Practice Advisory: Ethical Duties in Immigration Cases After Funding Loss

Currently, many immigration legal service providers are facing the prospect of losing federal funding for direct representation work. The likely result of federal funding elimination is that some legal service offices will be forced to close, while others will have to reduce staff to sustain operations. This stark reality raises serious questions about legal services practitioners’ obligations to existing and future clients because ethical duties of competence, diligence, and preparedness continue to apply despite external factors such as funding availability.