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04/23/96 15:40
CREATOR SYND
4
002
TALKING IT OVER
BY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
I was one year out of law school and about to start teaching law at the
University of Arkansas. It was 1974, and President Nixon had just signed a
bipartisan bill to fund legal services for the poor. The law school was looking
around for someone to organize its legal aid clinic. I had already worked in
legal services programs. My experience, along with the fact that I was the
newest member of the faculty, marked me for the job.
There were mountains of paperwork and logistics to figure out. I didn't
know where to begin. Before long, I also discovered an obstacle I hadn't
imagined -- local lawyers and judges who were skeptical about any effort to
provide free legal aid to the poor.
I remember going to a cocktail party where the president of the local bar
took me around to meet everyone, including a senior member of the bench.
"Judge," he said, "this is the new lady law professor. She is going to teach
criminal law and run the legal aid clinic."
Without taking a breath, the judge looked at me and said, "Well, I don't
have any use for either lady law professors or legal aid clinics."
Over the years, as director of that clinic and as one of President Carter's
appointments to the national Legal Services Corporation, which oversees local
legal aid programs, I met many people like that judge. But I also met many more
men and women who appreciate the importance of legal aid in helping all
Americans -- not just those who can afford lawyers - find justice.
For those of us who have seen firsthand the difference that legal aid has
meant in the lives of women, children and families, it is distressing to watch
Congress' current attempts to move the cause of justice backward Not only has
there been no increase in the federal commitment to legal services for many
years, Congress today wants to shrink federal funding by almost one-third.
What that means is that somewhere a couple and their young children
will have to sleep in an unheated car or on the street because of an unlawful
eviction; a woman will be forced to cower in her bedroom, a victim of domestic
violence; and a child will go to school hungry because his father refuses to pay
child support.
04/23/96 15:41
CREATOR SYND.
1
003
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON 4/23/96
Page 2
Last year, legal services programs helped 5 million of our country's
neediest people resolve civil -- not criminal -- legal problems. The vast majority
of cases were simple: foreclosures, divorces, evictions, child support
enforcement. Often advice, a referral or a few letters or phone calls were
enough to solve the problem. Most of these cases were resolved out of court.
Such basic assistance can head off more complicated legal troubles and make
a world of difference in the lives of clients.
While private law firms, bar associations and individual lawyers have
increased their donations and pro-bono hours to make up for the lack of funds,
legal aid clinics still have had to scale back dramatically on the number of cases
they accept. We can only hope Congress will not make matters worse.
But right now, Congress is further trying to tie the hands of legal aid
lawyers by banning them from filing class-action suits, such as those on behalf
of groups of poor citizens who want to challenge unfair housing practices or
consumer fraud. And even as Congress touts less federal involvement in local
programs, it is trying to restrict the funds that legal aid programs are able to
raise from private sources.
You may be asking yourself why the debate over the future of legal
services matters to you, even if you don't think you'll ever need such help. It has
to do with our society's fundamental commitment to justice, law and progress for
everyone.
I believe that our society became more just and the legal profession truer
to its fundamental mission with the establishment of legal services programs for
the poor. The thousands of legal aid lawyers and the tens of thousands of
private lawyers who donate time to legal aid work are the heart and soul of the
law.
Each time a legal aid lawyer helps a mother petition for child support or
forces a nursing home to live up to its contract of taking care of elderly residents,
our country moves closer to its ideals.
Legal aid is a way that our country upholds the one true contract that
individual citizens have with America -- the Constitution and, specifically, its
promise of justice for all.
COPYRIGHT 1996 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
April 23, 1996
SENT BY:Legal Services Corp.
;
3- 4-96 ; 2:30PM ;LSC Executive Office-
1
LEGAL SERVICES CORPORATION
FAX REQUEST
ROUTINE:
CONFIDENTIAL:
TO: Melanne Verveer
FAX NO. 2 456-6244
DATE: 3/4/96
FROM:
Gail W. Lanter/ Director of Government Relations
PHONE NO. 8 (202) 336- 8815
NO. OF PAGES SENT: 9
(Not including Cover Page)
REMARKS: Melanne - Hope that this is what you
need- It was drafted by NIK Mitchell,
our press person If you Need anything
more contact lither Niki at 336-8871
or me at 336- 8815 Thanks
*
If any pages do not come through clear, please contact the
Executive office (main phone) : (202) 336-8880. Thank you.
Executive Office Fax number:
(202) 336-8952
SENT BY:Legal Services Corp. ; 3- 4-96 ; 2:30PM ;LSC Executive Office-
2
Draft LSC Speech
Sarah Buel, a battered wife and a mother, left her abusive husband and
turned to a local legal services program for help. Poor, uneducated and
virtually unskilled, she relied on The New Hampshire Legal Aid Society to
assist her in obtaining temporary support services such as welfare, food
stamps, subsidized housing and especially child support without divulging her
whereabouts to her husband. In addition, the attorneys gave Buel a job as a
paralegal. Within 10 years, Buel had put herself through night school and
eventually won acceptance to Harvard Law School. Buel is now a lawyer and
has founded a program aimed at helping others break the pattern of abuse.
If Sarah Buel needed similar help now, she would be unlikely to get it.
Across the nation, working poor and out-of-work taxpayers, the elderly,
victims of domestic violence, migrant farm workers and children living in
poverty are already being denied legal assistance because Congress has
slashed the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) budget by one-third. In
addition to the funding cuts, congressionally-proposed restrictions have had a
chilling effect on the types of cases legal services attorneys can accept, further
SENT BY:Legal Services Corp. ; 3- 4-96 : 2:31PM ;LSC Executive Office-
3
limiting the effectiveness of legal services programs. As a result of the
reduction in funds, offices have closed and some have had to layoff up to 50
percent of the staff. Others must turn away clients, ration services or re-
organize.
What that means for American citizens who happen to be poor is that
somewhere, right now, a family is on the street through unlawful eviction; a
woman's life is in danger from an abusive spouse; a child is going hungry for
lack of parental support; and a veteran who laid his life on the line for this
nation has been denied life-sustaining benefits.
In 1995, LSC made grants to 323 local programs which in turn
operated 1,200 independent neighborhood law offices. LSC predicts that in
1996, 300 to 400 local offices will close programs this year will turn away
over 500,000 cases and as a result at least 1.3 million people will be denied
help. Those who will be turned away across the country are
disproportionately women and children and others who are extremely
vulnerable.
Created in 1974, the Legal Services Corporation was founded at the
behest of a bi-partisan Congress and was signed into law, incidentally, as one
2
SENT BY:Legal Services Corp. ; 3- 4-96 : 2:31PM ;LSC Executive Office-
4
of the last official acts of President Nixon. Its purpose, as a nonprofit, private
Corporation, was to remove the program from the political arena and make it
independent with a bi-partisan board which would fund local legal aid
programs to be organized and operated by local communities. It worked.
In 1995, legal services programs closed 1.7 million cases and benefitted
5 million people. Legal services programs do not provide representation in
criminal cases; in fact, the vast majority of cases handled by local programs
are non-controversial, individual cases arising out of the everyday problems of
the poor. The most common categories of cases are family, housing, income
maintenance, consumer, and employment. Case types frequently encountered
include evictions, foreclosures, divorces, child custody, spousal abuse, child
abuse or neglect, wage claims, access to health care, and unemployment or
disability claims. Although they are sometimes referred to as "routine," such
cases often represent matters of crisis for individual clients and their families.
The possible consequences may be as serious as the loss of a family's only
source of income, homelessness, denial of health care or the break-up of a
family.
In spite of the overwhelmed legal system, most legal services cases are
3
SENT BY:Legal Services Corp. ; 3- 4-96 ; 2:31PM ;LSC Executive Office-
5
resolved rapidly. Often, legal advice, referral, or a few letters or phone calls
are enough to solve the problem. Frequently, such brief services enable
clients to avoid more serious problems. Only 8 percent of the cases closed in
1994 by legal services programs were resolved through the courts. In 1995,
only 3 percent of all LSC's budget was used for the Corporation's management
and administration of grants to programs, a level of efficiency which is
unmatched by most government and private agencies.
In spite of their efficiency and time-proven success, legal services
programs still cannot help everyone who needs it.
According to a 1994 American Bar Association study, with all the legal
resources available combined---including legal services, private lawyers who
donate time and others---only about 20 percent of the legal needs of the poor
were being met. This lack of access to legal services was evident even before
funding was cut. And the number of poor Americans is growing; there are
now 39 million low-income people in the United States who are eligible for
legal services and more are becoming qualified everyday.
LSC programs also come to the aid of the middle-class, who, because of
sudden unemployment or other financial disaster, find themselves on the
4
SENT BY:Legal Services Corp. ; 3- 4-96 ; 2:32PM ;LSC Executive Office-
6
poverty rolls.
William Figg is one case in point. Mr. Figg, who describes himself as a
"staunch, pro-business Republican," at 40 years of age and with a Master of
Science degree, found himself unemployed and in the midst of a divorce
action. Mr. Figg has had trouble finding work in or out of his field at a decent
salary and has had to rely on legal services lawyers for legal aid. In a letter of
thanks to the LSC-funded Mississippi Pro Bono Project, Mr. Figg expressed
his gratitude for a program that he once disparaged as "a waste of tax money."
As I mentioned, Congress has proposed a number of restrictions on
programs. All class-action suits would be banned. Thus, legal aid lawyers
will not be able to bring suits on behalf of a group of poor citizens for
example, who want to challenge unfair housing practices or consumer fraud.
Legal services lawyers also may not participate in cases involving welfare
reform and are prohibited from engaging in legislative or administrative
advocacy even in response to requests by legislators.
Although class-action suits actually constitute less than 1 percent of the
cases that legal services programs handle, they have arguably provoked the
most outrage from critics who see broad impact litigation as "social
5
SENT BY:Legal Services Corp. ; 3- 4-96 ; 2:32PM ;LSC Executive Office-
7
engineering" and "promotion of a liberal agenda." LSC critics also make
these charges in the area of welfare advocacy even though legal services
programs' involvement in these cases in virtually every instance has been to
raise a constitutional issue or redress violations of legal process.
One good example is a California case recently cited in a Los Angeles
Times article, where a federal judge said that the state had acted unfairly by
taking an improper view of which welfare recipients could qualify for child
care funds while participating in job-training programs. Natasha Jeffrey, one
of the beneficiaries of the above ruling, applied for AFDC after she lost her
job at a glass factory. When Jeffrey went to apply for a job-training program
she was told she was too old. In March 1995, Jeffrey did qualify for another
training program, as a result of the ruling, which pays for six hours of child
care five days a week while she is in school.
Contrary to the charges by LSC critics, legal services acted in this case
to keep the state itself from prolonging welfare dependency by aiding
recipients in the transition from AFDC to work and self-sufficiency. But this
is the kind of case from which lawyers must withdraw by July 1 to comply
with new Congressional restrictions if the prohibitions become law.
6
SENT BY:Legal Services Corp. ; 3- 4-96 ; 2:33PM ;LSC Executive Office-
8
Restrictions and funding cuts may have other costly, unintended
consequences, such as creating a bigger bureaucracy that makes less efficient
use of sparse funds. For example, Vermont Legal Aid has been forced to
split into two separate organizations---one that can receive LSC funds and one
that does not accept such funding. One reason for the split, according to
Legal Aid Director Eric Avildsen, is that public service lawyers in Vermont
are also funded and called upon by the state to make reports to legislators on
various aspects of poverty law and policy. Testifying before legislators, even
in response to specific requests, is prohibited by newly proposed congressional
restrictions. Now, says Avildsen, Vermont Legal Aid has double the
administrative costs at a time when it must cut spending, cut services and lay
off staff.
