Born without a birth certificate: Podcast explores how legal services help people obtain vital documents

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WASHINGTON - A new podcast explores the legal battle of a Colorado-born woman with no birth certificate, the roadblocks people without identification and other vital documents experience and how attorneys at civil legal services organizations can help.

Casey Sherman, supervising attorney of Colorado Legal Services' (CLS) ID Project, and Steven Reed, staff attorney in Southeast Louisiana Legal Services' (SLLS) Litigation and Advocacy Unit, are featured on the new episode of the Legal Services Corporation's (LSC) podcast, "Talk Justice."

In an interview with host Lee Rawles, Sherman explained how her client Abigail's parents intentionally avoided documenting her birth in Woodland Park, Colorado, more than three decades ago. Abigail is 31 years old and has been trying to get a birth certificate since she was 16.

"It impacts pretty much every aspect of her life, large and small," said Sherman. "She's not able to get a driver's license. She's not able to get a job. She's not able to open a bank account, purchase a home, rent a home. She can't get a hunting license. She can't sell games to a video game store. She can't get controlled medications. She really can't get medical care outside of emergency services, because she can't get insurance."

CLS began working on her case in 2023. The state's rules stated that in order to qualify for a delayed birth certificate, a person must have a legal record of their birth that was created before their 10th birthday. Abigail's earliest record was from age 11. Sherman explained that Colorado's rules for delayed birth certificates were some of the strictest in the country.

As a result of CLS' litigation and advocacy work, the Colorado Board of Health voted to make a rule change. Now, to acquire a delayed birth certificate an applicant can submit a record that was created 10 years prior to the date of their application.

"It opened a door that was previously closed to a lot of people," said Sherman. "The impact of that small change is going to be massive for my clients. We have a pending application now under the new rule and I'm very hopeful that Abigail will finally be approved for a birth certificate soon."

Sherman said that once Abigail has her certificate, she plans to get a driver's license and finally legally marry her partner.

It is rare for legal services organizations to have a stand-alone program for acquiring identification documents - Sherman said that CLS' ID Project may be the only one in the country. The project receives grant funding from the state, and last year it helped a thousand people, she said.

Reed explained that at SLLS, like many other civil legal services organizations, document recovery and ID applications are often a part of client services across all sorts of casework. He said unstably housed people and veterans often need help replacing or applying for IDs and other records.

Natural disasters like hurricanes that frequently impact Louisiana also result in significant need for legal help with document recovery. Reed said that when people are evacuating for a storm, they often aren't thinking about saving their land ownership documents, the title to their mobile home or utility bills. This can cause issues later accessing FEMA or other aid without these very specific documents.

Without an attorney, Reed explained, the roadblocks to accessing recovery resources can be insurmountable.

"[Legal services lawyers are] for many people, the gateway to benefits," said Reed. "They're not going to get much, if any, assistance if they're not able to prove who they are, prove what they own, prove where they were, and prove, in some cases, their costs and expenses."

Sherman also emphasized the importance of this legal work.

"It's a pretty low-overhead program that just has unimaginable down-the-road impact on people because we're opening doors - we're creating self-sufficiency, we're helping people get housed, get employed, get healthcare, open businesses," she said. "They need these records to participate in modern society, and it's really hard to break that cycle without legal intervention."

"It's, you know, $20 for a birth certificate, but that means that that person can work, pay taxes, drive their children where they need to, [and can] obtain medical care," she continued. "They can do all these things that just benefit society as a whole."

To hear the rest of this conversation, listen to the full episode of Talk Justice online, on Spotify, YouTube or Apple Podcasts. The podcast is sponsored by LSC's Leaders Council.