Edgar Cahn, a lawyer who helped establish the program that would become known as the Legal Services Corp., has died at age 86. The D.C. Bar posted a tribute.
Cahn and his late wife, Jean Camper Cahn, were graduates of Yale Law School. Their 1964 Yale Law Journal article advocating legal assistance for the poor became a blueprint for the federal program created by the Johnson administration’s Office of Economic Opportunity.
“The Legal Services Program, which later became the Legal Services Corp., was groundbreaking,” the New York Times reported. “It not only helped thousands of poor Americans receive justice; it also catalyzed the emergence of public interest law, creating new areas of litigation and scholarship, including tenants rights, consumer rights and government-benefits rights.”
Later, the Cahns founded and were co-deans of the Antioch School of Law in Washington, D.C. The school emphasized clinical training in public interest law. The school later became part of the David A. Clarke School of Law at the University of the District of Columbia.