The Vermont case also illustrates how newly-proposed restrictions on
the use of non-LSC funds would put severe limitations on the ability of private
funders, state and local governmental agencies to ensure that the legal
services they have identified as necessary to meet the full range of legal needs
of poor people. While Congress should have the authority to determine how
the funds it appropriates are used, it should not be permitted to impose those
7
SENT BY:Legal Services Corp. ; 3- 4-96 ; 2:33PM ;LSC Executive Office-
9
determinations on the choices that private funders and other sovereign
governmental entities wish to make with respect to their own funds.
Legal services experts also surmise that de-funding civil legal programs
for the poor will have a costly effect on the entire legal system as more people
needing a child support order or a custody hearing for example, further
obstruct an already choked legal system by attempting to represent themselves
in court.
The irony for legal services programs is that although Congress has
made no final decision about funding and restrictions, the adverse impact of
the temporary spending cut is nearly inestimable in terms of human costs.
Justice is too important to be left to chance. It is and should be a compelling
cause for the entire community- whether prompted by concern for our own
self-interest or in response to our sense of fairness and compassion for the less
fortunate. One way or another, each of us has a stake in seeing that justice is
accessible to everyone and not just those who can afford to pay for it. The
promise of our democracy is in danger of rapid erosion with the disintegration
of the Legal Services Corporation and the programs it supports. It behooves
us all to join the concerted societal effort to be true to the one authentic
8
SENT BY:Legal Services Corp. ; 3- 4-96 ; 2:34PM ;LSC Executive Office-
;#10
contract with America--its Constitution and the promise of justice for all.
9
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(For Immediate Release)
March 24, 1995
REMARKS BY THE FIRST LADY
AT THE LEGAL AID SOCIETY DINNER
New York, NY
MRS. CLINTON: I want to thank the Legal Aid Society.
I am delighted to be here among all of you who are supporters of
legal aid and particularly of the Legal Aid Society. I want to
thank those of you who had so much work to do to put together
this dinner, and particularly acknowledge Mr. Murray (phonetic)
and Mr. Brone (phonetic) for their leadership. And I am very
pleased to have the opportunity to share this award with Marty
Lipton (phonetic). And I especially appreciate what he had to
say this evening. I also want to say a special word of thanks to
all who were dinner chairs for this dinner. At least two of them
have been my lawyers. Several others I admire, and appreciate
greatly their contributions to this city and state, as well as to
our country.
I am pleased to be here because this award means a great
deal to me, coming as it does from people whose work I appreciate
and respect. And coming as it does with so much support from the
private bar, which has really been the backbone for the movement
for Legal Services, from its inception. Over the years, as those
of you who support and work with the Legal Aid Society know so
well, this Society has been the true servant of justice, not only
as the oldest organized provider of legal services to the poor,
but also as the largest. Year after year, you have set records
for the generous support that is provided for the civil and
volunteer divisions. And the volunteer division itself continues
to be a model for meaningful and effective pro bono involvement.
And I particularly want to thank Lane (phonetic) for her
introduction, for her personal friendship and support, but also
for pointing out that there is this great partnership between the
Legal Services Corporation and the work that you do here every
day, and particularly in support of the volunteer division. I
congratulate you, particularly all of you who are currently on
the staff, for the contributions you have made and are making to
the cause of equal justice. And I know that the President joins
me in urging you to keep up the good work you are doing in spite
of the obstacles you confront as we as a nation attempt to
navigate through uncharted and sometimes unfriendly waters.
I would also like to acknowledge the importance of Alex
Forger to the Legal Services Corporation. While I know he is
missed here in New York, we are fortunate to have his leadership
and talents in Washington. And he is doing a magnificent job at
perhaps the most critical moment in the life of the Legal
Services Corporation. We are very grateful for that, Alex.
Coming here tonight, I was reminded if my first real
involvement with legal aid when I was in law school and I worked
at the New Haven Legal Service Organization, which many of you
know was one of the first Ford Foundation model projects to
determine whether legal aid could be delivered efficiently to the
poor based on a stack model. I was immediately impressed by the
commitment of the lawyers and the work that was being done struck
me as what the profession at bottom was really about.
When I next was involved with legal services, it was when I
began teaching at the University of Arkansas in Fayetville,
Arkansas. And I did not know that I was going to have the
opportunity to teach, because at that time it was the summer of
1974 and I was engaged in another enterprise in Washington,
serving on the impeachment staff of President Nixon's inquiry.
(Applause) And when that ended, I was out of a job, and I called
the dean of the law school, where a young man I had met during my
own law school years was then teaching, and said that, "You once
mentioned when I met you that if I wanted to teach, I would give
you a call, so I thought maybe I'd give you a call." And he
said, "Sure, you can come have a job. That's easy. And I
asked, "What would I teach?" And he said, "I don't know, I'll
tell you when you get here." So I showed up in late August of
1974 and he said, "Well, I want you to teach criminal law and run
the legal aid clinic, and run the two prison projects for the
state and federal prisons, and by the way, I want you to teach
trial advocacy. That was sort of the way law schools work. I
had no experience doing any of those things and immediately began
trying to figure out how to start.
The very first evening I was in town ready to take on these
new responsibilities, I was invited to the local County Bar
Association's welcoming cocktail party for the law school
faculty. The lawyer who was then the President of the local bar
took me around introducing me to everyone. He introduced me to
the Dean of the Chancellory Court judges, by saying, "Judge, this
is the new lady law professor. She is going to teach criminal
law and run the Legal Aid clinic." And the judge looked down at
me and said, "Well, I don't have a use for either lady law
professors or legal aid clinics." And I thought, well, I'm
certainly getting off on the right foot here. I always have a
little trouble getting my footing in new setting in case you
haven't noticed. (Laughter and applause)
But I found as many of you who find every day, and as many
of you who are veterans of the legal services efforts have found
in the past, that we often encounter people like that judge who
do not believe in legal services for the poor. He found all
kinds of ancient statutes, going all the way back before the
Magna Carta, to point out that it was illegal, immoral,
impractical, and otherwise totally un-American to provide legal
services for pro bono matters for simple cases. Over time, he
became used to the fact, but not accepting of it, that legal
Services was to stay.
And I thought that that really was the way we could describe
most of the country until the past several months. I'm reminded
of my own experiences because I know that it was replicated in so
many communities, and is still being lived out in courtrooms and
offices all over the nation. And that now we face the greatest
possible challenge to the future of the provision of legal
services. It has been 21 years now since the birth of this great
enterprise, the Legal Services Corporation. And the LSC
grantees, including the Legal Aid Society, have assisted millions
and millions of people. Mothers seeking child support from
absent fathers, children without access to health care, families
facing homelessness, tenants living in intolerable housing
conditions, welfare recipients seeking training for child care so
they can work, nursing home residents deprived of the most basic
care, victims of spousal abuse and I can, as I know you are
able, go on and on.
The work of Legal Services has been amplified by the pro
bono participation of the many thousands of private attorneys who
consider it part of their professional obligations. Federal
funding and other funding has been leveraged by charitable
contributions such as yours. And I know we have to continue to
urge the private bar to become even more supportive, no matter
what happens on the state or federal level. Many of the people
here understand that and I hope will carry that message to your
compatriots in our profession.
We are going to be facing a very difficult challenge in the
months ahead. And I'm hoping that we will be able to demonstrate
clearly why the provision of legal services to those otherwise
unable to afford them is not only the right thing to do for those
Individual clients, but is essential for the quality of justice
available to all our citizens. I know that this is particularly
important because poor children are suffering special burdens and
poor people today are facing an even greater array of obstacles.
And tragically, in today's political climate, poor children and
their families are likely to be viewed less as objects of
concern, but as culprits for everything that goes wrong with
society.
I recently heard a sermon in which the minister related a
story in Leviticus about the ancient Israelites who annually
placed all of their miseries and sins on the head of a goat. And
then sent that goat off into the wilderness. And when the goat
reached the wilderness, the tribe felt cleansed of all problems,
all evils, all sins. That, unfortunately, is an apt parable for
what is happening in America today. In today's society, the
scapegoat is poor children and their parents. And somehow, we
think we can rid ourselves of all our social problems by
scapegoating children and exiling them to a wilderness of greater
poverty and homlessness.
So today, we find ourselves at a crucial moment in our own
history, when the very notion of what we stand for as a society
is at stake. Our constitution reminds us that the twin purposes
of government are to secure the blessings of liberty and to
establish justice. And as the President said last year in the
Proclamation for National Legal Services Week, "The very nature
of justice demands that it be available to all. True justice
cannot be rationed, it cannot be afforded to some while others
are denied the full benefit of their rights. Our Founders
understood that privilege and responsibility are inextricably
linked. The words 'equal justice under the law,' inscribed over
the portal of our nation's highest court, represent a sound
promise made to every American." I hope all of you will be sure
that your voices are heard over the next weeks and months.
Because all of us need those voices, but particularly the clients
and the potential clients are counting on you. I hope all of you
will help remind America that Legal Services is not just about
providing legal help, but about offering proof that the American
Dream is a promise we are still committed to fulfilling.
Let me conclude by offering a prayer by the South African
poet, Alan Payton (phonetic). It seems fitting tonight, and it
seems a little sad to me that it does. Here's what he said.
"Open my eyes that I may see the needs of others.
Open my ears that I may hear their cries.
Open my heart so that they need not be without succor.
Let me not be afraid to defend the weak because of the
anger of the strong.
Nor afraid to defend the poor because of the anger of
the rich.
Show me where love and hope and faith are needed and
use me to bring them to those places.
So open my eyes and my ears that I may this coming day
be able to do some work of peace for Thee.
Protecting legal services for those who need the help of
lawyers is a historic cause, and with your help we will continue
America's commitment to justice, so that all of us in our own way
will be servants of justice. Thank you very much. (Applause)
----
END
----
draft/js
FIRST LADY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
COLUMN FOR RELEASE APRIL 22
TALKING IT OVER/CREATORS SYNDICATE
One of the most important tools our society has to make
justice more accessible to all Americans is under assault.
Congress is proposing to slash funding for the Legal
Services Corporation, which supports hundreds of legal aid
programs for needy citizens around the country, by one-third.
What that means for American citizens who happen to be poor
and cannot afford legal help is that somewhere a couple and their
young children must sleep in an unheated car because of an
unlawful eviction; a woman is cowering in her bedroom, trapped in
a marriage to an abusive spouse; and a child is going to school
hungry because his father refuses to pay child support. Under the
Congressional cuts, some 1.3 million people -- most of them women
and children -- will be denied legal assistance.
As someone who has been involved with legal aid since
President Nixon and a bipartisan congress created the Legal
Services Corporation in 1974, I am distressed that some people
still insist on taking the cause of justice backward.
When LSC was created, I had just begun teaching at the
University of Arkansas School of Law. One of my assignments was
to help set up the school's legal aid clinic.
It was a daunting task. Not only were there piles of
paperwork and logistics to worry about, but many lawyers and
judges in the community did not quite support the concept of free
legal aid to people who could not afford it.
The very first evening I was in town, for instance, I was
invited to the county bar association's welcoming cocktail party.
The President of the Bar took me around to meet everyone. He
introduced me to one of the senior judges by saying, "Judge, this
is the new lady law professor. She is going to teach criminal
law and run the legal aid clinic." The judge looked down at me
and said, "Well, I don't have any use for either lady law
professors or legal aid clinics."
In the 22 years since that cocktail party, I have met many
people like that judge. But just as our society has learned to
welcome the talents and contributions of women lawyers, more
people have come to realize the importance of helping all
citizens -- not just those who can afford lawyers -- find justice
under the law.
1
Last year, legal services programs helped 5 million of our
country's neediest people -- most of them women and children --
through their legal troubles. The vast majority of cases were
simple: evictions, foreclosures, divorces, child support
enforcement. Often advice, a referral, a few letters or phone
calls were enough to solve the problem. Very few of these cases
needed to be resolved in the courts.
From my own experience, I know how such basic assistance
can head off more complicated legal troubles and make a world of
difference in the lives of clients. [example goes here]
Under a temporary spending measure, some of the cuts
Congress is considering have already taken place. And while
private law firms, bar associations, and individual lawyers have
increased their donations and pro-bono hours to make up for some
of the lost funds, Legal Aid societies still have had to scale
back dramatically on the number of cases they accept. Many of
their lawyers have been laid off.
