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CRLA - Study and Evaluation of CRLA by California OEO, 1971 - Condensation (1 of 2)
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CRLA - Study and Evaluation of CRLA by California OEO, 1971 - Condensation (1 of 2)
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Ronald Reagan's Governor's Papers of the Press Unit
California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA) Files
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Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
Digital Library Collections
This is a PDF of a folder from our textual collections.
Collection: Reagan, Ronald: Gubernatorial Papers,
1966-74: Press Unit
Folder Title: CRLA - Study and Evaluation of CRLA
by California OEO, 1971 - Condensation
(1 of 2)
Box: P29
To see more digitized collections visit:
https://reaganlibrary.gov/archives/digital-library
To see all Ronald Reagan Presidential Library inventories visit:
https://reaganlibrary.gov/document-collection
Contact a reference archivist at: [email protected]
Citation Guidelines: https://reaganlibrary.gov/citing
National Archives Catalogue: https://catalog.archives.gov/
A STUDY AND EVALUATION
OF
CALIFORNIA RURAL LEGAL ASSISTANCE, INC.
BY
CALIFORNIA OFFICE OF ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY
1971
LEWIS K. UHLER, DIRECTOR
(A Condensation)
A STUDY AND EVALUATION
OF
CALIFORNIA RURAL LEGAL ASSISTANCE, INC.
BY
CALIFORNIA OFFICE OF ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY
1971
LEWIS K. UHLER, DIRECTOR
(A Condensation)
A 283-page evaluation report of California
Rural Legal Assistance, Inc., based on almost 9,000 pages
of reference material and documentation, was made public
during the first week of January, 1971, after its deliv-
ery to OEO officials in Washington, D.C.
The final report constitutes the work product
of the Office of Economic Opportunity, State of Califor-
nia - its Director and its staff.
California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc., is one
of the largest publicly financed legal service programs in
the United States. It is structured as a California non-
profit corporation, funded by an OEO grant and created to
render civil legal services to the rural poor from nine
operational offices, a central administrative office in
San Francisco and an office involved in legislative ad-
vocacy in Sacramento. During 1970, National OEO, under
leadership of Donald Rumsfeld, was considering the idea of
regionalizing legal service programs. This move was inter-
preted by the poverty-law establishment as an attempt by
OEO to weaken the legal services program by diffusing and
localizing its control. In late November, this poverty-law
establishment mobilized national protest to decry the long-
coming dismissal of National Legal Service Director Terry
Lenzner and his assistant. Subsequently, Donald Rumsfeld
was regaled by angry denunciations from this establishment's
representatives from every legal service program in the
United States. Pressure built up to the point where, in
order to counter the impression that the Nixon Administration
was opposed to legal services, the Director of OEO made a
highly unusual public announcement that he had approved CRLA's
refunding proposal for 1971 - an approval that accelerated the
program's refunding cycle.
In some ways the most difficult aspect of the
evaluation concerns the people in the communities served by
CRLA. Given the ability of the poverty-law establishment to
harass those who disagree with it in the press and in court,
some people in the communities have felt a great reluctance
to speak their dissatisfaction with CRLA publicly. In fact,
since the release of the report in the first week in January,
acts of harassment have been reported against those who
contributed by affidavit or statement to the investigative
staff of California State OEO.
-2-
CRLA has always exhibited a public eagerness
to be evaluated by anyone who cared to do so, but in early
December, 1970, when the Stanislaus County Grand Jury
launched an investigation in response to the "growing public
concern that CRLA, Inc., is not carrying out its stated
corporate purpose of providing adequate legal assistance for
the poor," CRLA secured from the Federal District Court
an injunction against any investigation of their program.
The incident is lamentable, for this was the first time
that a program of this nature was to be evaluated by people
in the area being served by that program.
By its grant conditions, CRLA is prohibited from
involving itself in the following activities:
(1) representation in criminal cases;
(2) accepting cases that are fee-generating
in nature;
(3) accepting clients who do not conform with
poverty income guidelines;
(4) accepting labor unions as clients.
In addition to the specific grant conditions out-
lined above, there exists a body of rules of professional
conduct and canons of legal ethics designed to create an
atmosphere, framework and relationship with those to be
served and with the community at large, which maintains the
dignity of the legal profession and gives the program its
-3-
highest potential for success. Following are some of
these considerations:
(a) a prohibition against soliciting clients
and stirring up litigation;
(b) a prohibition against conduct unbecoming
an attorney;
(c) a prohibition against the filing of har-
assing or frivolous actions;
(d) a special prohibition attending taxpayer-
supported legal services, to wit, that the attorneys shall
not waste precious resources and shall be guided by a con-
cern for economy in all respects;
(e) a prohibition against newspaper publicity
by an attorney as to pending or anticipated litigation.
The 1971 grant evaluation which led to Governor
Reagan's veto of CRLA constitutes an alarming profile of
flagrant violation of the terms of CRLA's grant contract,
articles of CRLA's incorporation and the spirit of the
purpose of CRLA.
