by Kristen Pavón

The Guardian published a thought-provoking article asking what people really mean by “access to justice” in light of the proposed 60% budget cut for the U.K.’s publicly funded law.

The author, Job Robins, asks whether “access to justice” is a noble aspiration or a load of meaningless tosh. He went straight to leading lawyers, thinkers and campaigners for answers.

Ultimately, he found that the definition of access to justice has changed since the 1970s.

In the 1970s, [Italian jurist Mauro] Cappelletti directed a research project funded by the Ford Foundation on “access to justice in modern societies” and which led to a four-volume series (called, you guessed it, Access to Justice). Cappelletti once said: “The right of effective ‘access to justice’ has emerged with the new social rights. Indeed, it is of paramount importance … Effective access to justice can be seen as the most basic requirement, the most basic human right, of a system which purports to guarantee legal rights.”

However, James Sandbach, the social policy officer for Citizens Advice Bureau, told Robins that the “prevailing philosophy is one of self-help and personal responsibility” rather than representing low-income individuals through legal aid. This philosophy would help explain the types of legal aid reforms currently being proposed in the U.K.

The main theme Robins seems to have found among the responses he received is that although legal redress is of paramount importance, legal advice is never at the top of the public’s priorities. It’s only important when you’re already in trouble and your rights are in jeopardy.

Read the whole article here.

Interesting. Do we, in the U.S., have a more unified understanding of what we mean by “access to justice”? Thoughts?

By: Steve Grumm

The Albany Times-Union reports on one jurist thinking outside the box about addressing the justice gap:

That was the recommendation of one of New York’s top judges Monday in his testimony to the Task Force to Expand Access to Civil Legal Services, which was formed to address the issue. Michael Coccoma, the deputy administrative chief judge for counties outside New York City, suggested the panel consider the graduates as he urged “new ideas” during a hearing at the Court of Appeals.

“For example, when I hear that an increasing number of recent law school students are unable to find jobs, I ask myself, why can’t we develop funding streams and programs which would provide an opportunity for these attorneys, who are eager to put their skills to work in a public-service program, providing legal services for the poor?” Coccoma asked.

Coccoma suggested that in exchange for a two- or three-year commitment in that type of program, the new lawyers could receive a reduction in their student loan. He compared it to AmeriCorps programs which enables college graduates entering health care fields to get assistance with their tuition.

Hmmm.  I have profoundly mixed feelings on this issue.  On the one hand, it’s undeniable that there are signficant numbers of un- or underemployed law grads.  And there is certainly a need for more advocates for low-income people with legal problems.  But, civil legal services lawyers are already the lowest paid public interest lawyers.  The problem of low salaries has plagued legal services organizations for years.  I can appreciate how a program structured like AmeriCorps or Teach for America would be term-limited.  Thus you’re not dealing with the same problem of underpaying permanent employees.  Still, it gives me pause.

by Kristen Pavón

At a rules hearing in Wisconsin, more than two dozen legal professionals told the Supreme Court that they support a rule change requiring circuit court judges to appoint lawyers in some civil cases in which basic human needs were at stake.

This suggestion comes after the realization that pro se programs and legal aid organizations are just not enough.

Opposition to the idea is rooted in its unknown costs.

“The costs are unknown and could be huge,” said David Callender of the Wisconsin Counties Association. “The argument is always that it saves money on the back end. But we just don’t know.”

People have dubbed the idea — Civil Gideon — after the landmark case Gideon v. Wainwright, which established a poor defendant’s right to a free lawyer in a criminal cases.

There is still a lot of skepticism about how the program would work and if it would be worthwhile.

Get more details here.

My guess is that it would work the same way the public defender program does. Some states have tried similar programs. Do you know more about these programs?

What do you think about Civil Gideon? A workable solution?

by Kristen Pavón

Another great legal aid program bites the dust.

The Florida Bar Foundation is the only statewide organization in Florida that provides funding for legal aid (and does so without strings) and promotes improvements in addressing the civil legal needs of the poor.

The FBF has already suspended funding for the Florida Law School Civil Clinics and Florida Public Service Fellows programs. Now, the Foundation’s Legal Aid Summer Fellowship program is also being suspended. The good people at the FBF expect that funding for the Summer Fellowship program will be suspended for several years, possibly.