Congress is also trying to tie the hands of legal aid
lawyers by banning them from filing class action suits. Legal
aid lawyers would not be able to bring suits on behalf of a group
of poor citizens who want to challenge unfair housing practices
or consumer fraud. Legal services lawyers also would not be able
to participate in cases involving welfare reform and would be
prohibited from lobbying legislatures or governments.
You may be asking how this debate over the very existence of
the Legal Services Corporation affects the average American.
Well, it has to do with our society's fundamental commitment to
justice, to law, and to progress.
I believe that our society became more just and the law
profession became truer to its fundamental mission with the
founding of the Legal Services Corporation 22 years ago. The
thousands of legal aid lawyers and the many more thousands of
private lawyers who donate time to legal aid work are the heart
and soul of the law. They are helping our country uphold the one
true contract individuals have with America -- the Constitution,
and specifically, its promise of justice for all.
Each time a legal aid lawyer helps a mother petition for
child support, or forces a nursing home to live up to its
contract of taking care of its elderly residents, this country,
this society moves closer to its ideals.
In the current political climate, we cannot lose sight of
the cornerstone of our democracy: justice for all.
###
2
Notes from conversat w/ Dean Rogers
Law School spch.
- audience of 650 50 people - maj. law students,
faculty. Also about
100 of +07, undergrads from a of confure
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Dean will be art of office; call Elyse for more
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PHOTOCOPY
PRESERVATION
Page 14
14TH STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
Copyright 1996 American Lawyer Newspapers Group Inc.
Legal Times
February 5, 1996
SECTION: Pg. 1
LENGTH: 2102 words
HEADLINE: LSC Cuts Hit Home, Nationwide
BYLINE: BY NAFTALI BENDAVID
BODY:
D.C.'s Neighborhood Legal Services Program, which is losing more than half
its federal funding, is laying off 23 of its 46 staffers by the end of the
month. It is closing three of its four offices. After handling 5,000 cases in
1995, it expects to handle only 2,000 this year.
"I have been in legal services for 27 years, and this is the worst thing I
have seen in my life," says Willie Cook Jr., executive director of Neighborhood
Legal Services. "It's like a wake around here. Even the people who are going to
stay -- how can you have any morale when 50 percent of the staff is being
eliminated?"
Cook's experience is being echoed nationwide. The Legal Services Corp., which
funds lawyers for the poor around the country, lost a third of its funding on
Jan. 1, and the agency's fate remains uncertain. The shock waves are pounding
the roughly 300 programs nationwide that receive LSC money -- and the
impoverished who depend on them for legal help.
In Texas, legal aid workers have volunteered to take a 12.5 percent salary
cut. Greater Boston Legal Services has shut two offices, with a third expected
to close soon. Georgia Legal Services has lost a quarter of its staff in the
past year.
"In the last two days, I've gotten four resignations," reports Phyllis
Holmen, execufive director of the Georgia Legal Services Program. "It makes me
feel horrible. I'm pretty depressed. Up until the new year, people were actually
quite energetic. After the new year, when it looked like it was going to take
longer to resolve things, it got much worse."
No figures are available on how many legal aid lawyers have departed, but the
crunch is clearly being felt across the country.
"A lot of programs are closing doors and laying off people," says Douglas
Eakeley, who chairs the LSC board of directors. "The uncertainty is causing
major problems. We really don't know what's going to happen."
ERA OF AUSTERITY
But legal aid's fiercest adversaries have little sympathy, saying that all
Page 15
Legal Times, February 5, 1996
government entities have to make sacrifices in an era of austerity.
"It means they will have the same financial problems as any lawyer in the
real world, and they will have to prioritize," says Bryan Little, governmental
relations director of the American Farm Bureau Federation, which has long
battled legal aid lawyers over migrant farm-worker issues. "Most of us who work
even in nonprofits have to set priorities. We at the Farm Bureau have limits.
They will just have to prioritize what they think is more important and do what
the rest of us do."
The LSC has been engaged in a sort of high-wire act ever since the
Republicans took over Congress a year ago, with many lawmakers eager to defund
the agency. While LSC supporters tend to see legal aid lawyers as scrappy,
heroic fighters for the poor, conservatives often view them as radicals using
tax money to push a leftist agenda.
The agency has been controversial since its birth in 1974. President Ronald
Reagan attempted to kill the program, and succeeded in slashing its budget. When
President Bill Clinton took office, LSC activists expected a golden era; after
all, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton chaired the agency in the late 1970s.
But now the LSC has become enmeshed in the larger fight over the federal
budget. Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) and Rep. George Gekas (R-Pa.) last year led a
push to kill the program outright. They failed, though conservatives did manage
to cut the LSC budget by one-third, from $ 400 million to $ 278 million.
But late last year, Clinton vetoed the spending bill for the Departments of
Commerce, Justice, and State, which includes the LSC budget. So for now, the
agency is being funded -- at the $ 278 million level -- by a temporary spending
measure. The money runs out June 15, and no one knows what will happen after
that.
This murky situation is wreaking havoc with morale at the field offices,
legal aid activists say. "The mood remains very anxious because of the
uncertainty and the human toll that comes from seeing colleagues of 20 years
leaving, says Julie Clark, government relations director of the Nationat
Legal Aid and Defender Assoclarion, a poverty-law advocacy group. "It is not
complacent. It is not comfortable."
Rep. Bill McCollurn (R-Fla.), an advocate of LSC reform, says the concerns
are exaggerated. "The difficulty is not nearly so great now as if the wishes of
some of my colleagues are borne out and the funding ends altogether after the
next fiscal year" he says, nonetheless conceding that the current budget
confusion is a less than ideal way to do business.
The Georgia program, which saw its federal funding slashed from $ 7.5 million
to $ 5 million this year, is typical of what is taking place across the country.
Anticipating the cutback, Holmen, the state legal-services director, left
vacancies unfilled during 1995. But that turned out not to be enough; at year's
end, she was forced to lay off 15 to 20 more staffers. In all, the staff shrank
from 185 to 139 in one year.
Many are seeking other work. "I think it would be safe to assume that people
are keeping their ears to the ground," says Tina Petrig, an attorney at the
legal aid office in Gainesville, Ga, who is taking a job as a state
Page 16
Legal Times, February 5, 1996
administrative law judge. "I know everyone is alert to job openings."
Petrig says she is leaving mostly because she feels burned out after 12 years
with legal services. But she adds, "Certainly, the funding uncertainties did not
deter me. It does feel more secure to have a job lined up in the midst of all
this."
Lawyers at each of the Georgia program's 14 depleted offices are now deciding
how to slash the number of cases they juggle. Some, for example, may handle only
three emergency areas: housing disputes, domestic abuse, and problems of the
elderly. That omits such critical areas as employment discrimination, health
benefits cases, and consumer complaints.
Adding to the tenuousness of the LSC's situation, Republicans have pushed
through severe restrictions on just what legal aid lawyers can do for their
clients, though those restrictions are on hold until the budget fight is
resolved. Class actions, for example, have been nixed. And legal aid lawyers
have been forbidden to lobby legislatures or government agencies.
Significantly, these restrictions would apply not only to legal aid
activities funded by the LSC, but also to the funding that legal aid offces get
from other sources, such as bar associations.
Meanwhile, the LSC, at Congress' direction, has created some additional
uncertainty by instituting competitive bidding. For the first time, the agency
has been accepting applications from anyone interested in providing legal
services to the poor in a certain area -- rather than simply funding the groups
that have been in place for years.
While many legal aid programs have no competitors, the LSC has received more
than one application in 42 jurisdictions, says Martha Bergmark, the agency's
executive vice president. The LSC plans to award the bids in early March -- in
some areas, more than one group may get the money -- with work slated to begin
April 1.
Washington state's legal aid community has reacted to all these developments
in especially dramatic fashion. Following the recommendations of a task force
appointed by the state Supreme Court, Washington's three legal aid programs
which between them saw their LSC funding drop from $ 6.2 million to $ 4 million
merged to save on administrative costs.
The new group, Columbia Legal Services, will take no federal money, allowing
it to escape the congressional restrictions, which many Washington legal aid
lawyers consider onerous and unfair. But in order not to lose LSC funding
altogether, a second, independent program, the Northwest Justice Project, has
sprung up with the sole purpose of accepting and using LSC funds.
This tactic of splitting into groups that take LSC money and those that don't
may catch on.
"It'll probably be happening around the country," says Mauricio Vivero,
director of grass-roots operations for the American Bar Association. He
concedes, though, that some conservatives may dislike the tactic.
Page 17
Legal Times, February 5, 1996
"They may say, 'Here are tricky lawyers getting around the rules. Our
position is, it is lawyers using the only available method
to
service
clients. And if that includes setting up new entities, then more power to
them.
"
Depending on the culture of each particular region, the legal aid cuts are
having farreaching effects in different ways.
D.C. HIT HARDEST
D.C. Neighborhood Legal Services, because of a change in the formula used
in deciding how the money is distributed, is taking a bigger hit than most,
losing 55 percent of its federal funds.
Three offices will be closed: At 6th and L streets, N.W.; at 14th Street and
Spring Road, N.W.; and at 13th and H streets, N.E. The one at Good Hope Road and
Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. in Anacostia will stay open.
"People are looking for jobs; they are resigning," Cooke says. "We are
conservatively going to have to cut our service to this community by at least 50
percent. As a matter of fact, it will be worse than that. We can't concentrate
on serving clients during the next two months because we are closing offices,
throwing furniture away, packing."
Cook adds, "I have been director for 21 years, and it has just about tapped
out my patience and my resolve and my ingenuity. You spend your whole time
trying to make miracles out of whole cloth."
In Boston, the legal aid program has cut its staff from 100 to 82. Two
offices -- Roxbury-Dorchester and Quincy -- were closed. The Chelsea office is
slated to be shut down soon. The program handled 22,000 cases last year;
executive director Robert Sable expects that to drop by 10 percent to 12 percent
this year.
"Basically we are operating on a triage system," Sable says. "We are taking
either the most desperate people, or situations where we think that by bringing
a particular type of case we can have a much broader impact.
Greater Boston Legal Services went on a major offensive to recapture its lost
money. It asked money from the state, which said no. It asked money from the
city; the city said no. And it asked area law firms, who had been coughing up $
225 per lawyer per year for legal aid, to raise that to $ 300. Enough acquiesced
to enable the program to raise an additional $ 100,000 for this year.
"It is extremely difficult to cut back this far when we knew before these
cuts that we were only filling maybe 20 percent of the need, Sable says. "But
far worse than the budget cuts is the ideological message which the pending
restrictions send and that is a clear notion that there is no longer going to
be equal access to justice, that certain people are simply going to be outlaws."
As for Texas Rural Legal Aid, it has seen its federal funding drop from $ 7
million to $ 5.6 million, but lawmakers are threatening to cut all funding for
migrant legal services. For Texas Rural Legal Aid, that would amount to an
additional hit of $ 2 million. "If we lose that funding, we're hurting bad,"
Page 18
Legal Times, February 5, 1996
says the program's executive director, David Hall. "There's not much left."
During recent union talks, the Texas program's 121 workers -- lawyers and
support staff alike -- agreed to take a 12.5 percent pay cut in an attempt to
stave off layoffs. New lawyers had started at $ 28,000; now they will make about
$ 24,500.
"Mostly, the morale has been all right,' Hall says. "But the uncertainty is
really beginning to cause a lot of strain. I've spent this week talking to
people who felt like they were really on the bubble. A lot of the lawyers have
started looking for other jobs, and that's the first we've seen of this."
Whatever happens during the rest of the year -- whether the funding level is
ever settled and whether restrictions are put in place -- legal aid is sure to
face a new battle over its 1997 budget and rules.