CRLA's Activities Behind Prison Walls
CRLA has accelerated its activities in California
prisons since the celebrated "Soledad Soul Brothers" murder
case and a second case referred to in the press as the
"Soledad Seven" case. Both of these cases are murder cases
-4-
in which Black inmates are accused of killing Caucasian
guards.
One of the defendants in the "Soledad Soul Brothers"
case, George Jackson, is the brother of the Jackson killed at
the San Rafael Courthouse break attempt in August, 1970. Three
other persons, including the Presiding Judge of the Court, were
killed during this break attempt. Jackson was in possession
of weapons registered to Angela Davis, the Black militant who
has been accused of conspiracy in the murders. CRLA attor-
neys tried to intercede on behalf of Angela Davis or her
attorneys to gain permission for her to visit George Jackson
at the Soledad Penitentiary prior to the break attempt at
the San Rafael courthouse.
The following incident at Soledad Penitentiary
shows the gravity of CRLA's involvement within the California
State Prison System. On October 30, 1970, David Kirkpatrick,
CRLA attorney for the Salinas office, telephoned to Monterey
County Assistant District Attorney Edward Barnes. Kirkpatrick
stated that he wanted to see a prisoner at the Correctional
Training Facility at Soledad. The inmate in question was a
potential witness in the "Soledad Soul Brothers" murder case.
Kirkpatrick told Barnes that one Peter Haberfeld (a CRLA attor-
ney with the Marysville office, who left the employ of CRLA in
September) represented the prisoner on a writ of habeas corpus,
and Haberfeld wanted him (Kirkpatrick) to take a message to
the prisoner.
-5-
Assistant District Attorney Barnes contacted the
prisoner in question and was told that he (the prisoner) did
not know any Peter Haberfeld. Nevertheless, Kirkpatrick did
talk to the prisoner and asked him if he was going to be a
witness in the case and testify for the prosecution. The con-
versation is recorded in an affidavit:
"I,
# am an inmate at Soledad
Correctional Training Facility, Soledad,
California. The first contact I had with
representatives of the California Rural
Legal Assistance was in November, 1970,
when Faye Stender and Richard Silver came
to see me at Folsom Prison. I was told by
them that they wanted to talk to me about
the killing that I had witnessed at Soledad
while I was there. They showed me a letter
that had been written to CRLA by another
inmate named
,
who was, I believe,
may have been involved in the crime. This
letter stated that some of the correctional
officers may be trying to set me up to be
killed and that maybe CRLA could help me.
Both of the attorneys talked with (me) for
a while then asked me if I wanted them to
represent me. I advised them that I did
not and that if I needed a lawyer I could
get one of my own. They then stated that
they would recommend a lawyer to me from
the Marysville, California, area. Shortly
after that I was transferred back to the
Soledad facility. In late November, 1970,
I received an unrequested visit from a Mr.
Kir (k) patrick, who told me he was a lawyer.
He stated the reason that he was there was
because a lawyer in Marysville had asked
him to stop by and see me. He advised me
that he wanted to know my position regard-
ing the killing. I told him that I had
already told Captain
, of the
Soledad Facility, what I had seen. The
lawyer then asked me if I wanted him to
tell the Black inmates that I was okay?
-6-
I answered no. He then asked if that
meant that I was going to testify for the
State. I answered yes, that I was. He
then asked if I thought the State could
protect me better than 'we' can. I ans-
wered yes, I thought they could. He then
said 'That's it?' I answered yes. He
then advised me that I had better write
my lawyer in Marysville and tell him to
forget about helping me get out. Since
I didn't know his name and address I asked
him to tell him. At this time I had less
than
to do on my sentence, and
I would be released, so I don't know why
anyone said they would try and get me out.
This was the only contact I had with CRLA,
and I don't know any more about the organ-
ization."
(Emphasis added.)
It appears that Kirkpatrick subtly threatened
the inmate and suggested that the inmate, at best, suppress
evidence and, at worst, commit perjury at the murder trial.
The report also documents CRLA attempts to impose
themselves upon the California Correctional System to erode
penal discipline and revise administrative correctional pol-
icies by filing civil actions based on questionable and, in
some cases, preposterous claims.
CRLA's posture in its prison thrust, especially
at Soledad and San Quentin, has been to attempt to make in-
roads into and establish a rapport with incarcerated ethnic
minorities, with the intention of creating disharmony and
e xploiting extant racial and ethnic tensions between inmates,
as well as between inmates and the established prison order.
-7-
CRLA and Youth
The report reveals very disturbing evidence that
CRLA and individual CRLA attorneys and staff members have
acted and are acting as catalytic agents in school agitation
incidents. Their actions have been direct and vigorous in
helping to foment serious student harassment of school
authorities, assaults on school discipline and the orderly
conduct of local schools in California.
The report includes nine in-depth case studies
of open CRLA involvement in fomenting and carrying through
school confrontations and incidents.
