Family law practitioner Shelby Duffy Benton, a former NC IOLTA board chair, explores the mission and impact of this innovative program — and the harm being done to the legal aid landscape by the freeze on its grantmaking for 2026.
In Defense of NC IOLTA, a Proven Model for Funding Legal Aid
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As a longtime family law practitioner in Goldsboro, I’ve seen the deep need for civil legal aid my Wayne County neighbors experience.
I have witnessed numerous times the difference legal aid lawyers make in helping survivors of domestic violence obtain protective orders to protect themselves, and often their children, from their abusers. With the support of legal aid attorneys, survivors have more confidence and are usually successful in having their domestic violence protective orders entered. But all too often, survivors come to court with absolutely no assistance and do not understand the process. As a result, I have seen them walk out defeated, only to return to the abusive situation they had been in.
Along with nearly half of the other counties in North Carolina, Wayne County is a legal desert, meaning there is less than one lawyer per 1,000 residents. As a result, these areas, which are often home to rural and traditionally underserved communities, see a significant portion of needs in both civil and criminal matters go unmet.
As a small-town attorney and past president of the North Carolina Bar Association, I know I have a professional obligation to mitigate such harm. That’s why I support access to legal services by donating to Legal Aid of North Carolina and volunteering my time with the North Carolina Bar Foundation program known as North Carolina Free Legal Answers.
That’s also why, in 2019, I joined the nine-member Board of Trustees of NC IOLTA and served two terms, including three years as board chair. That experience was inspiring for me. It allowed me to see even more clearly the civil legal needs North Carolinians are experiencing and the efforts nonprofits make to meet those needs.
This map shows counties (in orange) designated as legal deserts in 2023, highlighting the gaps in access to justice many North Carolinians are experiencing.
A Proven Model for Funding Legal Aid
IOLTA is an innovative approach to funding legal services that pools the interest earned on lawyers’ general trust accounts to fund civil legal aid for our most vulnerable neighbors and communities — without any cost to attorneys, their clients or taxpayers. It is a national model in place in all United States jurisdictions, including the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands.
Since its creation by the State Bar and the North Carolina Supreme Court in 1983, this program has awarded more than $134 million to organizations that provide civil legal aid to low-income North Carolinians. That translates to hundreds of thousands of seniors, veterans, farmers, families and other residents who were supported in cases ranging from pending foreclosures to consumer scams and access to wages and benefits, as well as many, many survivors of domestic violence who found much-needed safety and support. NC IOLTA funding also supports programs and initiatives that improve the administration of justice across the state. All of us in the legal community should be proud of this program’s impact!
As an NC IOLTA board member for six years, I became well versed in the processes and procedures established by the program, which is subject to oversight by the North Carolina Supreme Court and follows strict policies and protocols that include diligent financial reporting and yearly audits. The categories for awarding grant funding are dictated by State Bar administrative rules. Trustees approve detailed grant criteria, which are reviewed regularly.
Each year, the board is tasked with reviewing all grant applications and voting on grant awards. During my tenure — which spanned a period of higher interest rates and a booming real estate market that helped boost IOLTA revenue in North Carolina, allowing us to fund more organizations than ever before — I voted on almost 250 grant applications. I remain awed and deeply gratified by the impact these grantees made.
As a family law attorney, I know how important having basic legal services is to people going through family law-related situations. During my time on the board, we sought applications for grantees providing family law services, an identified area of unmet need for low-income people. Inner Banks Legal Services, based in “Little” Washington, started receiving NC IOLTA grant funding in 2023 to provide family law services to people in underserved communities in Eastern North Carolina. Another grantee, Wake County Legal Support Center, opened in 2023 and provides pro se litigants with the resources they need to navigate the court process, with more than half of the visitors they’ve seen each year coming to court on matters of family law. I hope both of these nonprofits will become models for others to replicate across our state.
It is your support of the IOLTA program that has made this game-changing work possible. Thank you!
Participants in NC IOLTA’s Public Interest Internship Program gather at the State Bar in September 2024.
A Mission Spanning More Than 40 Years
While the State Bar has made occasional updates to the IOLTA rules, often in response to court rulings on IOLTA programs across the country, NC IOLTA has remained steadfast in its mission of funding civil legal aid organizations and administration of justice initiatives that benefit the public.
Similarly, the criteria by which prospective grantees are evaluated have not changed much over the years. The board considers many factors when deciding how to allocate available funds, including how many low-income residents a program or organization is designed to serve and what degree of need a particular community has.
During my time on the board, we made grant decisions that addressed both ongoing and emergent needs.
Recognizing the financial pressure being put on home ownership by the 2020 pandemic and subsequent economic challenges, we continued support of multiple nonprofits focused on staving off foreclosures and land loss — saving cherished homes and family farms and contributing to the stability and well-being of families and communities across the state.
