Houston Legal Foundation Opens "Neighborhood Law Offices" in 1966

A single attorney could not meet the legal needs of all poor people in a big city such as Houston. In 1966, in place of the old charitable legal aid model, the Houston Bar Association re-organized the Houston Legal Foundation along the lines of a new model called “Legal Services.”  The federal Office of Economic Opportunity encouraged major cities to open neighborhood law offices as a way of addressing urban inequality and preventing riots. The new model put dozens of young lawyers to work in “neighborhood law offices.”

As one Houston attorney put it…