One case documents how CRLA staff members counseled
a juvenile girl and enticed her into acts of Chicano agit-
ation with the assistance of two school teachers and two CRLA
staff members in San Benito County. Another case shows how
CRLA attorneys and staff members were responsible for trans-
porting 94 school pupils of high school and junior high level
(many of them juveniles) to a "Free Cesar Chavez" rally and
demonstration without the consent of their parents or the
school. In this case, one CRLA staff member's car was used
to transport students to the rally. In another case, a
CRLA attorney appeared at a junior high school to participate
in a seminar and in the process of his participation used ob-
scenities before the class and wrote obscene four-letter words
on the blackboard, much to the chagrin of the faculty members
-8-
involved in the seminar. Another case shows how a CRLA attorney
published an underground newspaper with the return address of
the Marysville CRLA office. The underground newspaper in
question, "The People's Paper for Community Agitation," ex-
tolled the virtues of racial violence and conformed edit-
orially with the myrmidons of the revolutionary Left.
The report states, "What is even more distressing
is that CRLA attorneys and staff members in their quest to
foment school disorders have exploited racism among Negro
and Mexican-American students.
"The image of law displayed by too many CRLA
attorneys is a vision of dissent - on the streets if it
is expedient - not a basic concern for justice," the report
states. "It is our firm opinion that a great many CRLA
attorneys are 'true believers', hitch-hiking a ride at the
expense of the rural poor to achieve a dislocation of our
social, political and economic order."
CRLA and the Farm
CRLA operates in rural and, therefore, largely
farming areas. The relationship of CRLA to farmers, farm
workers and the farm industry is intimate. The State of
Califonia is equally deeply enmeshed in agriculture, being
the Nation's number one agricultural state, functioning in
-9-
areas of farm worker housing, health and safety standards
enforcement, farm labor services and SO on. The Farm Labor
Service division of the Dept. of Human Resources Development,
has 42 offices throughout the State, which act, among
other things, as a rallying point or marketplace for farm
workers so that they may be readily linked up with available
farm work.
It might be expected that CRLA would work closely
with the State in agricultural matters. This is not the
case, however. CRLA makes it clear from its actions and
even its words that it is seeking to put California's Farm
Labor Services out of business.
On March 5, 1970, CRLA filed an action commonly
known as the "250 Farm Workers V. Schultz" in the U.S.
District Court for the Northern District of California,
seeking, among other things, to close down the Farm Labor
Service of the State of California. The case was replete
with a variety of subterfuge and misrepresentation on the
part of CRLA. One man, who was approached to sign a peti-
tion while attending a remedial class in English for
Spanish-speaking farm workers held at night at a local high
school stated that a CRLA staff member admonished the remedial
English class to sign petitions against California's Farm
Labor Service Agency.
-10-
There is a method to CRLA's thrust against the
California Farm Labor Service. Without conveniently
located centers through which farm laborers could find
available work, it would appear that farm workers would
be severely harmed and would have to turn to their own
devices for work opportunities. It is the vision of CRLA
to replace Farm Labor Service offices with UFWOC union
halls. In this way, Cesar Chavez' union would not have
competition from State hiring halls.
Just as CRLA has attempted and is attempting to
put California's Farm Labor Service out of business, it
is summarily attempting to harass private farm labor
contractors with the hope of eliminating them, too.
CRLA and UFWOC have apparently combined to seek
administrative hearings against farm labor contractors for
a variety of alleged causes. Many of the farm labor contrac-
tors are very poor themselves. The poor or marginal farm
labor contractor, when confronted with a lawsuit or adminis-
trative hearing, may well find it financially impossible
to continue on in this business. Even the larger operators,
such as those which provide housing, transportation, etc.,
find a time-consuming, expensive lawsuit too much to handle.
If farm labor contrctors (they are licensed and
are subject to rules of operation and conduct) were severely
-11-
constricted by legal harassment, and if the Farm Labor Services
bureau of the State of California were terminated, what would
be left for the farm worker in the way of assistance in loca-
ting employment? Who would he turn to?
The hope of CRLA and UFWOC is obviously the Chavez'
farm union. CRLA's relationship with the UFWOC has been
subject to controversy since CRLA began in 1966. In Septem-
ber, 1967, Congressman Robert B. Mathias, wrote to the Comptrol-
ler General of the United States and requested that the Genera 1
Accounting Office (GAO) conduct an investigation of CRLA's
activities, with particular attention to its relationship
with UFWOC. It is to be noted that both the Economic Oppor-
tunity Act (Section 603 and attendant regulations) and a
special condition of CRLA's 1970 grant prohibits CRLA from
representing a labor union.
GAO conducted a two-month investigation at the
end of 1967, and published its findings in a report dated
May 29, 1968, entitled "Report on Investigation of Certain
Activities of the California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc
,
under Grants by Office of Economic Opportunity."
