But the Legal Services Corp. in Washington overruled that part of the plan.

The Legal Services Corp. came about in 1974 under President Richard Nixon.

Created by Congress in 1974, Legal Services Corp. is frequently a budgetary target.

That amount hardly offset enormous cuts, beginning in 1996, by Congress to Legal Services Corp., the chief funding source for state legal-aid agencies.

That era was capped in 1998, when the Legal Services Corp. forced 275 legal aid providers nationwide to combine into 179.

During his 29-year tenure as a public interest lawyer, Dudovitz has proved that he can deliver on some of the Legal Services Corp.'s key objectives.

Subia's new role in the Legal Services Corp. will require him to work on behalf of poor citizens who are requesting legal assistance.

The Legal Services Corp., which is now the program's major funding source, began pushing in 1995 for smaller programs to merge.

"I'm not a fan of spending taxpayer dollars on the Legal Services Corp.," Barr said.

Legal Aid gets funding from the federal Legal Services Corp. based on a formula that counts the number of poor people in a service area.