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The Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation (MLAC) is the largest funding source for civil legal aid organizations in Massachusetts. Read more about our mission, history, and civil legal aid.
MLAC provides funding and support to civil legal aid organizations that provide legal assistance at no cost to low-income residents of Massachusetts. It 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 distributes funding in the following categories, listed below:
General Support Funding
Through specific grants, MLAC also provides legal aid and community organizations with support for the following projects:
MLAC is not currently taking applications for funding. As required by statute, MLAC must distribute 80% of our state appropriated funds to regional civil legal aid organizations and up to 20% to statewide legal aid organizations. MLAC periodically receives additional grant funds for specific projects from private foundations and government grants. Opportunities to apply for these specific project funds are generally by invitation only. In these instances, the entities which provide the funds to MLAC will often determine how they can be distributed and used.
On select occasions MLAC may have funds available for special projects and will put out a call for applications, as well as post the funding opportunity on this website.
MLAC receives the majority of its revenue from three sources: the state budget, the Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts (IOLTA) program, and grants from government and private sources.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts appropriates money in its state budget to MLAC, which MLAC distributes to qualified civil legal aid organizations. In Fiscal Year 2023, the state appropriation is $41 million.
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.
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.
Visit www.masslegalhelp.org for legal information and self-help materials about your issue.