WASHINGTON, DC, March 17, 2006 — With the legal disenfranchisement of poor- and moderate-income people continuing to destroy families and lives every day, more than 900 lawyers and organizations providing legal assistance to the poor will gather from March 30 to April 1, 2006 in Philadelphia for the 2006 Equal Justice Conference. This year’s Equal Justice Conference is themed “Commitment, Service and Empowerment: Let Justice Ring” and is sponsored by the National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) and the American Bar Association (ABA) Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service. The conference will bring together pro bono and legal services program staff, judges, corporate counsel, private lawyers and others in the civil justice system to deal with a variety of issues facing the indigent community, including the unprecedented challenges the poor are facing from the impact of Hurricane Katrina, the new bankruptcy act and the growing needs of immigrant clients.

“The Equal Justice Conference has long been a pivotal national forum for advocates who share critical skills and knowledge. With the destruction that hurricanes Katrina and Rita wreaked upon our community, this conference takes on even greater importance in the effort to provide legal representation to people who otherwise have no access to justice,” said Jo-Ann Wallace, NLADA president and CEO. “We are on the brink of perhaps the greatest legal services crisis in the history of our country,” said ABA President Michael S. Greco. “The Equal Justice Conference provides indispensable help to lawyers on the front lines so that they in turn can more effectively provide legal services to the poor, disadvantaged and vulnerable among us.”

The meeting will feature three keynote speakers: Greco; Judge Theodore A. McKee, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit; and Rep. Chaka Fattah, D-PA.

Judge McKee has served as an Assistant United States Attorney and General Counsel to the Philadelphia Parking Authority. He was a judge on the Court of Common Pleas for the First Judicial District of Pennsylvania for more than a decade before President Bill Clinton appointed him in 1994 to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Judge McKee has served on the boards of the Crime Prevention Association (“Caring People Alliance”) and been active in Concerned Black Men, both of which help direct urban youth away from crime, New Directions for Women, which provides female offenders with drug rehabilitation, education and job counseling, and the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation.

Michael S. Greco is a partner in the Boston office of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham, LLP and is the current president of the ABA. He has served in the ABA’s House of Delegates since 1985 and was the elected state delegate from Massachusetts during 1993-2004. He was co-founder and co-chair of Bar Leaders for Preservation of Legal Services for the Poor, a national grassroots organization that helped preserve the Legal Services Corporation in the 1980s.

Chaka Fattah is currently serving his sixth term in the U.S. House of Representatives. He represents the Second Congressional District of Pennsylvania, which includes parts of Philadelphia and Cheltenham Township. Rep. Fattah was instrumental in the creation of the College Retention Program, which has provided more than one million students with financial assistance in the form of grants, low-interest loans and college work-study programs in an attempt to help meet the cost of attaining a post-secondary education.

For more information about the 2006 Equal Justice Conference, please visit: www.equaljusticeconference.org

The National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA), founded in 1911, is the oldest and largest national, nonprofit membership organization devoting all of its resources to advocating equal access to justice for all Americans. NLADA champions effective legal assistance for people who cannot afford counsel, serves as a collective voice for both civil legal services and public defense services throughout the nation and provides a wide range of services and benefits to its individual and organizational members.

The American Bar Association Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service provides national leadership in policy, outreach, implementation and technical assistance activities designed to encourage, activate, expand and improve pro bono activities and programs.