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The Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation (MLAC) is the largest funding source for civil legal aid organizations in Massachusetts.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts established MLAC in 1983 to ensure that low-income people facing critical non-criminal legal problems would have access to legal information, advice, and representation. MLAC does not provide funds for legal assistance in criminal matters or in any civil matter in which the state is legally required to provide representation to indigent people.
MLAC receives the majority of its funding from three sources: the state budget, the Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts (IOLTA) program, and grants from government and private sources.
State Budget
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts appropriates money in its state budget to MLAC, which MLAC distributes to qualified civil legal aid organizations. In Fiscal Year 2021, the state appropriation is $29 million.
IOLTA
MLAC receives 67 percent of the revenue generated by the Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts (IOLTA) program.
Under Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rules, an attorney holding funds on behalf of a client must place the funds either in an account that pays interest to the client or in a pooled IOLTA account. An IOLTA account is used only if the funds are relatively modest, or will be held by the lawyer for a short time, so that the interest earned would be less than the cost of setting up and maintaining a separate account. Though the individual amounts of interest are small; the interest from the combined IOLTA accounts is significant.
The Massachusetts IOLTA Committee, appointed by the Supreme Judicial Court, distributes IOLTA funds to three charitable entities: MLAC, the Massachusetts Bar Foundation, and the Boston Bar Foundation.
Government and Private Sources
MLAC receives grants from government agencies and private foundations seeking to fund special initiatives in response to emerging crises. For example, MLAC received grants for initiatives to provide legal defense to homeowners in the midst of the foreclosure crisis, legal services to immigrants facing deportation, and to address the civil legal needs of victims of crime.