WisTAF Announces $1,222,750 in Grants to Agencies Assisting Low-Income Wisconsinites with Civil Legal Needs |
Madison. October 31, 2018 – The Wisconsin Trust Account Foundation, Inc. (WisTAF) announced grant awards totaling $1,222,250 to fifteen agencies providing civil legal services for Wisconsin’s poor and underserved in 2019. The funding comes from three different revenue sources that WisTAF administers, as mandated by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The first and most important one is the Public Interest Legal Services Fund (PILSF), which is formed by a portion of an annual fee paid by lawyers and judges living and practicing in the state of Wisconsin. The second one is the Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts (IOLTA) program. 2019 will be the first time during the last three years that WisTAF has been able to use IOLTA funds, thanks to the changing financial environment where interest rates have started to increase, and as a result funds for this program became available. Finally, this also includes funds from the Pro Hac Vice program, which uses a portion of a fee paid by out of the state lawyers when they handle cases in the state of Wisconsin.
Grants for 2019 were awarded to the following programs:
- ABC for Health, Inc., $43,500
- AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin (ARCW), $25,000
- Center Against Sexual & Domestic Abuse, Inc. (CASDA), $17,220
- Catholic Charities of the Archdioceses of Milwaukee, Inc., $20,000
- Catholic Charities of the Diocese of La Crosse, Inc., $15,000
- Centro Legal por Derechos Humanos, $27,500
- Community Justice, Inc., $15,000
- Disability Rights Wisconsin, $110,000
- Kids Matter, Inc., $20,000
- Legal Action of Wisconsin, Inc., $636,823
- Legal Aid Society of Door County, Inc., $10,000
- Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee, $91,500
- LOTUS Legal Clinic, Inc., $15,000
- Portage County Legal Aid Society, $17,000
- Wisconsin Judicare, Inc., $159,207
About WisTAF. Created by the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 1986, the Wisconsin Trust Account Foundation, Inc. is a nonprofit dedicated to ensuring access to civil legal services for low-income individuals and families. Through its grants program, WisTAF provides funding to agencies which help protect people’s rights and address civil legal needs such as fair housing, domestic abuse, custody and placement, employment discrimination, disability rights, and consumer rights, to name a few. Working with its partners, WisTAF strives to keep our nation's promise of access to justice for all.
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