Panel Formed To Improve Legal Aid For Low Income Kentuckians

Improving ways to deliver legal aid to low-income citizens for adoptions, divorces and other civil matters is the goal behind creation of the Kentucky Access to Justice Commission. Retired Franklin Circuit Judge Roger Crittenden chairs the 25-member panel, which starts work in late January. “I call it expanding our comfort zones, in the future. Expanding the comfort zones of the judiciary to deal with indigents or deal with pro se people – people who are not represented by counsel. Expanding the comfort zones maybe of the legal aid people, to take in areas that they haven’t taken before,” he said. Kentucky Supreme Court Chief Justice John Minton ordered creation of the panel, which is similar to commissions in at least 24 other states. Minton says the need is evident, because Kentucky is seeing an explosion of people showing up in court without legal representation.