"To the degree we are unable to get the restrictions and management reforms
we wanted, we certainly will be working to get that in fiscal '97," promises the
Farm Bureau's Little.
LSC Chairman Eakeley says he will be ready. "While the cuts have been imposed
and the restrictions would hurt a great deal, there is also a sense that we
managed this past year to survive the most concerted effort to date to eliminate
the program," says Eakeley, a partner at Lowenstein, Sandlet, Kohl, Fisher &
Boylan in Roseland, N.J. "And having survived, we have lived to fight another
day. Unfortunately, that day is coming soon."
GRAPHIC: Picture 1, D.C. legal services activist Willie Cook Jr. says, "It's
like a wake around here." PATRICE GILBERT; Picture 2, no caption, SUSAN
MCCARTER; Picture 3, LSC Chairman Douglas Eakeley says that uncertainly is
causing major problems.
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE: February 14, 1996
Page 12
7TH STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
Copyright 1996 The Des Moines Register, Inc.
The Des Moines Register
February 22, 1996, Thursday
SECTION: Main News Pg. 10
LENGTH: 507 words
HEADLINE: Good deed by lawyers
BYLINE: Staff
SOURCE: Register Editorial Writer
BODY:
Their generosity will help sustain legal service for poor Iowans.
Forget the sleazy lawyer jokes. In Iowa, it's going to be attorneys to the
rescue - giving their own money to keep the legal system financially accessible.
As TV watchers know, criminal defendants can request a public defender. But
in civil cases it's the Legal Services Corp. that offers free counsel to low-
income people.
Only now Legal Services needs to defend itself against sharp federal budget
cuts.
While America talks tough about "justice for all," the country has sputtered
and stumbled over paying for this ideal.
As a result, Legal Services can only meet 20 percent of the demand for its
services. For poorer people, the ideal boils down to a lottery slogan: justice
for the lucky.
But Legal Services Corp. of Iowa is coming to its own rescue by diversifying
its funding sources. That's where Iowa's lawyers come in.
In the spring, hundreds of Iowa lawyers will call thousands of their
colleagues and ask for donations.
The suggested contribution: one billable hour of earnings on a private case,
roughly $ 50 to $ 150.
The conditions: A donation is in addition to, not instead of volunteer legal
work, and lawyers should expect the fund-raisers to return next year, and,
probably, the year after that.
The campaign - modeled on the efforts of over 30 other states - is the
impressive work of four organizations: Friends of Legal Services, the Iowa State
Bar Association, the Polk County Legal Aid Society and Legal Services Corp. of
Iowa.
Page 13
The Des Moines Register, February 22, 1996
Ironically, this group might set a precedent that could have lawyers
permanently financing legal aid. But Bob Downer - Iowa's bar association
president - isn't worried. He sees the federal cuts as a challenge that lawyers
can and should meet.
The campaign goal is to raise $ 150,000. That's just a $ 50 gift from half of
the roughly 6,000 lawyers practicing in Iowa, but only part of the $ 980, 300 in
1996 federal cuts.
Make the lawyers pay more, some may shout. But equal legal access also needs
strong public financial support. Iowa justice should not have to rely too
heavily on the kindness of strangers.
LANGUAGE: English
LOAD-DATE: February 23, 1996
Page 5
3RD STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
Copyright 1996 American Lawyer Newspapers Group, Inc.
Texas Lawyer
February 26, 1996
SECTION: Pg. 1
LENGTH: 2814 words
HEADLINE: FREW AND FAR BETWEEN; CRUSADER BRINGS POOR KIDS HEALTHY CHANGE
BYLINE: WALT BORGES
BODY:
The idea for the class action lawsuit gradually worked its way into Susan F.
Zinn's head as she traveled around the state listening to poor parents gripe
about keeping their children home from school with common medical problems. Much
of the time, she recalls, the culprit was a toothache.
"Hey," she would say, "you can get that toothache taken care of under
Medicaid. And then came the stares and the pregnant pauses as realization set
in.
"Medicaid covers dental care for the kids?" the upset parents would ask.
Because of the work by Zinn, health law project director for Texas Rural
Legal Aid, and several other legal services lawyers, an estimated 1.5 million
Texas children with Medicaid coverage now may get the medical and dental
benefits they are entitled to -- benefits Texas state agencies did little to
publicize until Zinn sued them in 1993.
In a consent agreement approved Jan. 25 by U.S. District Judge William Wayne
Justice in Linda Frew, et al. V. Michael McKinney, et al., No. 3:93CV65, the
Texas Department of Health agreed to sweeping changes in the way the state
handles a program designed to provide comprehensive treatment and preventive
health care to Medicaid recipients under 21.
The program is known by an acronym only a bureaucrat could love -- EPSDT. It
stands for Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment. It is a
component of the Medicaid program that is a required service for nearly all
Medicaid-eligible children under 21.
The federal program provides money for the states to set up preventive health
care for children that isn't available under other programs. The program's
mandate also requires states to conduct "outreach" programs that identify
eligible children, inform their parents of available services and help with
scheduling and transporting kids to medical and dental appointments.
The consent decree includes provisions that will increase Department of
Health efforts to reach Medicaid parents to remind them of upcoming or missed
immunizations and dental checkups; persuade more doctors and dentists to
participate in Medicaid programs; and do a better job of arranging
Page 6
Texas Lawyer, February 26, 1996
transportation and scheduling appointments for children who live in areas
without adequate local medical facilities, or with few dentists and physicians
willing to see Medicaid patients.
Add a name change to boot, although the new program moniker has yet to be
chosen.
Some of the changes already have been implemented, say Zinn and her opposing
counsel, Assistant Attorney General Edwin N. Horne of the AG's general
litigation section.
One in Four Children
The settlement was hammered out during intense negotiations during the fall
of 1994. Because of requirements that the class of plaintiffs be informed of the
proposed agreement and given a chance to comment, the final version was not
approved until January, although Justice indicated his approval following a
hearing last Dec. 4 in Tyler.
"If this decree is properly implemented, indigent children in Texas should be
in immeasurably better health than they have been in the past, Justice wrote in
his order concerning the fairness of the decree.
The Texas consent agreement is the broadest and most far-reaching since
Congress revised the EPSDT program in 1989, says Jane Perkins, a staff attorney
for the National Health Law Program who has handled similar EPSDT litigation in
West Virginia and California.
In the West Virginia case, the plaintiff class was foster children. In
California, the litigation centered on the benefits that children covered under
Medicaid were supposed to receive beyond those given to adults -- dental
benefits, for example. Frew involved a much larger class, nearly one-quarter of
the state's children, Perkins notes.
"Anytime a case is settled with good faith on the part of a state and
persistence on the part of the plaintiffs, there is an impact," Perkins says.
"States talk to each other. Other states will ask about this and they will
listen to what Texas tells them."
Zinn gets most of the credit for the settlement from her chief co-counsel,
Sharon Reynerson of East Texas Legal Services and Weslaco-based TRLA farmworker
attorney Rodolfo "Rudy" Sanchez. Reynerson and Sanchez laud her persistence, her
tough-mindedness in negotiations and her ability to assemble a myriad of
interrelated issues into a coherent settlement.
"I was impressed by her memory," says Sanchez. "I would be sitting there
taking detailed notes and she never wrote anything down. But then she would send
me a summary as complete as anything I could write."
Adds Reynerson: "I would get the first draft of a document from Susan and sit
down to read it and there would be the second draft coming over the fax."
Perkins, who authored a monograph on EPSDT with Zinn, tells a similar tale.
Page 7
Texas Lawyer, February 26, 1996
"She is scarily organized," says Perkins. "When we were writing, her part was
done while I was still slogging through my part. And then she started sending
her revisions.'
Direct Approach
In the Frew case, Zinn also was lauded for getting what she and her clients
wanted without generating the usual acrimony, a fact the judge noted in his Jan.
25 fairness order in a footnote praising the lawyers and clients on both sides.
"It has been a pleasure to watch the parties' aggressive pursuit of improved
health for Texas children," Justice wrote.
Zinn's opposing counsel, assistant AG Horne, is a bit more grudging. The lack
of acrimony, he explains, stems as much from the willingness of the state to
improve its EPSDT program as it does from the plaintiffs' professionalism,
points Justice also noted in his footnote.
"The Texas Department of Health and the plaintiffs, we all wanted the same
things,' says Horne. "We just might have had different ways to get there."
While Horne describes Zinn as "very thorough, well-prepared and a tough
negotiator,' he says she stepped on a few toes. In filing the suit, the
plaintiffs named a number of lower echelon health officials as defendants, a
move that Horne regards as unnecessary and that offended and embarrassed several
of the officials.
"They really only needed to name the top guy at the agency, but it really
didn't matter in the end," he says.
The filing of the suit on Sept. 1, 1993, also caught the Texas Department of
Health off guard. That was the first day the agency took over responsibility for
the program, which previously was run by the Department of Human Services, Horne
says.
"There were some people who were not happy that TDH never had the opportunity
to put its stamp on the program," Horne says.
That doesn't surprise James Harrington, one of the state's best known public
interest lawyers. Harrington, who hired Zinn as his first law clerk when he was
legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas in 1983, says,
"Susan is a very direct person who goes after what she wants, not in a nasty
way, but firmly. Susan's opponents will know that they've been run over. They'll
feel the treadmarks on their backs."
Hatching the Suit
In 1993, when she was hatching the idea for her suit, Susan Finkelstein Zinn
was 36, a New York City native raised in Connecticut and Massachusetts who had
fled the North because, she says, "I don't like winter.' A former VISTA
volunteer in Arkansas, she attended the University of Texas School of Law,
earning her J.D. in 1983.
While in law school, she worked as a law clerk for Harrington, mostly on
litigation that sought to get the Jail Standards Commission to enforce its
Page 8
Texas Lawyer, February 26, 1996
standards on local jails. The work involved a lot of discovery, some briefing
and some interviewing of prisoners, she recalls.
After passing the Bar exam and gaining her license, she served a 1 1/2 year
stint as clerk to U.S. District Judge George Kazen in Laredo. She chose a
non-traditional law career with an established firm, and in mid-1985 hooked up
with Weslaco-based Texas Rural Legal Aid in TRLA's San Antonio office.
"I took the job because TRLA has such a reputation for taking important
cases,' she says.
In 1990, she was chosen director of TRLA's health law project, in part
because of her experience as a medical clinic administrator and outreach worker
during her VISTA hitch. She was earning $ 50,000 a year in the job before taking
a 12.5 percent pay cut in the face of federal budget cuts to the Legal Services
Corp.
By 1993, Zinn knew the health law ropes and was searching for the right
vehicle to challenge the Texas EPSDT program.
At that time, Texas was doing little to implement an effective EPSDT program.
That fiscal year, federal statistics indicate, only 29 percent of the eligible
Medicaid recipients in the state were screened -- just half of the state
participation goal of 58 percent set by the Health Care Financing
Administration. And while the Texas Legislature had appropriated the EPSDT $ 16
million for a contract for outreach programs in 1991, the state still had not
let the contract by late 1993.
"The numbers of reported checkups in Texas [in 1993] were horrible," Zinn
says of the DHS-administered program. Advocates in Austin sought an outreach
program, but when they reviewed the state's draft proposal, "we knew the
problems wouldn't get better, Zinn says.
"DHS wanted a centralized operation with an 800-number," Zinn recalls. "No
one from the state was going to contact the families with kids. It was up to the
family to call and find out about the programs.
"It was also an obvious hardship for poor people without phones or who
couldn't speak English."
At the same time, Zinn's frequent travels around the state on health law
matters brought her into constant contact with Medicaid parents who knew nothing
of the child screening and treatment program or who thought they should request
Medicaid benefits only when in dire need.
"It's not fair to expect parents to use a program for their kids' benefit if
[state health officials] don't explain the programs to them," Zinn says. "Those
explanations aren't something that can come from a brochure."
