Over $2 million in cuts from the state and federal government have forced the closure of the Boone, Henderson, and Smithfield branches of Legal Aid of NC. Legal Aid is a nonprofit that helps low- and moderate-income persons with judicial branch issues. The three offices that closed were located in rural areas. Executives assumed they could do the most for the most by maintaining operations in zones of denser populations. Legal Aid claims it can only meet about half its demand. A revenue stream deemed highly responsible for the cuts and closings is the NC Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts program, which, prior to the current post-recessionary boom, collected slumping sums from “large commercial real estate transactions.”