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When interest rates fell during the recession, the money earned by lawyers holding other people’s money dropped sharply, and as Mike Vasilinda tells us, the drop has created a crisis in legal aid for the poor.

Two thousand lawyers spent the last of the week in Orlando at their annual convention. One of the most talked about topics: How to stop the bleeding in legal help for the poor. Robin Rosenblatt from the Tampa office of Florida CHildren’s First says funding for legal aid for children has all but dried up. “Six legal aid programs that directly provide legal aid to children lost all of their funding this year” says the attorney.

At least 500 lawyers have signed a petition asking the Florida Supreme Court to raise bar dues by a hundred dollars a year. The hike would raise ten million. Incoming Bar President Greg Coleman is instead calling for a statewide summit.

“A hundred dollars per person, number one, is not going to solve the problem. And number two, it’s laying it at the feet of the lawyers once again, when this is a societal problem” says the newly sworn in President.

But some, including Bob Butterworth, Florida’s former Attorney General, say it is a crisis that can’t wait.

“Somebody has to do it. Let’s start it, and the rest..and I believe the rest of the public will follow” says Butterworth, the recipient of the Bar Foundations highest award this year.

Adding fuel to the fire, Governor Rick Scott has vetoed four years running, a two million dollar appropriation that would help provide legal aid to the poor.”

And the new Bar President said he is already talking to the Governor about next year.

“We will continue to keep an open dialog with the Governor and his office” said Greg Coleman

And most here believe it will be 2015 before any steps are taken in solving the crisis.

In the meantime, foster children, people in foreclosure and victims of domestic abuse are the most likely to be hurt by the lack of help from a legal aid lawyer. Bar dues are currently $265 dollars a year. The increase would cost each of the state’s 100,000 lawyers about two dollars a week.