Galvanized by North Carolina’s 2020 Legal Needs Assessment and the Bar’s 2023 Legal Desert Summit that highlighted gaps in access to justice in many of our counties, we renewed funding for an internship program that sends law students into these communities to work alongside legal aid attorneys, district attorneys and public defenders, and judges — bringing young legal talent into the very areas that need it most and helping interns appreciate the rewards (and challenges) of practicing law in small towns. I have spoken with some of these students after their summer internships, and many express a keen interest in careers in public service and working in legal deserts. Programs like this one build the future of our profession across our state.
Grantees fight for disability rights; employment, health care and benefits access; safety and justice for survivors of domestic violence, victims of human trafficking, refugees and asylum-seekers; driver’s license restoration; custody and guardianship; consumer protections … The list goes on.
Responding to the daunting needs in communities in Western North Carolina after Hurricane Helene, we funded nearly $1M in emergency and out-of-cycle grants to speed resources to legal aid groups already on the ground in hard-hit areas. Even now, these groups continue to assist survivors as they work to rebuild their lives — replacing lost documents, filing insurance appeals and seeking compensation from unscrupulous service providers and fraudsters who took advantage of people in the storm’s aftermath.
NC IOLTA grantees fight for disability rights; employment, health care and benefits access; safety and justice for survivors of domestic violence, victims of human trafficking, refugees and asylum-seekers; driver’s license restoration; custody and guardianship; consumer protections … The list goes on.
Here’s the bottom line: NC IOLTA grantees — attorneys, paralegals, advocates and thousands of members of the private bar who volunteer their time because they believe in access to justice for all — use the legal tools our lawmakers at both the state and federal level have created to protect the rights of North Carolinians and to allow them to seek redress when those rights have been violated.
That was at the heart of NC IOLTA’s mission when it first started making grants in 1984, and it hasn’t changed in the more than 40 years since. Indeed, the program is built upon the very bedrock of our democracy: equal protection under the law.
Volunteer Michael Majewski, a retired attorney, assists a client with Hurricane Helene-related needs at a free legal clinic held by NC IOLTA grantees in Burnsville in March 2025.
A Harmful Funding Freeze
Last July, the General Assembly included a provision in a bipartisan bill that explicitly bars NC IOLTA from using any funds to make grants for a period of one year. As such, none of the civil legal aid organizations doing the incredibly important work described above have been awarded any grant money for 2026.
This legislation means that North Carolina is now the only state in the nation that is not funding civil legal aid through the IOLTA program.
Peter Bolac, executive director of the State Bar, has previously shared the Bar’s assessment of the impact this funding freeze will have on legal aid organizations, low-income North Carolinians and our state’s court system. I encourage you to read his Nov. 6 communication, which is available on the Bar’s website, if you have not already done so.
As of this writing in early January 2026, the General Assembly has not taken further legislative action on this matter. Good-faith efforts by State Bar and NC IOLTA leadership to address legislators’ concerns and potentially shorten the duration of the freeze do not appear to have moved the needle. As the weeks pass, the harm being done to the legal aid landscape of North Carolina grows — harm that will likely take years to undo.
The funding freeze has already cost the residents of small towns and rural communities across the state their in-person access to Legal Aid of North Carolina attorneys and advocates, as the organization has been forced to close several offices and reduce staff. These offices provided critical legal services to low-income North Carolinians including veterans, seniors and survivors of domestic violence. While LANC is doing everything they can to provide access to their services in other ways, the difficult truth is that many folks in rural areas will have an even harder time accessing the legal help they need this year.
And while LANC has long been NC IOLTA’s largest grantee, serving all 100 counties, the detrimental impact of the freeze is not limited to them. In fact, some recent NC IOLTA grantees are small, scrappy operations that do truly transformational legal work on very lean budgets. While many of them are looking to make up the funding in other ways, the loss of an anticipated NC IOLTA grant in 2026 means they could be forced to trim their operations as well.
Office closures, layoffs and reduced client intake are chipping away at a network of support that we know is already severely strained in too many of our communities.
As the State Bar has already done, I urge you to do what you can to support your local legal aid organizations through pro bono efforts and/or financial support. Share your own call to action within your professional network. And, finally, I hope you will stand with me in defense of our NC IOLTA program, a proven funder and partner in the access to justice community for more than 40 years.
Shelby Duffy Benton has practiced family law in Goldsboro, NC, for 40 years with Benton Family Law. She has served as president of the NCBA/NCBF, as a trustee and chair of NC IOLTA, and as a NC State Bar Councilor. She is currently a commissioner on the NC Domestic Violence Commission and a member of the NC State Bar Family Law Specialization Committee.
This story first appeared in the Spring 2026 issue of the North Carolina State Bar Journal and has been lightly edited for style.
Legislation passed by the North Carolina General Assembly on July 9, 2025, bars NC IOLTA from grantmaking from July 1, 2025, through June 30, 2026. Consistent with the legislation, our 2026 funding cycle has not been opened.
Learn more about NC IOLTA and find our most recent updates on this issue on our Media Resources page.
The NC State Bar and NC IOLTA continue to seek a resolution to preserve funding for civil legal aid, which plays a critical role in building a legal system that works for everyone, breaking down barriers and creating strong communities across North Carolina.