With the problem identified, Zinn started casting about for the right set of
clients and lawyers to bring the suit. Through Reynerson, managing attorney of
the Paris office of East Texas Legal Services, she found several sets of
clients. Sanchez, a farmworker attorney in TRLA's Weslaco office, brought in a
poor family from the Valley.
Page 9
Texas Lawyer, February 26, 1996
Eventually, there were seven named plaintiff families, including Linda Frew,
the mother of Carla Frew, a teen-ager with obesity and mental health problems.
Carla Frew had spent three years in the temporary custody of DHS, during which
time the state agency provided medical care for her. As Zinn noted in her
petition, the Frews were told nothing of the EPSDT program by DHS employees even
though the agency was aware of Carla's health problems.
Once the suit was filed, Zinn put pressure on the state by conducting
depositions. The depositions showed the health department that "we weren't going
to go away and that we knew what we were talking about," Zinn recalls.
The Food Factor
Justice granted class certification on June 17, 1994, and rejected the
state's motion for dismissal two months later. That signaled the start of
negotiations, which commenced in October 1994.
"We met at least one day a week in a conference room reserved for us at the
attorney general's office in Austin," says Zinn. "Some days it was two or three
days a week, and the sessions lasted all day long."
Although the days were long and required Reynerson and Sanchez to make long
commutes, Horne and the health department obviously were acting in good faith,
Zinn says. By Christmas, the parties had reached a tentative agreement on many
issues.
To lighten the negotiations and soothe the stomachs of the negotiators, Horne
and the AG's staff came up with a gimmick to induce agreement.
"One of the things we did was fill a liter-size jar with M&Ms and
chocolates," Horne recalls. "We made a rule that none of us could go into the
jar without first having reached agreement on some point."
Sanchez adds that Zinn once even "baked little cornbread muffins or something
like that," making sure everyone knew she "normally wouldn't do that."
The friendliness of the Texas negotiations amazes Perkins, a veteran or more
contentious discussions.
"I've worked on cases where we had to call in the mediators and where spit
was the only thing flying across the table," she says. "Now I know what was
missing -- the food factor."
Not all the issues were resolved by the consent agreement, Zinn and Horne
say. Still to be decided, Zinn says, are questions about reimbursement rates for
medical checkups, whether managed-care children can get second opinions, cost of
living adjustments for some fees, unreasonably low dental fees, reimbursement
for meals of Medicaid patients and their escorts, and participation goals.
A second round of negotiations will begin in March, but the future of the
program, Zinn says, may depend more on what happens in Washington that what
happens in Austin. After all, if White House and Congressional budget-cutters
chop Medicaid appropriations, the Texas discussions may become moot.
Page 10
Texas Lawyer, February 26, 1996
Keeping Public Interest Suits on a Budget
WALT BORGES
Susan Zinn and other lawyers who do a lot of public interest work on limited
resources say there are numerous shortcuts to keep costs down, but they
primarily are focused on bringing in warm bodies to help prepare the case and on
getting expensive services free of charge.
Here are a few tips on keeping suits low cost:
* Try to a judge, not to a jury: "We tend not to try to juries, says Regina
Rogoff, executive director of Legal Aid of Central Texas. "That's because we're
not seeking damages, we're asking for equities."
However, some cases may benefit from being heard by a jury if a popular issue
is at stake. For example, lawyers who filed suit to force the State Bar and
Supreme Court to establish mandatory pro bono legal services for the poor wanted
their suit heard by a jury.
*
Bring in co-counsel from the private sector: James Harrington, legal
director of the Texas Civil Rights Project and a litigator who handles Americans
With Disabilities Act cases for Advocacy Inc., says the benefits of private
sector co-counsel are both immediate and long-range. With local co-counsel, the
plaintiffs can avoid being "home-towned" by local defense counsel and judges.
Co-counsel at the table often means having enough lawyers and support staff to
match the effectiveness of opposing counsel. Many firms who work pro bono pick
up not just the legal fees, but a portion of the expenses as well, Harrington
notes.
Equally important is that the private sector co-counsel can often teach a
thing or two to the public interest lawyers, many of whom are far less
experienced. At the same time, the private sector counsel often learn about the
intricacies of class-action litigation and the benefits of pro bono work, he
says.
*
Find intelligent, warm bodies to help prepare the case: For Harrington,
that means more than using students on summer break, a common practice. He plugs
into government intern programs at colleges such as the University of Texas,
where government students earn credits for their work with private entities. He
ropes in community groups to get well-educated volunteers who can read and
summarize documents. He even recruits those doing community service as part of a
criminal probation or sentence.
*
Find expert witnesses who will work for free: "Our experts volunteered,"
Zinn explains. "Both were professors who thought they should get out of the
ivory tower."
*
Find cheap ways to record depositions: That may be as simple as finding a
volunteer court reporter, or it could mean using an audio recorder to tape the
sessions, Rogoff says.
*
Regardless of resources, be better prepared than your adversary: "You
always have to be better prepared, but sometimes that's not so difficult, Zinn
says. "I had no one to summarize documents, so I had to read them myself. So
Page 11
Texas Lawyer, February 26, 1996
naturally I was better prepared."
*
Avoid turf fights: Ego and personality conflicts aren't the sole province
of big firm defense counsel or multimillionaire plaintiffs' lawyers, notes
Zinn. But with limited financial and people resources, legal services lawyers
and pro bono counsel must avoid conflicts as much as possible -- something Zinn,
Sharon Reynerson and Rodolfo "Rudy" Sanchez were able to do in the Frew case.
"Our only disagreements were over what was best for the class," she says.
*
Win the case, then collect attorneys' fees: Zinn and her co-counsel put in
nearly 1,800 hours on the Frew case through February 1995. They will collect $
312, 500 in attorneys' fees that will be split between Texas Rural Legal Aid and
East Texas Legal Services.
GRAPHIC: Picture, An estimated 1.5 million Texas children could benefit from
the efforts of Susan F. Zinn and other legal services lawyers because Medicaid
services will be publicized.
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE: February 28, 1996
Page 3
1ST STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
Copyright 1996 The Hartford Courant Company
THE HARTFORD COURANT
March 1, 1996 Friday, STATEWIDE
SECTION: CONNECTICUT; Pg. B9
LENGTH: 314 words
HEADLINE: CORRIDOR TALK SUMS UP FIGHT OVER LEGAL AID
BYLINE: HELEN O'NEILL; Courant Staff Writer
BODY:
Inside the committee room Thursday lawmakers spent hours debating a proposal
to drastically cut funding for legal aid.
But one of the most passionate exchanges took place outside the wood-paneled
doors on the second floor of the Legislative Office Building, where David
Boomer, deputy chief of staff for Senate Republicans, pitched his case to two
men in wheelchairs.
"In our opinion these people are paid lobbyists who receive public money to
fight left-wing liberal causes,' Boomer said, referring to the legal aid
representatives testifying before the legislature's human services committee.
"We would rather see the money go to help victims of crime or other worthy
causes. "
"They are not lobbyists any more than I am a lobbyist," protested Dale
Nielsen of Newington, who was paralyzed in a diving accident eight years ago and
since has become active in organizations for people with disabilities.
"They know the law,' Nielsen said. "They show people like us how to get
things done."
"They are trying to block what we are doing on welfare," Boomer retorted.
"Last year they filed a class-action suit against the state that cost us $5
million. They should be helping people, not filing class-action lawsuits."
"What you are doing with welfare is hurting poor people and working people
and people with disabilities," said Don James of Norwich, who has cerebral
palsy. "I would be unemployed and on welfare if these lawyers hadn't helped me." "
The hallway exchange was brief. But it summed up the arguments on both sides
of the debate at least as clearly as the five hours of testimony before the
committee.
The public hearing drew judges, lawyers, law professors and welfare
recipients, many wearing "Equal Justice For All" stickers and protesting
proposed legislation that they said would halve the $10 million budget of the
state's four legal aid organizations.
Page 4
THE HARTFORD COURANT, March 1, 1996
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE: March 1, 1996
FIRST LADY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
REMARKS FOR SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW
ROY RAY LECTURE
DALLAS, TEXAS
MARCH 5, 1996
[Acknowledgments: Gerald Turner, SMU President; Paul Rogers, Dean of Law School;
Todd Gilbert, President of Student Bar Association; Jackie Gabbidon, [Gab-bid-don] Vice-
President of Student Bar Association]
GAB-18-don-
Friends, colleagues, and fellow lawyers; future lawyers and teachers of the law who
are here this evening: Thank-you very much for inviting me to give this eighteenth annual
Roy Ray Lecture.
0 weleose An because in mes me a chare reflect a whol
law school
Being here on a law school campus and seeing so many future lawyers in this
and a
audience makes me think of my own experience as a law professor in Arkansas.
lexal carer
has meal
Home
I had never thought of teaching law until the summer of 1974, when my service on
life
aid
one
live
President Nixon's impeachment committee was ending and I needed to find a new job. I
"
students
inon
decided to call the dean of the law school at the University of Arkansas -- where a young
an
man I knew was then teaching -- and took the dean up on his long-standing offer of a
couts.
professorship. When I asked him what he wanted me to teach, he answered, "I don't know.
I'll tell you when you get here."
And
So, when I showed up in Fayetteville in August 1974, he said, "Well, I want you to
teach criminal law and run the legal aid clinic, and run the prison projects at the state and
federal prisons, and by the way, I want you to teach trial advocacy, too." I swallowed hard
and immediately began trying to figure out how to start.
The very first evening I was in town, I was invited to the county bar association's
welcoming cocktail party for the law school faculty. The President of the Bar took me
around to meet everyone. He introduced me to one of the senior judges by saying, "Judge,
this is the new lady law professor. She is going to teach criminal law and run the legal aid
clinic." The judge looked down at me and said, "Well, I don't have any use for either lady
law professors or legal aid clinics."
In the years since that cocktail party, I have met many people like that judge who do
not believe in legal services for people who could not afford them. But despite those
opponents, the Legal Services Corporation, which was founded by a bipartisan Congress and
signed into law by President Nixon in 1974 to fund local legal aid programs, still managed to
help millions of Americans.
After twenty-two years, legal aid societies have become a part of American life.
However imperfect, the Legal Services Corporation is one of the instruments our society has
to nurture and practice one of its most cherished ideals that of justice for all Americans.
Last year, legal services programs closed 1.7 million cases and helped 5 million
people. The vast majority of cases handled are non-controversial. Often advice, referral, a
few letters or phone calls are enough to solve the problem. Very few of these cases are
resolved in the courts.
Such simple assistance can head off more complicated legal troubles and make a
world of difference in the lives of legal services clients.
legalaid
From my own experience as founder of Ozarks Legal Services in Arkansas and as a
former chair of the Legal Services Corporation, I know how LSC lawyers have made and are
making positive differences in the lives of Americans. They are helping mothers seeking
child support from absent fathers; children seeking access to health care; families facing
homelessness; tenants living in intolerable housing, nursing home residents deprived of basic
care; victims of spousal abuse and many, many other people in need.
111
But today, the very survival of the Legal Services Corporation hangs in the balance.
Over the past year, opponents in Congress have tried to slash LSC funding. Still other
members are determined to kill this vital institution. As of the first of this year, funding for
the Legal Services Corporation in a temporary spending measure was slashed by one-third.
LSC's final fate will be determined later this year.
While private law firms, bar associations, and individual lawyers have increased their
donations and pro-bono hours to make up for some of the lost funds, Legal Aid Societies still
have had to scale back dramatically on the number of cases they accept. Entire offices have
closed. Many lawyers have been laid-off.
What that means for American citizens who happen to be poor is that somewhere a
family is on the street through unlawful eviction, a woman's life is in danger from an
abusive spouse; a child is going hungry for lack of parental support; and a veteran who laid
his on the line for this nation has been denied basic benefits. Under the Congressional cuts,
some 1.3 million people will be denied help.
Congress is also seeking to tie the hands of legal aid lawyers even further by banning
them from filing class action suits. Legal aid lawyers would not be able to bring suits on
behalf of a group of poor citizens who want to challenged unfair housing practices or
consumer fraud. Legal services lawyers also would not be able to participate in cases
involving welfare reform and would be prohibited from lobbying legislatures or governments.