In his cover letter to Congressman Mathias, acting
Comptroller General Frank H. Weitzel concluded: "We found
no evidence that the grantee (CRLA) was working directly
for the union or that the activities we reviewed violated
special grant conditions relating to union activities."
-12-
Since the GAO report, no one has had the temerity
to reopen the issue.
Our investigation of the relationship between CRLA
and UFWOC demands that the case be reopened. Far from dis-
posing of the issue, the GAO report has served as a launching
pad for a relationship that has grown steadily since 1968,
when the report was released. This growth has taken place
despite efforts to strengthen the special conditions to
CRLA's grant in each of the funding years 1968, 1969, and
1970. If the GAO had conducted its study under the special
conditions applied since 1968, we are confident they would
have reached much different conclusions.
The close association of CRLA and UFWOC is sug-
gested by the following example:
--UFWOC's first major target area was the grape
strike in Delano. In 1968, CRLA's McFarland office, which
services Delano, was among the largest of its regional offices.
In 1969 and 1970, the union shifted its attention towards
Imperial County and Salinas. During those two years, the
CRLA McFarland office shrunk to approximately one-half its
former size, as it built up its offices in El Centro and
Salinas.
--CRLA's original Board of Trustees included four
members who were either directly connected with UFWOC or
closely associated with its work. They were: Cesar Chavez,
-13-
President of UFWOC; Oscar Gonzales, President of the United
Farm Workers of San Jose; Larry Itliong, of the Agricultural
Workers Organizing Committee; and Miss Kathryn Peake, Vice
Chairman, Emergency Committee to Aid Farmworkers.
--Gerry Cohen, now General Counsel of UFWOC, was
formerly employed in CRLA's McFarland office. Charles
Farnsworth, one of Cohen's partners and active in UFWOC
matters, worked in CRLA's El Centro office. Another partner,
David Averbuck, came from CRLA's Marysville office. Gilbert
Flores, alias Baby Huey, is both a community worker for CRLA's
McFarland office and a personal bodyguard for UFWOC's Cesar
Chavez.
In all of the dem onstrations and confrontations
of UFWOC, there is always a prominence of CRLA staff attorneys
or staff members.
The report states, "It now appears clear that CRLA's
conduct with respect to Agriculture in California does not
consist of simply isolated actions and cases helping individual
poor farm workers and their families with their problems. There
is, in fact, a grand strategy, which, until one has an oppor-
tunity to view the scene from a statewide prospective, is only
a concealed agenda."
This grand strategy is to organize and unionize the
farm workers in California into a labor monolith--a monopoly
-14-
union--underthe control and direction of UFWOC. The means
of accomplishing this objective are:
(1) Assistance to UFWOC's activists--pickets,
demonstrators, organizers--and its rank and file members;
(2) Diminution or destruction of the major obstacles
in its path, to wit, the Farm Labor Service of the State of
California and the farm labor contractors who operate throughout
the State.
A CASE OF NONCOMPLIANCE, CRIMINAL REPRESENTATION
Contrary to the claim of CRLA, as contained in its
1971 refunding proposal--narrative and budget--and which
on page 33 is chimed, "CRLA has never been formally accused
of violating the conditions of its grant, with regard to
handling of criminal cases," the 1971 evaluation study cites
17 specific cases in which CRLA attorneys were attorneys of
record in purely criminal actions.
The District Attorney of Sutter County indicates
that he has given up objecting to representation of criminals
by CRLA attorneys. Several district attorneys have shifted
the focus of their concern about CRLA's representing criminal
defendants regarding violation of CRLA's grant conditions to
the quality of representation that criminal defendants are
receiving from CRLA attorneys.
One district attorney said he felt uncomfortable
having to assist CRLA attorneys in criminal defense, when
-15-
his office was supposed to be on the other side of the case.
He said he has continued to do it reluctantly, because of
his fear that otherwise the defendants would not receive
adequate counsel.
When the fact that CRLA attorneys represented clients
in criminal actions has been brought to the attention of CRLA
management in San Francisco, the central office inevitably
responds by saying that that the erring attorney has provided
representation "on his own time, at his own expenses, and
without charging a fee." In response to this claim, one
Deputy District Attorney declared, "This is ridiculous to
say that an attorney working for a corporate law firm may
take on clients which are prohibited to him during a regular
working day. To follow this to its logical conclusion, then
a District Attorney might well represent a lucrative personal
injury case or rich criminal defendant on interim 'days off. 11
It is interesting to note that many of the criminal
cases handled by CRLA attorneys are the result of arrests in
demonstrations that CRLA helped to foment.
Eligibility Standard for CRLA Attorneys
There is a requirement for CRLA that clients meet
a prescribed income eligibility standard, so that those,
in fact, able to pay for an attorney will do so and will not
-16-
utilize the limited resources of CRLA.