This is a sad day for civil legal aid in Florida. I was a Legal Aid Summer Fellow in 2010 and the amount of legal work fellows accomplish in ten weeks is incredible. In ten weeks, I was able to meet and interview with more than 60 clients, offer advice to almost all of them, and draft over 20 legal documents for pending litigation. And that was just me. The other 39 fellows did the same, if not more, I’m sure.

Let’s do a bit of math, shall we? In theory, the 2010 summer fellows funded by the FBF helped 2,400 clients and wrote 800 legal documents. That’s a big hit for legal aid organizations in Florida.

The benefits that the fellows received from the program are immeasurable. Fellows were able to build relationships with attorneys, save some money (the pay is $5,000 for rising 2Ls and $7,000 for rising 3Ls — paid for my Barbri course!), learn the ropes and do some really satisfying work.

I hope the program comes back sooner than later.

The Foundation’s main source of support comes from the Interest on Trust Accounts (IOTA) Program. However, Foundation grants also are supported by gifts from Florida attorneys, law firms, corporations, foundations and other individuals.

by Kristen Pavón

As if we needed more confirmation that there is an access to justice crisis in our nation, there seems to be more press coverage about the subject than ever.

I wonder if because the journalists are taking up the issue so vehemently (presumably because the public cares about the issue, or at least should care), will the lawmakers follow suit — will they hear us?

Today, this story ran in New York — For More and More Low-Income New Yorkers, Civil Legal Services Are Just Out of Reach.

Last week, out of Baltimore– At 100th anniversary, Md. Legal Aid seeing record caseload.

In Nebraska — More Nebraskans need legal aid services

In Phoenix — Lawyers say increased use of do-it-yourself legal services risky

From the New York Times– Legal Assistance in Civil Cases Under Growing Threat

From Center of Public Integrity — HUD cuts to devastate mortgage counseling agencies across nation

From HuffPost — Could More Public-Interest Lawyers in D.C. Help Prevent Domestic Tragedies?

You get my point. I only hope that some viable solutions are found created.

Looking more broadly, a similar public debate about the desperate need for legal aid funding and access-to-justice solutions is stirring in the U.K., Ireland, Lebanon, Laos and other countries.

Here are few of the recent headlines from around the world:

U.K. — Will legal aid changes limit access to justice?, Legal aid threatened by coalition plans

Lebanon — Lack of state-funded legal aid hampers justice

Laos — Laos needs help developing legal aid

Ghana — Legal Aid Scheme urged to seek for further support

Tanzania — CJ identifies flaws in Constitution

Interesting.

So, here are a couple of questions I have… Can we look abroad for solutions to our access to justice crisis? How, if at all, does our access to justice crisis affect other countries’ justice issues?

Thoughts?

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers, and greetings from the nation’s capital, where the First Lady is out and about with the regular people and those wiseacre rascals at the Onion have drawn the attention of Johnny Law.

This week in the public interest world: a Rainbow State legal services program merges with Appleseed; Cleveland Legal Aid Society gets a $ boost to help with an office move; the importance of maintaining government legal services funding here in DC; MLAB hits the century mark, and there’s no shortage of work; news about the new USAJobs site; training bilingual law students in proper legal translating/interpretation (great idea!); checking in with the Legal Services Corp.’s prez; AtJ in the Cornhusker State; a long-cherished UAW legal services programs is going the way of many other union benefits. 

• 9.28.11 – from a press release published in the Hawaii Reporter, we learn that a legal services program is merging into the national Appleseed network: “The Board of Directors of Lawyers for Equal Justice (LEJ) is proud to announce that LEJ is joining with 16 other public interest justice centers in the United States and Mexico affiliated with the Appleseed organization.  LEJ’s new name is the Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice.” 

• 9.28.11 – the Morning Journal reports on some good news for our friends at the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland.  Law firm largesse recently helped LAS relocate its Lorain County office.  Wickens, Herzer, Panza, Cook & Batista donated $40,000 to LAS to assist with the move and office operations.  (Name-partner Richard Panza is an LAS board member.)

• 9.27.11 – right here in the District, UDC Law Professor Matthew Fraidin makes the case for local government funding of legal services.  Writing in the Huffington Post, Fraidin highlights a recent death of a woman who had sought, pro se, a protection order against the alleged killer.  Fraidin uses this tragedy to illustrate the invaluable role that public interest lawyers play in guiding DV victims through a highly complex legal system.  (He notes the benefits of representation for alleged DV perpetrators, as well.)  As DC’s local elected officials are forming the budget, Fraidin argues, they must appreciate the value and importance of funding legal services.”