[Although class action suits represent just one percent of legal aid cases, they have
provoked much criticism from people who see such efforts as "social engineering" and
"promotion of a liberal agenda." But what Congress is effectively doing is cutting off
access to justice for a whole group of people. ]
our natir's
You may be asking how this debate over the very existence of the Legal Services
Corporation affects you who are future lawyers. Well, it has to do with our society's
fundamental commitment to justice, to law, and to progress.
A famous law school dean [Roscoe Pound, Harvard] once said: "Law must be
stable, and yet it cannot stand still." He meant that law must evolve with the times, offering
the security of permanence and hope for change.
I believe that our society became more just and our profession became more pure
with the founding of the LSC What the thousands of legal aid lawyers and what the many
more thousands of private lawyers who donate time to legal aid work do is at the heart and
soul of our profession. They are making our country accountable for the one true contract
with America the constitution, and specifically, its provision for justice for all.
Each time a legal aid lawyer helps a mother trying to make sure that a father takes
responsibility for the support of his children; or forces a nursing home to live up to its
contract of taking care of its elderly residents, this country becomes more just. More and
more people have access to justice.
should
I'm not necessarily asking all of you to become legal aid lawyers. I am only
reaffirming the essence of what it means to be lawyer. It means a life of service and a
commitment to justice. These ideals are embodied in the work of the Legal Services
Corporation. I am asking you not to lose sight of this when you leave SMU and begin your
careers in the law.
Law school is giving you not only the tools to be a good lawyer, but also the tools to
become a good citizen? Being a lawyer does not simply mean acquiring a set of technical
skills; it means understanding the nexus between law and society, between rights and
responsibilities.
There are different ways to reach one's goals as lawyer to live a life of service and
carry out one's commitment to justice. One can become a public advocate, a legislator, an
executive, a teacher, a corporate litigator. For me, working with and for children was the
best expression of my hope for the future.
I went to law school in the 1970s, during a time of great political and social ferment.
To me and many aspiring lawyers of my generation, law was an avenue for positive social
change. For helping the poor and disenfranchised. For saving the world and the next
generation.
Wilnerable, ne weak, the pon.
Now that I'm a safe distance from those early years I can say that One of the most
wonderful things about growing older is discovering that the struggle for progress in our
society is often as important as the end result.
At some point, however idealistic we may be, we accept that the principles of
fairness, justice, and equality often become flawed in their application. We accept that we
will not solve all problems in our lifetimes.
But we keep striving, keep struggling for these ideals because we have to keep alive
commitment and hope for the next generation. We never lose sight of greater commitment to
The
justice.
As so many of you already now, and as so many of you will learn, the cause of
justice is worth a lifelong struggle.
I hope all of you will help remind America that Legal Services is not just about
providing legal help, but about offering proof that the American Dream is a promise we are
still committed to fulfilling.
Thank-you.
###
FIRST LADY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
REMARKS FOR SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW
DALLAS, TEXAS
MARCH 5, 1996
[Acknowledgments: Gerald Turner, SMU President; Paul Rogers, Dean of Law School;
Todd Gilbert, President of Student Bar Association; Jackie Gabbidon, [GAB-id-din] Vice-
President of Student Bar Association]
Friends, colleagues, and fellow lawyers; future lawyers and teachers of the law who
are here this evening: Thank-you very much for inviting me to give this eighteenth annual
Roy Ray Lecture.
and a career in he law
I welcome this opportunity because it gives me a chance to reflect on what a legal
education has meant in my life and could mean in the lives of the students here in this
room. It is also an opportunity to Think about re ways That law can
be used am throat I good a. vehicle or male, our rounds
a you
Law school is giving you not only the tools to be good lawyers, but also the tools to
tolerant,
of
none
become good citizens and servants of justice. Being a lawyer does not simply mean
gives
acquiring a set of technical skills; it means understanding the nexus between law and society,
NU
between rights and responsibilities.
compained
me for
all 6
Being here on a law school campus and seeing so many future lawyers in this
our
audience makes me think of my own experience as a law professor in Arkansas.
Citages
I had never thought of teaching law until the summer of 1974, when my service on
the House impeachment committee was ending and I needed to find a new job. I decided to
call the dean of the law school at the University of Arkansas -- where a young man I knew
was then teaching and took the dean up on his long-standing offer of a professorship.
When I asked him what he wanted me to teach, he answered, "I don't know. I'll tell you
when you get here."
I showed up in Fayetteville in August 1974. And he said, "Well, I want you to
teach criminal law and run the legal aid clinic, and run the prison projects at the state and
federal prisons, and by the way, I want you to teach trial advocacy, too." I swallowed hard
and immediately began trying to figure out how to start.
The very first evening I was in town, I was invited to the county bar association's
welcoming cocktail party for the law school faculty. The President of the Bar took me
around to meet everyone. He introduced me to one of the senior judges by saying, "Judge,
this is the new lady law professor. She is going to teach criminal law and run the legal aid
clinic." The judge looked down at me and said, "Well, I don't have any use for either lady
law professors or legal aid clinics."
In the years since that cocktail party, I have met many people like that judge who do
not believe in legal services for people who could not afford them. But despite those
opponents, the Legal Services Corporation, which was founded by a bipartisan Congress and
signed into law by President Nixon in 1974 to fund local legal aid programs, still managed to
help millions of Americans.
After twenty-two years, legal aid societies have become a part of American life. The
Legal Services Corporation is one of the instruments our society has to nurture and practice
one of its most cherished ideals -- that of justice for all Americans.
Last year, legal services programs closed 1.7 million cases and helped 5 million
people. The vast majority of cases handled are non-controversial. Often advice, referral, a
few letters or phone calls are enough to solve the problem. Very few of these cases need to
be resolved in the courts.
divorce
From my own experience as founder of Ozarks Legal Services in Arkansas and as a
child abure health came
former chair of the Legal Services Corporation, I know how such simple assistance can head
off more complicated legal troubles and make a world of difference in the lives of legal
services clients
But today, the very survival of the Legal Services Corporation hangs in the balance.
Over the past year, opponents in Congress have tried to slash funding. Still other members
are determined to kill this vital institution. As of the first of this year, funding for the Legal
Services Corporation in a temporary spending measure was slashed by one-third. LSC's
ok
final fate will be determined later this year.
While private law firms, bar associations, and individual lawyers have increased their
donations and pro-bono hours to make up for some of the lost funds, Legal Aid Societies still
have had to scale back dramatically on the number of cases they accept. Entire offices have
closed. Many lawyers have been laid-off.
What that means for American citizens who happen to be poor is that somewhere a
couple and their young children must sleep in an unheated car because of an unlawful
eviction; a woman is cowering in her bedroom, trapped in a marriage to an abusive spouse;
and a child is going hungry because one of his parents refuses to pay child support. Under
repapted
the Congressional cuts, some 1.3 million people will be denied help.
Congress is also seeking to tie the hands of legal aid lawyers even further by banning
them from filing class action suits. Legal aid lawyers would not be able to bring suits on
behalf of a group of poor citizens who want to challenged unfair housing practices or
consumer fraud. Legal services lawyers also would not be able to participate in cases
involving welfare reform and would be prohibited from lobbying legislatures or governments.
You may be asking how this debate over the very existence of the Legal Services
Corporation affects you our nation's future lawyers. Well, it has to do with our society's
fundamental commitment to justice, to law, and to progress.
A famous law school dean [Roscoe Pound, Harvard] once said: "Law must be
stable, and yet it cannot stand still." He meant that law must evolve with the times, offering
the security of permanence and hope for change.
true to
I believe that our society became more just and our profession became more
its
complete with the founding of the Legal Services Corporation 22 years ago. What
the
Enclared thousands of legal aid lawyers and the many more thousands of private lawyers who donate
missan time to legal aid work do is at the heart and soul of our have profession. They are making our
country uphold the one true contract with America the constitution, and specifically, its
provision for justice for all.
Each time a legal aid lawyer helps a mother petition for child support; or forces a
nursing home to live up to its contract of taking care of its elderly residents, this country
becomes more just. More and more people have access to justice.
A Dela
Im just just you
I'm not necessarily asking all of you to become legal aid lawyers. [I am only
to consider
how the
reaffirming the essence of what it means to be lawyer. It should mean a life of service and
law can
a commitment to justice. These ideals are embodied in the work of the Legal Services
tdas
Corporation, which in the current political climate need your support more than ever. am
offer he
asking you not to lose sight of this when you leave SMU and begin your careers in the law.
day lues
Pearl
of people
There are different ways to reach one's goals as lawyer -- to live a life of service and
at every
carry out one's commitment to justice. One can become a public advocate, a legislator, an
leve
executive, a teacher, a corporate litigator. For me, working with and for children was the
f souly
best expression of my hope for the future.
I went to law school in the 1970s, during a time of great political and social ferment.
To me and many aspiring lawyers of my generation, law was an avenue for positive social
change. For helping the vulnerable, the weak, the poor.
One of the most wonderful things about growing older is discovering that the struggle
for progress in our society is often as important as the end result.
At some point, however idealistic we may be, we accept that the principles of
fairness, justice, and equality often become flawed in their application. We accept that we
will not solve all problems in our lifetimes.
But we keep striving, keep struggling for these ideals because we have to keep alive
commitment and hope for the next generation. We never lose sight of the greater
commitment to justice.
As so many of you already now, and as so many of you will learn, the cause of
justice is worth a lifelong struggle.
###
3
FIRST LADY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
REMARKS FOR SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW
DALLAS, TEXAS
MARCH 5, 1996
[Acknowledgments: Gerald Turner, SMU President; Paul Rogers, Dean of Law School;
Todd Gilbert, President of Student Bar Association; Jackie Gabbidon, [GAB-id-din] Vice-
President of Student Bar Association]
Friends, colleagues, and fellow lawyers; future lawyers and teachers of the law who
are here this evening: Thank-you very much for inviting me to give this eighteenth annual
Roy Ray Lecture.
most impt
10bs
I welcome this opportunity because it gives me a chance to reflect on what a legal
education and a career in the law has meant in my life and could mean in the lives of the
students here in this room. It is also an opportunity to think about the ways that a legal he law
career can fulfill its fundamental purpose to be used as an instrument of good, a vehicle
for making our society a more just, a more tolerant and a more compassionate one for all of
our citizens.
I went to law school in the 1970s, during a time of great political and social ferment.
To me and many aspiring lawyers of my generation, law was an avenue for positive social
change. For helping the vulnerable, the weak, the poor. For protecti he Canst n and
Dea. now, new were may
regill pats
There are different ways to reach one's goals as lawyer to live a life of service and carry
out one's commitment to justice. One coud can become a public advocate, a legislator, an
executive, a teacher, a corporate litigator, At various stages in my life, I have travelled
several of those paths
a
prosecula n gubdie defender
I'm sure all b Nose clurces will be reflected in ne careers you cheoce soc when Leave
But Being here on a law school campus and seeing so many future lawyers in this
have.
know
audience makes me think of my own experience as a law professor in Arkansas.
how defficult
or m reminded nosth 6 us brief experience
metchare not charce
I had never thought of teaching law until the summer of 1974, when my service on
can be
the House impeachment committee was ending and I needed to find a new job. I decided to
because
we
call the dean of the law school at the University of Arkansas where a young man I knew
this
was then teaching and took the dean up on his long-standing offer of a professorship.
a 6
When I asked him what he wanted me to teach, he answered, "I don't know. I'll tell you
Nose
careers
when you get here."
mpelf.
I showed up in Fayetteville in August 1974. And he said, "Well, I want you to
teach criminal law and run the legal aid clinic, and run the prison projects at the state and
federal prisons, and by the way, I want you to teach trial advocacy, too." I swallowed hard
and immediately began trying to figure out how to start.