The report states that during the recent evaluation
there was never any indication that there was a concern on
the part of any CRLA office that the eligibility guidelines
be adhered to. The report documents cases in which CRLA
attorneys represented individuals and/or organizations that
were not even close to the guideline restrictions. One case
documented accuses CRLA of filing a suit for a plaintiff who
was worth in excess of $100,000. In another case, CRLA re-
presented the Chowchilla Committee for Better Schools and one
affiant states that the treasurer of that organization is
worth in excess of $250,000, and that the main members of
the Committee are financially above the prescribed guidelines
for eligibility to receive free legal aid from CRLA. There
are eight cases documented in the 1971 evaluation report showing
gross neglect in conforming with the OEO grant guidelines for
eligibility by CRLA.
Soliciting Clients and Stirring Up Litigation
The report states, "The issue of stirring up liti-
gation is a particularly sensitive one, because of the extent
to which litigation of any sort, particularly suits alleging
exploitation between one group and another, can cause hos-
tilities and tensions between them. This is especially
-17-
dangerous in race relations, where tensions and hostilities
may already be aggravated to near violence."
The report documents a case in which a CRLA paid
staff attorney let it be known that he was "looking for a woman
welfare recipient who had been requested to take a polygraph
examination by the Madera County District Attorney's office
so that they could take legal action." In another case, it
is stated that the CRLA local office at El Centro solicited
clients to make complaints against feed lots in the Calexico
area ("Imperial Valley News" of February 3, 1967.) The story
said, in part, that the CRLA attorney "needs a class suit to
work with a group of people to bring an action 11 The
article goes on to state that complaints may be made to the
CRLA office in El Centro. In Modesto, during the school
lunch demonstrations during January, 1970, CRLA was
responsible for organizing and directing a demonstration
which resulted in the arrest and trial of some 42 demonstra-
tors for trespass on the Modesto School District building in
April, 1970. An affidavit relative to this matter states:
" These two lawyers, (CRLA), were all
too active. First, they told the demon-
strators that they would represent them
legally in court if arrested. Second,
they spent the entire day, day after day,
at the city school's offices, with the dem-
onstrators, where in fact they should have
been at their offices doing their official
duties talking to clients..."
-18-
In another case, during September, 1970, on a
newscast on KSVW, Channel 8, Salinas, the newscaster quoted
a CRLA attorney who solicited clients for the CRLA office.
Stirring up litigation often involves conscrip-
ting plaintiffs. In the case of Wolfin V. Vinson, CRLA
filed suit on behalf of 16 Indians against a local car
dealer. When they were later questioned in depositions,
15 of the 16 plaintiffs denied that they had ever been
requested to be part of the lawsuit. Duirng the "250
Farm Workers" action against the California Farm Labor
Bureau, certain of the 250 plaintiffs thought they were
signing a mere petition only to find out later that the
petition was, in fact, a lawsuit against the Farm Labor
Bureau.
The report states that CRLA attorneys solicitation
of clients and stirring up of litigation reveals at best
a blatant indifference to the needs of the poor, at worst a
disposition to use their clients as ammunition in their
efforts to wage idealogical warfare against the "establishment."
A Case of Noncompliance--Conduct Unbecoming an Attorney
This section of the report comments on a myriad
of documented instances in which CRLA attorneys have flaunted
-19-
American Bar Association Rule 29:
"He (an attorney) should strive at all
times to uphold the honor and maintain
the dignity of the profession
"
A case is cited wherein a CRLA attorney sent a
telegram to the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health and
Scientific Affairs, Department of HEW in Washington, D.C.,
requesting that funds for the Migrant Health Clinic in
Brawley not be delayed or its opening date postponed. This
telegram was sent over the name of the President of the
Imperial County Medical Association. The charge for the
telegram was made to CRLA. No approval from the President
of the Imperial County Medical Association was given to
CRLA to use his name on the telegram.
Cases are related wherein CRLA attorneys and staff
members have used vile and abusive language (including
threats in public meetings), with little or no regard to
the status of their profession.
On or about March 27, 1970, Delano Police Officer
C. Brown, stopped a vehicle driven by Gerry F. Hernandez,
who ran a stop sign. According to his 7/21/70 affidavit,
Officer Brown issued a warning but no citation and was about
to respond to a pending call when CRLA Attorney John Ortega
pulled up offering to give the driver legal assistance. Brown
explained that no citation was being issued and asked Mr. Or-
tega for a business card, whereupon Ortega stated, "I don't
-20-
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When CRLA files a frivolous or harassing lawsuit,
the party sued is forced to pay for the retention of a pri-
vate attorney for defense. In many cases, especially in
unlawful detainer cases, people of meager means are put under
the financial hardship of retaining a private attorney while
CRLA, with unlimited government resources, can delay and
prolong the case and costs while the hapless defendant is
put under a more and more severe hardship.
A leitmotif in case after case seems to show an
immediacy in finality in the modus operandi of CRLA attorneys
that defies reason, negotiation, and calculation. They are
prone to sue, seek injunctive action as in the vernacular
"do their thing", without due respect to the disciplined manner
and thought process that is so vitally important in the practice
of law.
