Aid Institute

Expected reductions of more than a million dollars in federal funds for legal aid services could close the Legal Services Institute in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston, a public service law clinic funded jointly by the Harvard Law School and the federal government, Institute officials said yesterday.

But Institute co-directors Jeanne C. Kettleson and Gary Bellow, a professor of Law, said yesterday that if Congress does cut the funds--a move that could come next month--they will ask the Law School to completely underwrite the cost of a new legal aid foundation.

Officials of the National Legal Services Corporation told Bellow Saturday that the Institute will receive funding to continue until the end of this academic year, six months after the close of its original four-year contract, but further funding is unlikely. Under the contract the Law School provided $150,000 a year to the Institute while the government paid $500,000.

The Law School should take over responsibility for running a clinic, Kettleson said, adding "another institute would be tangible evidence from the school of community support." The Law School Faculty will have to approve the proposal.