The very first evening I was in town, I was invited to the county bar association's
welcoming cocktail party for the law school faculty. The President of the Bar took me
#s
around to meet everyone. He introduced me to one of the senior judges by saying, "Judge,
this is the new lady law professor. She is going to teach criminal law and run the legal aid
clinic." The judge looked down at me and said, "Well, I don't have any use for either lady
law professors or legal aid clinics."
In the years since that cocktail party, I have met many people like that judge who do
not believe in legal services for people who could not afford them. But despite those
opponents, the Legal Services Corporation, which was founded by a bipartisan Congress and
signed into law by President Nixon in 1974 to fund local legal aid programs, still managed to
help millions of Americans.
After twenty-two years, legal aid societies have become a part of American life. The
Legal Services Corporation is one of the instruments our society has to nurture and practice
one of its most cherished ideals that of justice for all Americans.
Last year, legal services programs helped 5 million people. The vast majority of
cases handled were non-controversial: evictions, foreclosures, divorces. Often advice, a
referral, a few letters or phone calls were enough to solve the problem. Very few of these
cases needed to be resolved in the courts.
From my own experience as founder of Ozarks Legal Services in Arkansas and as a
former chair of the Legal Services Corporation, I know how such simple assistance can head
off more complicated legal troubles and make a world of difference in the lives of clients.
But today, the very survival of the Legal Services Corporation hangs in the balance.
Over the past year, opponents in Congress have tried to cut funding. Still other members are
determined to kill this vital institution. As of the first of this year, funding for the Legal
Services Corporation in a temporary spending measure was slashed by one-third. LSC's
final fate will be determined later this year.
While private law firms, bar associations, and individual lawyers have increased their
donations and pro-bono hours to make up for some of the lost funds, Legal Aid societies still
have had to scale back dramatically on the number of cases they accept. Entire offices have
closed. Many lawyers have been laid-off.
What that means for American citizens who happen to be poor is that somewhere a
couple and their young children must sleep in an unheated car because of an unlawful
eviction; a woman is cowering in her bedroom, trapped in a marriage to an abusive spouse;
and a child is going to school hungry because one of his parents refuses to pay child support.
Under the Congressional cuts, some 1.3 million people will be denied help.
Congress is also seeking trying to tie the hands of legal aid lawyers by banning them from
filing class action suits. Legal aid lawyers would not be able to bring suits on behalf of a
group of poor citizens who want to challenge unfair housing practices or consumer fraud.
Legal services lawyers also would not be able to participate in cases involving welfare
reform and would be prohibited from lobbying legislatures or governments.
You may be asking how this debate over the very existence of the Legal Services
Corporation affects you -- our nation's future lawyers. Well, it has to do with our society's
fundamental commitment to justice, to law, and to progress.
A famous law school dean [Roscoe Pound, Harvard] once said: "Law must be
stable, and yet it cannot stand still." He meant that law must evolve with the times, offering
the security of permanence and hope for change.
I believe that our society became more just and our profession became truer to its
fundamental mission with the founding of the Legal Services Corporation 22 years ago. The
thousands of legal aid lawyers and the many more thousands of private lawyers who donate
time to legal aid work are the heart and soul of our profession. They are helping our
country uphold the one true contract individuals have with America the constitution, and
specifically, its provision for justice for all.
Monuse of
Each time a legal aid lawyer helps a mother petition for child support, or forces a
nursing home to live up to its contract of taking care of its elderly residents, this country
becomes more just.
A career in law
I'm not necessarily asking all of you to become legal aid lawyers. I'm just asking
you to consider how the law can and does affect the daily lives of people at every level of
society. The law should mean a life of service and a commitment to justice. These ideals
are embodied in the work of the Legal Services Corporation, which in the current political
climate needs your support more than ever.
One of the most wonderful things about growing older is discovering that the struggle
for progress in our society is often as important as the end result.
At some point, however idealistic we may be, we accept that the principles of
fairness, justice, and equality often become flawed in their application. We accept that we
will not solve all problems in our lifetimes.
But we keep striving, keep struggling for these ideals because we have to keep alive
commitment and hope for the next generation. We never lose sight of the greater
commitment to justice.
As so many of you already now, and as so many of you will learn, the cause of
justice is worth a lifelong struggle.
Thank-you.
###
P.1
FEB 29 '96 03:51PM SMU SCHOOL OF LAW
iii
SCHOOL OF LAW
SMUSCHOOL= LAW
SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY
P.O. BOX 750116 - 3315 DANIEL AVENUE
DALLAS, TEXAS 75275-0116 U.S.A.
(214)768-2080 2080
FAX: (214)768-3142
FAX TRANSMITTAL SHEET
TO:
Name: Brenda Costello
Department: Briefer to the Fush Lady
Company/Institution:
Address:
City:
State/Country.
Zip:
Telefax Number. (202)628-0804
FROM:
Name: Elyse deller Dears office
MESSAGE: This is background in the law
school's Roy Ray Lecture, at which
Mrs. Clinton is spe abing Please
call me should you have questions
afeso attached is info on the thomen's
Sympossim heing held during her visit
TRANSMITTAL INFORMATION: Date: 2/29/96
Total Number of Pages Transmitted (including this sheet):
10
Pages
P.2
FEB 29 '96 03:51PM SMU SCHOOL OF LAW
FOREWORD
The first Roy R. Ray Lecture was delivered by Langdell Pro-
fessor of Law and Associate Dean Robert E. Keeton of Harvard
Law School in Karcher Auditorium at the Southern Methodist
University School of Law on February 24, 1978.
Professor Keeton began his teaching career at the School of
Law at Southern Methodist University and is currently one of
this country's foremost experts in the areas of insurance law, torts,
and trial and appellate practice. He has written several casebooks
and articles in these fields and is presently the Director of the
National Institute for Trial Advocacy.
The Roy R. Ray Lecture was made possible through the gener-
osity of Professor Emeritus of Law Roy R. Ray who was appointed
to the faculty of the School of Law in the fall of 1929. Except
for temporary visits to other law schools and a period of leave
during World War II, he served the School of Law and Southern
Methodist University for 41 years. During his tenure at the School
of Law, he contributed significantly to the legal literature in torts
and evidence including the excellent treatise on the Texas Law of
Evidence first coauthored with Dean Charles T. McCormick of
the University of Texas at Austin. A second edition was coauthored
with Professor William F. Young of the University of Texas at
Austin.
Professor Ray's establishment of the fund for the lecture enables
the School of Law to invite a scholar of national eminence to
campus for a lecture and discussion of a legal topic of current
interest and allows the faculty and students of the School of Law,
as well as the local bench and bar, to share in this unique educa-
tional experience.
A. J. THOMAS, JR.
Dean Ad Interim
Reprinted from the Journal of Air Law and Commerce. 44 J. AIR L. & COM.
1 (1978).
FEB 29 '96 03:52PM SMU SCHOOL OF LAW
P.3
1995 Roy R. Ray Lecture
The Honorable Alex Kozinski
"Death: The Ultimate Run-On Sentence"
We'll introduce our speaker today. This lecture has been made possible through the
generosity of Professor Roy Ray of the SMU Law faculty. It's intended purpose is to allow the
Law School to invite a distinguished legal scholar or juris teacher to speak to the Law School
community on a legal topic of current interest. It is one of our highlights of the academic year.
As I have said this is the 17th Roy Ray Lecture. Previous Roy Ray lecturers include Judge Leon
Higginbotham of the 5th Circuit, James Friedman who is now the President of Dartmouth,
Justice Shirley Abramson of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Professor Patrick Ateya of Oxford,
Irving Younger of Cornell, William Wayne Justice of the Eastern District of Texas, and last year
Professor Harold Cole of Yale.
Roy Ray was long an institution at SMU School of Law. He was born in 1902 in West
Virginia and educated at Center College in Kentucky. He earned an LL.B. from the University
of Kentucky and his SJD from the University of Michigan. He joined the faculty at SMU in
1929 which was just four years after we opened our doors and then he continued to serve at SMU
with distinction as a teacher and scholar for the next 41 years. He retired in the spring of 1967
although he continued to teach and carry a full teaching load until 1970. Until about 1990 he
came to the Law School almost every day. Sadly Professor Ray passed away last May in his
92nd year. During his career he was a visiting Professor at the University of Colorado, at
Vanderbilt, at Michigan and was also a Fulbright exchange Professor at National Seoul
University in Korea. He had an outstanding record of scholarship in torts and evidence and his
book, Texas Law of Evidence which was originally published with the University of Texas Dean
FEB 29 '96. 03:54PM SMU SCHOOL OF LAW
P.5
these I knew Roy and was in closest association with him
Roy as a Christian was a believer. In the Latin
for the longest time. indeed, dating back to 1940.
Requiem Mass for the dead in the Catholic liturgy there
He was a continuing source of wisdom when I was
is the Latin phrase: vita mutatur non tollitur; that is, life
dean of the law school. He had an excellent perception
is changed. not taken away. Roy believed that, and so
of quality in professional education and what it takes
do I.
to produce the fine lawyers of which SMU is surely
I am sure that I will see Roy again and when I do, he
proud.
will greet me with several thousand well chosen words
We are here today not to mourn but to celebrate with
of criticism of all the things I did wrong and, maybe, just
great joy a fantastic life. Roy had his undergraduate
maybe, a thousand words of comment on something I
degree from Centre College, his law degree from the
did right. And he'll be right on both counts.
University of Kentucky, and his Doctor of the Science
I come back to the beginning. This is not a day of
of Law degree from the University of Michigan.
sadness but a day of rejoicing about a life full to over-
Throughout his life he was dedicated to teaching and
flowing, a life of service to countless hundreds of
scholarship. His splendid treatise on The Texas Law of
students who as lawyers are really an extension of the
Evidence is on the desk or in the library of every lawyer
training and discipline of fine teachers, scholars like Roy.
or law firm in Texas.
Roy would insist that on this day we rejoice in his life
He was completely and totally committed to SMU
and in his success, and I am indeed privileged to be part
and its law school. During the depression of the 1930s
of this celebration in his honor.
Roy and other SMU professors were subject to severe
Charles O. Galvin
cutbacks in salary-10 percent, then 50 percent, and
Law Faculty, 1952-1982
during one year the University simply omitted the last
Dean, 1963-1978
two salary checks for the academic year. There was no
money, no credit, for the well had run dry. After the Rose
I
came to the SMU law school as a young law
Bowl Game of 1936 the University made up the back
professor right after World War II in 1946. Since
pay, so it must be said that that was surely a time in
that year and until his death I was Professor Roy
which the football team served the best academic
R. Ray's colleague and good friend. I had continuous
interests of the University. Yet despite these hardships
opportunity to observe his work, his ways, and his
Roy and his colleagues did not flinch or flag in their
relationship with family and associates.
loyalty to the institution and its students. They continued
I want to speak of Roy's outstanding qualities, which
to meet their teaching obligations and maintain excel-
all of his friends and associates recognized. In a sentence,
lence in their disciplines.
Roy was scholarly, an able advocate. had judicial
During World War II he served in the Office of Price
temperament, was loyal to his family and friends, and
Administration and then returned to SMU to continue
was dedicated to the institutions he loved and served.
teaching.
Roy received his LL.B. degree from the University
In later years he was especially generous to Centre
of Kentucky in 1928 with honors. The following year he
College, Berea College, the University of Kentucky, and,
spent at the University of Michigan Law School on a
of course, SMU. Long after retirement, Roy continued
fellowship. In 1929, at the invitation of Dean C.S. Potts,
his legal research to provide annual supplements to his
he came to the SMU School of Law as a young teacher.
treatise on evidence.
He brought with him his new bride, Virginia. Roy told
Roy was a long-time member of the Highland Park
me of the struggle he had had in deciding whether to
Methodist Church, a great religious institution of this
come to SMU or to accept a position with a fine law firm
city. He knew all the pastors: Umphrey Lee, Marshall
in Alabama. Eventually the choice was SMU, and the
Steele, Bill Dickinson, and Leighton Farrell, all of
whom have given leadership to the church and an
inspiration to SMU.