They are prone to initiate action without regard
to a cost or time factor that would be prohibitive for a
private attorney and his client. Case after case this office
report shows how CRLA attorneys have carefully refined the
immediate lawsuit as a blatant weapon of instant harassment.
Waste, Inefficiency, and Misuse of Resources
Deputy CRLA Director Gary Bellow in an address at
the Harvard Sesquicentennial Celebration in 1967, stated:
-22-
"No matter how many hours a day the (legal
services offices) remain open, no matter
what systems are used to streamline intake
and processing, the offices cannot handle
the floods of people that come to them for
legal help.
"
Despite prior statements like the above, the
evaluation documents numerous instances in which the CRLA,
its staff and attorneys, misuse the resources it so often
declares to be inadequate. Often the problem is simple
waste: CRLA filed a suit against the Madera Unified School
District to prevent the closing of a local school, which
would permit teachers and students to participate in an emer-
gency grape harvest. In the course of handling the matter,
CRLA demonstrated a total disregard for cost. For example,
two attorneys, a law clerk and an investigator were usually
all present during the taking of depositions, when all that
was necessary was one attorney. Efforts were also made to
make photocopies of voluminous school records, whether or not
they were relevant to the issues in the case.
In the unlawful detainer action of Watts V. Parker,
during a three-day jury trial in Modesto Municipal Court,
three CRLA attorneys and a CRLA investigator sat through almost
all of the trial. During the same period, the Madera office
had a policy of refusing to handle domestic matters.
Case after case handled by CRLA shows a gross misuse
of its personnel. Throughout the State, observations by local
-23-
attorneys and judges are documented that CRLA attorneys
often travel in groups of two's and three's wherever they
go during the working day. In view of the severe legitimate
need the poor have for legal services, this form of waste and
misuse of personnel seems inexcusable.
Publicity
American Bar Association, Rule 20, states in
part, "Newspaper publications by a lawyer as to pending or
anticipated litigation may interfere with a fair trial in
the courts and otherwise prejudice the due administration
of justice."
It is a common practice for CRLA attorneys and
CRLA offices to send out press releases on a regular basis
concerning the cases they are handling in court. CRLA uses
the newspapers and publicity to create a public image favorable
to themselves and unfavorable to their adversaries. Rural
newspaper editors throughout the State report that the local
CRLA office is in the habit of dropping off copies of all court
filings and releases on their proceedings in acts of pure
press agentry.
The Twilight Zone of CRLA
CRLA has an office in Sacramento. One of the
Sacramento staff attorneys is registered as a lobbyist for
-24-
the State Legislature. It is abundantly clear that this
office not only generates new legislation but lobbys ex-
tensively on behalf of its own legislative programs and
those of others it considers appropriate. During the 1970
Session of the Legislature, James F. Smith, CRLA lobbyist,
successfully opposed certain amendments to the State Welfare
Laws that would have reduced the cost of welfare to the
State. Although lobbying is not specifically proscribed
in the CRLA grant or OEO legal guidelines, neither is it
explicitly authorized.
It is time that Congress and/or National OEO
clarifies this area of activity. The lobbying in question
is a very close bedfellow of the "suit against the government"
activity. Clearly it is time that policy decisions were made
regarding these activities. Obviously such suits increase
cost of government, sometimes dramatically when the suits
are successfully prosecuted. It is simply a question of
whether, on the one hand, tax dollars ought to pay the salaries
of attorneys to bring court actions that increase costs of
government, and on the other, lobby and intrigue legislators
not to rewrite or amend the laws to cut down on these costs.
By virtue of a special condition to its grant, CRLA
is prohibited from accepting cases which generate fees, ex-
cept in very special cases.
-25-
Most fee-generating cases fall into the categories
of personal injury and workman's compensation. Such cases
are easily and, presumably, regularly referred by CRLA to
private attorneys practicing in the various communities.
Nevertheless, CRLA regularly files civil actions which con-
tain prayers for substantial monetary damages. In most
instances, it appears that CRLA has not first referred such
cases to other attorneys.
CRLA has filed suits claiming monetary damages in
the following kinds of cases, among others: police beatings
and false imprisonment--$125,000; unlawful detention and
violation of civil rights--$423,000 general and punitive
damages; infliction of corporal punishment upon a school child--
$39,600 in general and punitive damages; claim of illegal
firing for union activity--over $500,000 general and punitive
damages; a false arrest and police brutality case, claiming
$40,000 damages; a claim of personal injuries in a counter-claim
to an unlawful detainer action--$20,000 damages; a personal
injury action against the city of Delano--claim of $100,000 in
general damages; an action against the City of Delano and its
police officers--a claim of $11,000 in exempliary and general
damages; a charge of injury sustained due to an unlawful dis-
missal by the City of Delano--$5,000 damages.
