we had hoped New York Governor Kathy Hochul would correct what I think many of us first assumed was an oversight in not confirming the independent IOLA Fund Board’s requested $102.5 million in spending authority to fulfill the second year of a five-year grant program to civil legal aid providers like the City Bar Justice Center. Inexplicably, the governor did not course-correct notwithstanding strenuous advocacy by the civil legal aid community, our affiliate the NYC Bar Association, and an impressive mix of dozens of major law firms and corporate in-house legal departments. “Inexplicable,” because IOLA funding is an essential feature of New York’s civic safety net and stems entirely from private rather than taxpayer money.

Civil legal aid providers visited legislative offices – and the governor’s office – last week to advocate for IOLA full fulling provisions contained in both the State Assembly and the Senate budget proposals – provisions essential to the IOLA Fund fulfilling its five-year commitment to civil legal aid funding in New York – and to ask that the governor not unilaterally reduce these already budgeted funds for organizations providing vital legal services to low-income New Yorkers. As we gathered for a press conference, we were at various moments drowned out by hundreds of students filling the central atrium of the State Capitol, chanting in support of a range of causes – for safety measures in the face of ICE operations traumatizing our communities; for robust school and job training funding; for environmental protections; and, yes: “What do we want? Civil legal aid!” It was so deeply heartening to see on these student activists’ handmade signs, the passion of the next generation for a holistically healthy public square – and, especially, to hear that passionate commitment.

A passionate commitment to a more holistically healthy future is a core promise of the civil legal aid community. When organizations across New York and across our nation like the City Bar Justice Center help resolve a housing dispute or keep a family in their home; protect seniors from frauds and scams; provide a fresh start to a single parent burdened by consumer debt; secure essential disability benefits for those who have served our country in uniform; fiercely defend asylum rights and other long promised pathways to legal immigration status – we protect our neighbors’ rights today, and we strengthen our communities for tomorrow.

A substantial chunk of our organization’s capacity to support this mission is at risk due to Governor Hochul’s proposed $25 million reduction in IOLA Fund spending authority for 2027. Importantly, the missing funding is not from taxpayer dollars. Rather, IOLA funding is private and market-generated through interest on attorney escrow accounts and is already held by IOLA in trust accounts specifically authorized by statute to support civil legal services across New York. Underscoring the private bar’s position as the source of IOLA resources, its support for IOLA-funded civil legal aid organizations’ role in stabilizing our communities by meeting a whole range of legal needs among those who cannot afford counsel, and its own reliance on and partnership with organizations like the Justice Center to provide pro bono legal services, more than five dozen of New York’s leading law firms and corporate legal departments have written to Governor Hochul now twice – earlier in the budget cycle in February, and again this week – urging her to support fully restored IOLA funding of $102.5 million for FY 2027, which will ensure that organizations like the City Bar Justice Center receive funding already granted for the second year of IOLA’s current five-year grant program. (As updated NYC Bar Association messaging notes, the Senate proposal includes an additional $50 million investment in civil legal services, bringing the total proposed funding to $152.5 million to help address New York’s estimated $1 billion civil justice gap.)

I’ll look forward to hearing bagpipes and drums at next year’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade in NYC. For now, I can still hear the chants of those student advocates in Albany – future leaders of our communities – calling upon government to do the right thing for those in greatest need. From the perspective of our organization, IOLA funding is essential. And for government leaders, it should be a no-brainer because it’s sourced from private rather than taxpayer money. The civil legal aid community as well as our friends in the private bar accordingly have mobilized to press our leaders to do what’s both the right and the smart thing. Those of us doing this work – and especially those who need our work – sure hope those calls are heard loud and clear.