• 9.26.11 – the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau turns 100. Birthday present: tons and tons of clients. A Baltimore Sun article highlights the uptick in cases: Legal Aid, which employs about 150 lawyers around the state, has seen its annual caseload grow from less than 42,000 five years ago to nearly 70,000 in the fiscal year that ended in June.  The challenges faced by clients reflect the times. Unemployment insurance cases are up 150 percent in the last four years. Consumer collection cases — default on debt, Social Security attachments and the like — are up 30 percent.”

• 9.26.11 – the new (and promised-to-be-improved) USAJobs website is set to launch officially on 10/13.  From the Government Executive website, some important details about the transition: “Agencies will have to close all open job announcements before Oct. 6, when the system will be made unavailable to all applicants. The downtime will allow agencies to move data to the new platform built by OPM and create a level playing field for job seekers and human resources staff. According to agency officials, the system could be back up and running as early as Oct. 11.”

• 9.26.11 – here’s one from the “good ideas” department.  The Jacksonville Daily Record reports that a group of bilingual Florida Coastal Law students participated in the “Interpreting and Translating in a Legal Setting” training.  “Led by Elizabeth Cuevas, the Clinical Student Representative for the Florida Coastal Immigration Clinic, students learned the differences between interpreting and translating and their roles in helping clients through the clinical program and from possible outside agencies.” While working in legal services I relied on law students and support staff for interpreting and translation help with non-English-speaking clients.  It’s pretty easy to tell the difference between a trained interpreter and an untrained one, and working with someone who’s trained makes a huge difference.  

• 9.25.11 – the Washington Post checks in with Legal Services Corporation president Jim Sandman, who has taken the helm in stormy seas.  LSC faces congressional funding cuts and continued scrutiny of its grantee monitoring procedures. Sandman offers four of his goals moving forward:

• “Create an independent body to make fiscal operations more efficient;
• Focus on getting services to hard-to-reach communities;
• Prove legal aid is different [than other federally funded programs that are threatened with funding cuts.  In particular: providing citizens with equal access to justice is in keeping with our Constitution’s fundamental tenets.]
• Seek alternative revenue sources.”

• 9.25.11 – AtJ news from the Cornhusker State.  The Grand Island Independent – hey, I spent a night there in a roadside motel while driving cross-country in my beloved 1991 Honda Civic – reports on a widening justice gap.  “More Nebraskans than ever have the need for free legal aid, but the available funds and number of attorneys willing to take on a pro-bono case are limited, said a group of Nebraska Bar Association executive committee members who were traveling the state last week talking about the cause…. State bar president-elect Warren Whitted noted that “of 25,000 qualifying applications [for legal services], about 10,000 were able to be served [because of resource shortages]. Most of those cases involved domestic matters, landlord/ tenant disputes, and social security questions.”

• 9.24.11 – did you know that, for decades, free legal services were available to some GM autoworkers via their union contract?  Neither did I.  Does it surprise you that this benefit is going away as the UAW continues a fundamental restructuring of its relationship with American automakers?  Me neither.  The Detroit Free-Press reports that via a tentative labor deal, in 2014 a UAW-created legal aid program will come to an end: “The program, which operates separately from the UAW, employs about 200 attorneys and covers legal services, such as adopting a child, probate proceedings and real estate disputes.”  Similar programs for Ford and Chrysler workers could suffer the same fate.  

by Kristen Pavón

Huffington Post’s Matthew Fraidin suggests that part of the D.C. Council’s $89 million surplus go to funding more legal aid.

With Alecia Wheeler’s story as a tragic reminder, Fraidin recognized the tremendous “bang legal services lawyers provide for every buck” and how public interest lawyers could help save lives.

In domestic violence cases, the litigants’ testimony often is the primary source of information for the judge. Without a lawyer asking questions sequentially and with the goal of eliciting answers which amount to a legally-cognizable complaint, a story may emerge incompletely and disjointedly. Facts which may be of great importance to the complainant may be of limited significance under the law, or the judge may misperceive their true meaning. . . .

And many litigants are not aware of the importance of marshaling additional corroborating evidence, such as witness testimony, telephone records, police reports, hospital records, and 911 telephone recordings. For a woman fleeing or hiding from a batterer, especially if she is trying to care for children at the same time, building an air-tight case on her own is simply unrealistic.