-26-
In filing these cases, it appears to us that CRLA
finds itself on the horns of a dilemma: Either CRLA has
simply side-stepped the fee-generating prohibition and has
proceeded earnestly to secure just compensation for its
clients; or these cases are not, realistically speaking,
capable of producing a dollar result for the plaintiff--no
demonstrable damage--in which event these cases must be deemed
little more than frivolous or harassing actions.
Conclusion--the Case for an Alternative
The 1971 report states plainly that the problem
of CRLA is institutional. Its recurring problems are based
on structural defects.
The key, according to the evaluation, is local
control and home rule. These are the essence of the New Fed-
eralism, to which the Nixon Administration has given open
support. The Economic Opportunity Act was enacted in large
measure to supplement what increasingly looked like a colonialist
system, in which social services for the disadvantaged were
controlled and administered far from the areas of impact. OEO
emphasized communities, and in so doing, created the first
important innovation in social services since the New Deal.
CRLA's dominant institutional and structural failing
occurs because it was constituted at odds with OEO's prevailing
-27-
premise. CRLA has had the problems it has substantially
because its organization ignored the rest of OEO's experience--
which has demonstrated the value of community participation
and home rule.
The participation of local bar associations seems
almost nonexistant. In the fall of 1970, the State Bar sent
out a guestionnaire to the presidents of all the State's county
bar associations, asking about their participation in CRLA's
programs. Some local bar members asked at the time if the
State Bar was "kidding", given their nonexistant participation
in CRLA's affairs. The following response from local state bars
indicates the true levels of support. Among those bar associ-
ations which did not go on affirmative record condemning CRLA,
we were unable to find a single case in which a local bar asso-
ciation had actively assisted or participated in the program.
These efforts to promote local control of CRLA
failed because the essential structure of CRLA's program fails
to give institutional support to local control.
The problem is not difficult to understand. The
people who have become CRLA attorneys are rarely from the
communities they serve. They are often from big cities, often
from the East Coast, and equally often possess no appreciation
of, or sensitivity for, the communities they serve. The prob-
lem is cultural. The colonialist comparison is difficult to
-28-
resist, for there is a definite cultural dislocation when
an urban lawyer is placed in a small community like El Centro
or Marysville. Speaking for the CRLA lawyers, one partici-
pant in the August 1970 evaluation put it well when he re-
ferred to one of CRLA's service areas as a "desolate and
lonely spot."
The CRLA problem for the local community is often
acute. Young urban lawyers come in and perhaps assuming a
hostility against them that does not exist, proceeds to pro-
duce a genuine and legitimate hostility for the community.
Then, too, CRLA attorneys show a conspicuous disinterest in
any form of cooperation or community participation. The
contrast between the OEO legal service program in, for example,
Visalia, and CRLA in almost everyone of its service areas is
incredible. While the Visalia program has the full cooperation
and participation of the local bar, CRLA has at best arms'
length coolness at worst outright hostility.
It was startling to go out into these communities
and watch CRLA try to relate to the communities. In most of
its service areas, CRLA is the largest office in town, with
probably the only lawfirm's Xerox machine. In virtually every
case CRLA moved into town and began making demands on everyone
with whom they had any contact: Judges, the local district
attorney, welfare agencies, farm labor bureau, etc. Often,
they dressed in blue jeans, even in court, and sometimes with-
-29-
out shoes. Because they have no practical economic limita-
tions on the way they prosecute any particular lawsuit,
they have unlimited opportunities to harass whenever they
choose, not only private defendants, but public agencies.
They rarely ask--they usually demand. They typically become
involved in school activities, in which they encourage high
school students to prosecute legal claims based on the con-
stitutional rights of a student to be immuned from reasonable
school disciplinary procedures. In their relations with
children, often they act as if they are above the law, indif-
ferent to the wishes of the children's parents, where the
children may be useful to them in pursuing a "cause" they
may think important or in vogue at the time. Usually it
relates to their general assault on authority and discipline.
In private litigation, CRLA attorneys do not con-
sider the economic limitations on their opponents. Anyone
at any time can be their defendant, and they can (and will)
pursue their point without regard to economic realities or
the underlying merits of the case except as they see it.
In reality, they are the plaintiff as well as the
attorney, they have no economic or other stake and can there-
fore persist to incredible lengths. Their only stakes are
philosophical and psychological--which may press for abandon
rather than restraint where the "cause" is right in their way
of doing it.
-30-
In all quarters people express a real concern
for the legal needs of poor people and whether they are
being met. But people out in the communities, who have
actual contact with poor people, see their individual
needs as involving largely such things as domestic relations
problems, debt adjustment, and nonlitigation service work,
in which a poor person simply needs to have the answer to
a question. This notion does not deny the legitimate place
of the so-called "landmark" case, when a legitimate opportu-
nity to bring one arises.
It is not enough in response simply to say as
CRLA so often does, that creative change is bound to stir
some people up. Slogans are appropriate in some situations,
but not where tensions and hostilities and even race hatred
may result from them. This report is replete with such situ-
ations where creative change was available without tensions
and hostilities, but where CRLA chose a devisive route.
