RECENTLY the Legal Services Corporation pre sented to Congress its request for an appropria tion of $304 million for the fiscal year 1979 to com plete its three-year plan to provide minimum access to civil legal assistance for all poor people in the United States. In fiscal years 1977 and 1978 Congress appropriated most of the funds necessary for the first two years of this plan. It recognized the plan as an essential step in meeting the corporation's statutory mandate to pro vide equal access to the system of justice in our nation for individuals who seek redress of grievances. Completion of the plan in 1979 will establish legal assistance programs across the country for the low income people who desperately need that The corporation was established to ensure that those who are otherwise unable to afford legal assist ance are provided both access to justice and equal justice under the law. Legal services lawyers act as civil law enforcement officers to ensure that the laws are carried out on behalf of poor people. The mandate of the corporation, under the 1974 Legal Services Corporation Act, is to support quality legal assistance to those who would be other wise unable to afford adequate legal counsel. The act defines an eligible client as any person financially unable to afford legal assistance. By this provision, Congress recognized that many low income and even middle-income persons in this country cannot afford the high costs of essential legal care. For poor people, however, a legal problem is all too often an acute crisis in ways that are simply not true for others. An eviction notice may mean no hous ing at all; a defective car may mean unemployment because of lack of transportation; the denial of social security benefits may mean no food for a family. In view of the overwhelming needs of the poor, Congress first directed the corporation to focus its resources on persons with the greatest economic need.

Many spokesmen for the legal profession have been calling on the law schools to pay more attention to ethical responsibilities, usually meaning manners and civility. But many of today's law students believe that the profession is not meeting some of its public responsibilities. When that problem is squarely faced, with the law schools' help, then good manners should follow. TN THE PAST few years leaders of the legal profession have appealed for law students?and law schools?to pay more attention to legal ethics. Their pleas usually have been public^ occasionally strident. Over the same period many law students have urged more attention by the legal profession to ethical responsibilities. Their voices were less public but often more stri dent.