The Survival of Legal Services for the Poor in Connecticut
| Pages | 313 |
| Publication year | 2021 |
70 CBJ 313. The Survival of Legal Services for the Poor in Connecticut
On March 18, 1996, a group of Judges, legislators, law school teachers, practicing lawyers and other interested persons held a full-day meeting at the Connecticut State Capitol Building to discuss the survival of legal services for the poor in Connecticut. The meeting was convened by the Connecticut Bar Foundation (CBF) and its James W, Cooper Fellows. The program for the conference and a list of participants are attached. Approximately 150 people attended.
Part I of this document describes at some length what transpired on March 18. Part 11 is an outline of the problems, the possible solutions, and possible methods for solutions raised by the conference. The impact of the 1996 meeting has already become visible, as noted in the epilogue to this report.
A. Speakers and Panelists in the Morning: -The Problem Facing Legal Services and the Impact on the Judicial System.
The first speaker, Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court Ellen Ash Peters, began by pointing out that the rationale of the well-known opinion of the United States Supreme Court in Gideon v. Wainwright (fn1) made as much sense in the civil arena as it did in Gideon's own context, a criminal case. That reasoning was self-evident: without recourse to competent legal assistance, legal rights are an empty shell. Legal assistance is essential to alleviate human misery on a micro-scale; to protect individuals from being evicted unlawfully from their homes, to assure that a marriage dissolution is accomplished with equity and concern for human needs, or to defend individuals' rights from overreaching by the powerful or from indifference of administrators. Finally, the Chief Justice pointed out that, even if one were to assume that an individual could adequately protect herself from the disability of not having a lawyer, the burden on the courts to protect such pro se parties is substantially greater than the simi
lar burden on the courts when all parties are represented by competent counsel. Given the recent cuts in personnel in the Judicial department, the courts are not well positioned to accept an increased burden that necessarily will flow from further cuts in support of legal services
Alexander Forger, President of the Legal Services Corporation, the federal program charged with supporting legal services throughout the country, endorsed Chief Justice Peters' observation that the right to counsel may be even more important to an individual threatened with eviction or the loss of medical care than such a right is to some criminally accused. Attorney Forger then described the attrition of federal funds to support Legal Services. He pointed out that the federal government would have to supply between 848 and 900 million dollars in order to support Legal Services in the manner of 1981, the peak year of federal support for the program. Instead, Congress appropriated only 278 million dollars for the current year.
Moreover, Congressional support has been further eroded by a litany of restrictions that most lawyers find difficult to reconcile with a lawyer's obligation to represent a client to the best of the lawyer's abilities. In 1995, legal services handled 1.7 million cases, 99.99% of which were routine cases that reflected individual needs, not social engineering. The cases were about evictions, family matters, spousal abuse, adoptions, and benefits. Yet, Congress forbade any legal services office, if it receives federal money, to challenge the constitutionality of any law, even if the challenge is necessary for the benefit of individual clients. Also, such legal services offices no longer can represent prisoners in legitimate claims under non-criminal law, can no longer represent aliens, and can no longer lobby or speak to any legislator (even if the legislator requests information). Congress has ended financial support of law school clinics and of training centers, and - perhaps most destructive of all - decreed that if an organization accepts any federal money for its program, it must adhere to all of these restrictions for its entire operation, no matter whether or not the funding comes from other sources. Finally, Congress still has Legal Services targeted for total elimination from the federal budget. Attorney Forger concluded with sentiments that support the idea of some kind of "mandatory pro bono," an idea he conceded has never been very welcome among lawyers.
Hugh C. Macgill, Dean of the University of Connecticut School of Law and President of Neighborhood Legal Services, Inc., described the response of Connecticut's legal services providers to the federal restrictions. The four primary providers have declined to accept any further federal monies so long as the restrictions described by Alexander Forger are in place. As a re- sult, the providers' budgets have been cut by approximately one quarter (Note: of all 50 states, Connecticut was least dependent, proportionately, on federal dollars). A new Statewide Legal Services organization was created to qualify for the federal grant; it will honor the federal restrictions by performing only intake matters and doing no actual representation of clients. As a result of lost financial support for legal services from all sources, there has been a 40% drop since 1992 in the number of people working at legal services for the benefit of the poor; there was an 18% decline last year alone. Dean Macgill then observed that he disagreed with the suggestion that mandatory pro bono "made the practice of representing poor people is, in itself, a sense. Specialty that most lawyers are not educated to perform. Macgill concluded with a challenge: How do we, those who have homes, cars, clothes, and bank accounts, claim a right to retain what we have and deny others access to the system of Justice which is our proudest boast and which we simply take for granted because, for the most part, we do not need it? How do we keep what we have and deny others the opportunity to get something?
Anne C. Dranginis, the Chief Administrative Judge of the Family Division of Superior Courts in Connecticut, observed that legal services lawyers of the past had distinguished themselves well in their work involving cases of child custody and visitation rights, cases which involve nontraditional families or those unfamiliar with the American social customs and institutions. The process of conflict resolution within the court system relies heavily on legal professionals' familiarity with the requirements of that system. Judges believe the process is more efficient and adequate if the litigants are actually represented by lawyers. This is especially true because of disadvantaged upbringing and undereducation, which aggravates the relative inability of the poor to represent themselves in court. There is no balance in a case in which one of the parties appears pro se. In one Judicial district, data show that 40% of family cases involved at least one pro se litigant. In most cases, the child is not represented at all; that
fact is a serious shortcoming in the process. Legal services lawyers have been instrumental in developing materials to help individuals to appear in court on their own behalf No doubt more will be done in that regard. Yet, it is not adequate for those people. Moreover, the courts and society will be deprived of any meaningful opportunity to address new issues. The evolution of the law and the ability of the law to respond to the needs and rights of all people will be stunted. The courts will become relatively stagnant in matters that are of most pressing concern to the poor; only the privileged will see the courts develop in a manner responsive to their needs
B. Panels
1. "Current Responses to the Problem"
The first panel addressed the response in Connecticut of the state's legal services providers to the changes in financial support and the restrictions attached to them.
Norman K. Janes, Director of Statewide Legal Services of Connecticut, described the creation of that organization, which had been in the minds of the several legal services directors for the last few years. As resources dwindled, the directors gave considerable thought and planning to serving the community through increased advice by telephone and brochure. This thinking reflected the decrease in funding which necessitated refusal of direct representation for more and more of the potential clients who came to legal services for help. The new federal legislation, which barred recipients of federal money from spending any money, regardless of source, in any of the ways Congress had limited the use of federal money, dictated the timing for the creation of a new organization, Statewide Legal Services of Connecticut. This organization screens clients' cases and needs, evaluates the clients' cases, refers the cases to others, and sometimes provides brief service (either over the telephone or via pamphlets mailed to clients). The organization receives the only federal money granted to legal services in Connecticut. In the future, the organization anticipates doing some representation of clients over the telephone (for example, talking to a client's landlord) and assisting more people in appearing pro se on their own behalf.
Patricia R. Kaplan, Director of the New Haven Legal Assistance, reported that approximately four out of every five quali
fied applicants do not get full representation from legal services. In 1992, there were approximately 125 lawyers and 40 paralegals working for legal services in Connecticut. Today, there are 75 lawyers and 21 paralegals. Obviously, legal services...
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