Those sympathetic with CRLA are often quoted as
saying that the people in the communities served should not
feel the way they do about things. These people say it is
absurd to be concerned that poverty lawyers wear no shoes
in court. But such statements miss the point about communities
and the reasons for home rule. Whether local communities are
right or wrong to feel as they do about the way CRLA lawyers
-31-
dress and act in court is irrelevant to the issue of communi-
ty. The fact is they do feel that way; the result is that
such behavior, while perhaps acceptable in abstract terms
(or somewhere else), in a rural community setting tends to
cause disruptions and tensions that were not there before.
The argument that bare-footed or otherwise unkempt appearances
in court are necessary in order for poverty lawyers to relate
to the poor are disingenuous. The essence of a lawyer's re-
sponsibility is to the legal system and to the court, and
appearance in court is the symbol of his acceptance of that
obligation. How a poverty lawyer behaves might well affect
a poor person's level of respect for the legal system.
CRLA's impact on the poor themselves was the sub-
ject of the greatest concern throughout the evaluation. For
it is always the poor who are often helpless to speak for them-
selves. As we have seen so often, they are always the ones
who end up with nothing when vested interests begin jockeying
for position. The dangers of exploitation are particularly
acute when a social service is involved (a) because the pro-
vider has the power to withhold it where it deems fit, and
(b) because the moralizing and pieties that inevitably accom-
pany the service makes its true nature all the more difficult
to expose.
-32-
The activities of CRLA, not only in the explicit
revolutionary associations of some of its lawyers and in
the overall ideological thrust of their program, call into
serious question the depth of their commitment to our legal
system. This happens at a time when some people especially
in the media are suggesting that the causes of certain
people ought to put them above the law. As the entire evalu-
ation was reviewed, it was discovered that the essence of
CRLA's direction is a passion to wage ideological warfare,
with the poor as ammunition. The result is to force upon
the poor a form of exploitation that is in some ways worse
and enervating than any other. CRLA has exploited the poor
in two ways: first, giving high visibility to a cause in
which exploitation is alleged but not a reality, tends to
encourage the poor to feel exploited and impotent; second,
in supporting organizations like UFWOC and in their lobbying
activities, CRLA arbitrarily chooses one group of poor
people over another. Thus, CRLA, which is supposed to deliver
service to the poor impartially, has chosen sides--and has
made it impossible for one group of poor people to get any
service at all.
Recommendation
The report concludes by saying: "The State Office
of Economic Opportunity recommends that California Rural
-33-
Legal Assistance, Inc., funding for year 1971 be disapproved,
pursuant to the Governor's authority under Section 242 of
the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, as amended."
-34-
Alternative Plan--Privately Financed Legal Services for
the Rural Poor
This Administration's deep concern for meeting
the legitimate civil legal needs of indigents has prompted
us to devise a privately financed alternative to CRLA which
holds enormous promise for truly serving the rural poor.
In the process of the in-depth analysis of CRLA, we have
gained new insight into the legal needs of the poor, which
has provided us with the kind of background necessary to
design the best possible legal system for the poor. In the
comprehension of CRLA's failure, we stand on the brink of
a major breakthrough in privately financed legal services for
the poor, which will insure not only local responsiveness,
but the mobilization and support of the entire community
behind the legitimate legal needs of the poor.
Our program constitutes much more than simply sub-
stituting private dollars for federal dollars. We intend
to create variations in the structure of each office, through
which we can determine the most effective way, as well as the
most efficient way, to meet the legitimate legal service
needs of the poor. The variations will include, but not
necessarily be limited to, the following schema. (It should
be noted that in each case, the local bar association will
be the grantee of the funds, will control the program, and
will partidpate fully and completely in the design of the
-35-
program for its particular area.)
(a) We will utilize the employed attorney and
the judicare concepts in different areas. (We recognize that
judicare has been rather costly where tried in demonstration
programs to date. We hope that the application of certain
standards, listed below, will assure that the program is
not abused nor excessively costly.)
(b) We intend to insert into the program in the
various areas variations such as: (1) fixed level eligibility
standards for the poor; (2) sliding scale eligibility standards
for the poor (the client pays part of the legal cost based
on income level); (3) variations on fee schedules in judicare;
(4) a requirement that attorneys interested in taking advantage
of judicare and participating in the program must first con-
tribute a set number of hours free of charge to poor clients
to qualify for participation.
With respect to judicare, our hope is to utilize
existing bar resources more effectively, to ration scarce
legal resources by adding some cost to their utilization so
that at all times there is some barrier to abuse or misuse
of such resources. In suggesting a requirement that attorneys
contribute some time before qualifying to participate in judi-
care, we seek to identify those attorneys who are wholeheartedly,
rather than just marginally, interested in assisting the poor
with their legal needs.
-36-
We are excited by the opportunity to develop,
study and evaluate legal services programs containing these
variations.
Once the design is established for the program
in the various counties to be served, we will provide you
with more details on design features county-by-county.
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