Legal Aid Bureau's Annual Report Shows 64 Undergraduates Among the 836 Helped Free

According to the annual report of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau which was made public recently, the year 1934-35 was the most successful in the history of the organization.

This report discloses that in the past year more clients were served, more cases handled, and more money collected for the needy residents of Cambridge than ever before. 836 people appealed to the Bureau for aid, and $1529.00 was collected for clients.

In view of the great majority of cases dealing with virtual destitution, such figures demonstrate the necessity for legal aid services as one element in the organization of every big city, according to the report.

This statement goes on to say that the machine age has crowded into our big cities numbers of people of alien birth lacking educational advantages, who therefore find it impossible to understand the numerous complicated laws which the age makes necessary. In the interests of democracy, Legal Aid services have been developed throughout the country, that these people may have the same opportunities for learning their legal rights and obtaining justice as their more wealthy fellow-citizens.

The report gives in detail the adventuresome history of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, telling how for years it struggled to establish a permanent organization to meet this modern problem. Today, financed by the University, cooperating with the Boston Legal Aid and the Cambridge Welfare Union, and advised by the Law School faculty, with the help of its new practicing counsel, E. J. LeCam, member of the Massachusetts Bar Association, it is able to give its needy clients aid comparable to that of a high-priced law office.

Figures show that increasing numbers of the city's poor are availing themselves of these advantages, while in the past year 64 Harvard students were also served by the Bureau. This is due to the fact that because of its connection with the University, and to its development as part of the Phillips Brooks House Association, the services of the Bureau have always been extended gratuitously to anyone connected with Harvard.