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THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary


For Immediate Release August 13, 1997
                  PRESIDENT CLINTON NAMES DOUGLAS EAKELEY 
                         TO THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS 
                     OF THE LEGAL SERVICES CORPORATION

President Clinton today announced his intent to nominate Douglas Eakeley to the Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation.

Douglas Eakeley, of Short Hills, New Jersey, is a director in the Roseland, New Jersey law firm of Lowenstein, Sandler, Kohl, Fisher & Boylan, where his primary area of practice is commercial litigation. A former First Assistant Attorney General for the State of New Jersey, he has served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation since his initial appointment was confirmed by the United States Senate in 1993. Mr. Eakeley is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Practicing Law Institute. He is the former Chairman of the Board of Editors for the New Jersey Law Journal, former Chairman of the New Jersey Sentencing Policy Study Commission, and former Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Legal Services of New Jersey. Mr. Eakeley is involved in a number of civic organizations, such as the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, Association of American Rhodes Scholars, Boys & Girls Clubs of Newark, Paper Mill Playhouse, and New Jersey Network Foundation. Mr. Eakeley received a B.A. from Yale University, an M.A. from Oxford University, and a J.D. from Yale Law School.

The Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation supervises and directs the activities of the Corporation, which is a private, nonprofit corporation established by Congress in 1974 to seek to ensure equal access to justice under the law for all Americans. It is headed by a bipartisan Board of Directors appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The Legal Services Corporation receives funds annually from Congress and makes grants directly to independent local programs that provide civil legal assistance to those who otherwise would be unable to afford it. In 1996, the Corporation funded 275 local programs. Together they served every county in the nation and closed almost 1.4 million cases, benefiting more than four million individuals, the majority of them children living in poverty.

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