That is where a lawyer comes in. The District of Columbia is fortunate to have a strong community of committed anti-domestic violence advocates and legal services lawyers. We get that stellar service on the cheap: salaries for legal services lawyers start at about $40,000. And those resources are complemented by top-flight student law clinics, as well as pro bono lawyers affiliated with the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program.

But nearly 4,500 people, mostly women, seek stay-away orders each year in the District of Columbia. Using the Access to Justice Commission’s estimate that 98% of litigants are unrepresented, that is too many chances for even the most careful judges to get it wrong.

As Council members weigh the many funding priorities competing for a piece of the $89 million pie, they should recognize the bang legal services lawyers provide for every buck. Studies show that legal aid more than pays for itself. Even more to the point, domestic violence lawyers make women safer by using legal avenues, such as child support actions, that reduce a victim’s financial dependence on a batterer and eliminate one obstacle to ending a dangerous relationship.

Read the rest of the article here.

Hello, PSLawNet Blog readers.  Please spread the word far and wide among nonprofit and government law offices.  Our survey response deadline is extended to Friday, 9/30.  Here’s some more detail:

The National Association for Law Placement (NALP) is conducting a brief, anonymous survey of nonprofit and government public-interest law offices throughout the country about 1) recent law student and attorney hiring and 2) hiring expectations for the immediate future. We will use the data to produce a report about what the public interest employment market looks like now and how it may change in the near future.  NALP will release the report later this fall. The report will be made freely available online. The report will NOT identify any responding organizations by name. We hope the report will benefit the public interest legal community as well as law students and attorneys who are on public interest career paths.  Please participate in the brief, online survey by clicking here.  Please contact Steve Grumm with any questions: sgrumm@nalp.org.

By: Steve Grumm

In a Post article/interview, LSC President Jim Sandman laid out four goals for LSC’s immediate future as it confronts likely cuts in its congressional appropriation.  The goals:

1. Create an independent body to make fiscal operations more efficient;
2. Focus on getting services to hard-to-reach communities;
3. Prove legal aid is different;
4. Seek alternative revenue sources.

All of these make sense in light of the sure-to-be-difficult appropriations battle which lies ahead, as well as the current climate in which so many people and families who are eligible for legal assistance can not access legal services due to resource shortages.  It’s noteworthy that another LSC initiative (which did not make it into this Post piece) involves a re-invigoration of efforts to marshal pro bono resources.  I’m hopeful that this conversation will not be confined to getting private lawyers (and law students) to handle more pro bono cases, but will also include broader discussion of the private bar’s role as a steward of the justice system at a time when more and more Americans are disconnected from courts and other legal channels. 

As to goal #3 above – proving that legal aid is different: what Mr. Sandman is getting at is that in the funding battle on Capitol Hill, LSC will need to make itself stand apart from other federal programs that face funding cuts:

“We need to make our case that legal aid is important and is a critical component of access to justice,” Sandman said. “We need to distinguish ourselves from other programs subject to cuts. Why are we different? Every program is getting reduced. In an environment like that, the burden is on us to explain why … access to justice is different from other types of programs funded by the government because it has to do with who we are as a country. Hard times test values. And they’re not all the same. The first line of the Constitution mentions establishing justice as a core purpose of the national government. The framers mentioned establishing justice before providing for the common defense or ensuring domestic tranquility.”

By: Steve Grumm

We’re a few days late to the party on this, but FYI, from the Minnesota Judicial Branch’s website:

The Minnesota Client Access, Barriers and Solutions Study (“MN-CABS Study”) was a joint project of the Minnesota State Bar Association, the Bremer Foundation, the Minnesota Legal Services Coalition and the Legal Services Advisory Committee.  The purpose of the MN-CABS Study was to identify specific groups of legal services-eligible clients around Minnesota, the barriers they face to obtaining legal services, and strategies for overcoming those barriers.  

This study was the first of its kind in Minnesota and in the country. Its innovative methodology – using direct surveys and focus groups of eligible clients, much of it conducted by staff from legal services and pro bono programs that have been trained by University of Minnesota researchers – provides a model of client-centered analysis that goes well beyond generic needs assessments.

The study was released on September 13, 2011 and is available at the following link:  Final MN-CABS Report