Bellow-Sacks Access to Civil Legal Services Project

Even in establishing the neighborhood offices, the test case units, the legal education programs ... we have made a number of very narrow assumptions concerning the problems with which they deal and the scope of what needs to be done. … In my view these assumptions are in error. They will, as they are pursued, inevitably create new problems which will themselves one day have to be faced and solved …

The Extension of Legal Services to the Poor:
New Approaches to the Bar's Responsibility
~ Gary Bellow, September 1967

Full Text of Speech

THE REMARKS ABOVE ARE FROM GARY BELLOW'S ADDRESS to a distinguished audience on the 150th anniversary of the founding of Harvard Law School. Gary spoke about the task ahead if the bar and the nation were to make access to legal services effectively and universally available.

Full Text of Speech
   At the halcyon moment of the creation of the federally funded program of legal services for the poor, in which he was instrumental, Gary chose not to celebrate success but to point to all that remained to be accomplished. The Bellow-Sacks Access to Civil Legal Services Project aims to renew that agenda and to pursue the goal of universally available legal advice and assistance to all whom the market cannot effectively serve.
   The Bellow-Sacks Project is supported by Harvard Law School and its alumni*, particularly Gary Bellow's class of 1960. Gary and his colleagues at Harvard Law School conceived and planned the project in 1999. Gary agreed that the Class of 1960 could seek support for the Project in his name as the gift class for its 40th reunion.
   Gary insisted, however, that the Project also honor his friend and mentor, the late Albert M. Sacks, Dane Professor of Law and Dean of Harvard Law School from 1971 to 1981. Upon Gary's untimely death in April 2000, the project was established, with generous and immediate support from HLS alumni, as a memorial to both Gary Bellow and Dean Sacks.
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*To develop this project, Gary collaborated with Philip Heymann and Frank Michelman, Harvard Law Professors and members of the class of 1960; Michael Cooper and Peter Haje. Members of the Class of 1960; and Professor David Wilkins, Director of Harvard's Program on the Legal Profession collaborated with Gary Bellow on the project.