History

   LEGAL AID SOCIETY OF SAN DIEGO, INC.  

The first efforts to create a means for the provision of legal services to the poor in San Diego began in the year 1918.

We have Dewitt C. Mitchell to thank for creating a trust fund to be used to create a position to be known as a "public attorney."

Mitchell, a native San Diegan, attended San Diego High School and studied law at the University of San Diego and Stanford. He was admitted into the bar in 1911 and successfully practiced civil law in San Diego for six years. He was a promising young attorney who volunteered to fight for his country. While stationed in San Antonio, he caught pneumonia and died several weeks later.

The creation of a position to be known as a "public attorney" was novel for its time. The public attorney was to provide free legal services to persons  unable to afford private counsel. Mitchell specified that those eligible for services would be "persons who have saved a little money or other property, and stand in danger of losing it."

The public attorney was prohibited from defending criminal cases or handling divorces or annulments. Persons eligible for the public attorney post were to be young men recently graduated from law school or attorneys recently arriving in California.

Today the Mitchell Trust Fund represents only a small amount of the funding allocated to the Legal Aid Society, Inc.. In 1953, the Legal Aid Society of San Diego, Inc. was incorporated and unfolded through sources other than the Mitchell Trust Fund. A court decided that, since other funds were available, the Society did not have to abide by Mitchell's restrictions on  handling the cases of persons with criminal or marital problems.

To continue receiving Mitchell Trust Fund monies, the Legal Aid Society, Inc. agreed to retain the name "public attorney". The title is found on the letterhead of the Legal Aid Society of San Diego, Inc. today.

The Legal Aid Society of San Diego, Inc. continues to grow each year. Change, in an organization dedicated to providing legal services to the poor. is inevitable. People will always have legal problems - but the nature of those problems will change as society changes. Hopefully, we will always change to meet the needs of those who need us most.