22
FEB 29 '96 03:54PM SMU SCHOOL OF LAW
P.6
FACULTY
course of his professional life was set in Academe. In
Roy Ray loved his family. He was completely loyal
1930 he finished his thesis-in record time-and
and supportive of his wife Virginia, his daughter Pat, and
received the S.J.D. degree from the University of
his grandchildren.
Michigan.
Roy had a large following of admiring alumni. He had
Roy remained with the SMU law school until he
extensive correspondence with them, particularly foreign
retired in 1970. His service was continuous except for
students who came to our law school. As the person
four years with the Office of Price Administration during
deputed to look after Roy's mail when he became ill four
World War II and two years of teaching at Vanderbilt
years ago, I was fascinated that by courtesy of a former
University. Part of one year he had a Fulbright Professor-
student he continued to receive a Bangladesh newspaper
ship in Korea. His scholarship as a law professor was
reporting political events in that country.
manifested in both teaching and writing. His main
Roy was generous to the schools that nurtured or were
courses were Torts and Evidence. and he was meticulous
served by him. He and Virginia have made large gifts to
and demanding in both.
Centre College, Berea College. the University of Ken-
Roy's writing met high standards of scholarship.
tucky Law School, and to the SMU School of Law.
In the 1930s he and the late Charles T. McCormick,
During his professional life, he dedicated himself to the
dean of the University of Texas Law School. produced
upbuilding of the faculty, the student body, and physical
a thick text, The Texas Law of Evidence. A second
properties of the SMU law school.
edition came out in the 1950s. In 1980 a three-volume
Roy's last four years were spent in the Presbyterian
set was published with Roy Ray shown as the author.
North Nursing Facility. He was disabled by strokes, but
I can see Roy now, sitting in his office in the 80s,
his mind remained sharp to the end. It was sad that his
working with his 3"x 5" cards in keeping up the pocket
eyesight failed so that he could not read. He could,
parts for the treatise.
however, make out television programs. and he enjoyed
Roy was disciplined in setting his schedule for work.
political talk shows and sports events. He liked to be
Besides the work on the treatise, he wrote articles dealing
given advance notice of visitors. and we always found
with improvement of the law of evidence and related
him neatly dressed and alert.
matters. His writing style was articulate, clear, and
I am honored to have been asked to make this state-
uncomplicated.
ment about Professor Roy Ray. Thank you.
Roy was an able and fluent advocate. This was
Lennart V. Larson
manifested in our faculty meetings. Sometimes we
Professor Emeritus of Law
grumbled that he was effective because we could not get
a word in edgewise. He was analytical and readily
R
oy Ray was one of the first people I met from
identified critical issues. Roy was a good man to have on
SMU. He was one of the three who interviewed
your side. There comes to mind an occasion in the 1950s
me for a teaching position in January 1967. I
when two of us younger faculty moved and seconded that
quickly grew to respect Roy as a distinguished evidence
the course in Common Law Pleading be abolished. (Later
scholar and I will always remember him. of course, as a
generations of students have us to thank for this.) There
highly valued colleague and teacher. But he was more-
was a conservative sentiment in our faculty, but Roy Ray
he became a mentor and a father-figure for me. And now,
helped us carry the day.
perhaps ironically, I think I will remember Roy most for
Roy had good judicial temperament. This came into
what I learned about him and from him during the last
play during his years with the OPA, when he frequently
four years of his life-after he left his office at the law
served as a hearing officer. In his retirement years he was
school and began to live at Presbyterian Village.
put on rosters of acceptable arbitrators and decided
Roy loved to talk. And so, when I visited him, we
literally hundreds of labor disputes.
talked a lot. You learn what people love when they talk,
and Roy talked with me about the things he loved.
Naturally, we talked a lot about SMU. particularly the
23
FEB 29 '96 03:53PM SMU SCHOOL OF LAW
P.4
FACULTY
law school of course, and all the people there-the old
about the University and the law school he had been with
timers and old times. But he was also eager to know what
for so long. He cared about the people there-those he
was going on now. "What's new at school?" he would
had known for years, but also those he had never even
ask. So, I would tell him, and frequently he would have
met. He cared about his friends and their families. He
an opinion about what I told him. When I told him about
loved hearing good news about my children. And he
changes in the first year curriculum: "Well, I'm not sure
cared-deeply-for Virginia and for Pat and her family.
that'll work." Or when I told him who would be giving
He wanted all to be well, and he worried and suffered
the annual Roy Ray lecture: "Sounds like probably a
when all was not well.
good choice." He also wanted to know as much as I
We sometimes talked about what was not well. Mostly
could tell him about all of our new faculty. It was an
I remember conversations about his own situation-his
annual question about August or September: "Now, who
failing health and all the other problems that come with
are the new faculty this year? Tell me about them." He
aging. He didn't like them! But Roy never really lost his
was genuinely interested.
perspective, and he certainly never lost his sense of
We talked about sports, especially SMU sports. On
humor. Sometimes when it seemed he was most down, he
this subject, Roy stayed up to date on his own. In fact, he
suddenly cracked a great joke. And once, as he talked
sometimes brought me up to speed based on what he had
about getting too old-"Well, I didn't intend to live this
just read in the newspaper or heard on television. I think I
long"-he began to recite his version of an Edna St.
first realized he was really failing when he apparently
Vincent Millay poem:
was unaware that SMU was probably going to be a part
My candle burns at both ends,
of an expanded Western Athletic Conference.
It will not last the night.
Roy talked about the people he loved. He talked about
But, oh, my friends, and, ah, my foes—
Virginia-sometimes about their life together in the old
It makes a bright, bright light!¹
days-good memories of vacations they took together.
But Roy, we were so fortunate that your candle lasted
Sometimes about their life at Presbyterian Village-the
many nights and many days. It lit the way for thousands
special Thanksgiving dinner they shared in his room-
of new attorneys into the profession. And those last four
how well Virginia was progressing-how far she was
years? I know they were hard. but your candle still
walking each day.
made a bright light. For me, personally, what I learned
He talked about his daughter, Pat, and her family, and
from you and about you during those years—I was
kept me posted on their activities. I knew when Pat was
blessed. Thank you, Roy. May God speed your way to
visiting her daughters who lived in Georgia, or when
his side.
she and her husband, Hoyt, were spending a few days in
Harvey Wingo
North Carolina. He would show me the cards Pat had
Professor of Law
sent with pictures of the beautiful North Carolina
mountains. But I knew what he liked to tell me most
Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem is as follows:
was that Pat was making the trip from Tennessee again
My candle burns at both ends;
to see him.
It will not last the night;
Roy talked about the people I love. Virtually every
But, ah, my foes. and, oh, my friends-
time I visited him, he asked about every member of my
It gives a lovely light!
family. He remembered things I had told him a year or so
A Few Figs from Thistles. First Fig (1920).
earlier about my children. Several times he caught me in
I think it particularly noteworthy that Roy preferred to
a mistake about things I was trying to remember about
remember his friends first!
my own children.
Roy could sound gruff at times, but it was so obvious
to me that this was a man who truly cared. He cared
24
FEB 29 '96 03:55PM SMU SCHOOL OF LAW
P.7
P. 1
SMU NEWS RELEASE
Office or News and Information Southern Methodist University Box 750174. Dallas TX 75275-0174 214/768-7650 FAX 214/768-7663
Contact: Kara Kunkel
Elyse
SMU News and Information
February 6, 1996
(214) 768-7658
3142
SMU WOMEN'S SYMPOSIUM TO EXAMINE RESPONSIBILI
OF LEADERSHIP
DALLAS (SMU)- Women can be proud of the lengthy strides they have made
in business, politics and the community during recent decades, but part of the price of
individual success is responsibility- specifically the responsibility to help the younger
people who follow. This "each one help one" philosophy is the central theme of
Southern Methodist University's 31st annual Symposium on the Education of Women
for Social and Political Leadership.
Titled "Lifting as We Climb," the two-day program will be held March 5 and 6
in SMU's Hughes-Trigg Student Center.
The symposium's keynote speaker is Stephanie Coontz, author of The Way We
Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap and Women's Work, Men's
Property: On the Origins of Class and Gender. A professor at Evergreen State College in
Olympia, Wash.. Coontz has testified before the House Select Committee on Children,
Youth and Families and is the 1995 recipient of the Dale Richmond Award from the
American Academy of Pediatrics. Her speech, titled "Separating Fact From Fiction,"
begins at 2 p.m. March 5 in the Hughes-Trigg Theater.
Other featured speakers at the symposium include:
Senfronia Thompson — The longest-serving woman in the Texas House of
Representatives. She is a three-time chair of the House Judicial Affairs Committee,
which oversees the state courts, the attorney general and various judicial agencies.
Thompson was selected as the 1995 Woman of the Year by the Texas Women's Political
Caucus and received the Mary Polk Award for Legislative Leadership from the Texas
- over -
FEB 29 '96 03:56PM SMU SCHOOL OF LAW 768 3475
P.8
P.2
Council on Domestic Violence. Her speech, titled "When Politics Hit Home," begins at
7 p.m. March 5 in the Hughes-Trigg Ballroom.
Sara Martinez Tucker — Former vice president of global business
communications systems for AT&T and a native of Laredo. During her 16 years with
AT&T, Tucker became the first Hispanic woman to reach the company's executive
level. She helped guide the company through organizational changes brought about by
the evolution of the telecommunications industry. She is chair-elect of the National
Hispanic Scholarship Fund and a member of the University of Texas College of Natural
Sciences Advisory Council. Tucker's speech, titled "The Changing Nature of the
Workplace," begins at 9 a.m. March 6 in the Hughes-Trigg Theater.
Helen Zia - A contributing editor of Ms. magazine, where she formerly was
executive editor. A second-generation Chinese American, she has been a feminist
activist for more than two decades and is a founder of the Asian American civil rights
movement against anti-Asian violence. Her leadership is documented in the movie "Who
Killed Vincent Chin?" Zia's speech, titled "Taking Responsibility for the Future,"
begins at 1 p.m. March 6 in the Hughes-Trigg Ballroom.
The SMU Women's Symposium is the longest-running multigenerational
symposium on women's issues in the nation. Special funding for this year's program
has been provided by J.C. Penney Co. Inc. and the Florence Lewis Memorial
Symposium Scholarships.
Individual lectures during the symposium are free and open to non-participants
on a space-available basis. Full participation in the symposium, including the lectures,
workshops, dinner, lunch and program materials, is $65. For details about the
symposium schedule, or to register, call the Women's Symposium office at
(214) 768-4792.
###
156a-nr-2-6-96-kk
SENT BY:Xerox Telecopier 7020 ; 4-23-96 ; 2:29PM ;
65709;# 1
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5
COMMENTS
HRC changes
SENT BY:Xerox Telecopier 7020 ; 4-23-96 ; 2:29PM ;
65709;# 2
draft #3
FIRST LADY HILLARY RODHAM CI I NTON
COLUMN FOR RELEASE APRIL 5
TALKING IT OVER/CREATORS SYN ICATE
I was one year out of law school and at ut to start teaching
law at the University of Arkansas. It was 19 4 and President
Nixon had just signed a bipartisan bill to f nd legal services
for the poor. The law school was looking aro nd for someone to
organize its legal aid clinic. I had alread worked in legal
services programs. My experience, along wit being the newest
member of the faculty, marked me for the job
There were mountains of paperwork and 1 gistics to figure
out. I didn't know where to begin. Before 1 hg, I also
discovered an obstacle I hadn't imagined -- cal lawyers and
judges who were skeptical about
any effort t
provide free legal
aid to the poor.
I remember going to a cocktail party who te the President of
the local bar took me around to meet everyone
including a senior
member of the bench. "Judge," he said, "this s the new lady law
professor. She is going to teach criminal 12 and run the legal
aid clinic."
Without taking a breath, the judge look d at me and said,
1
SENT BY:Xerox Telecopier 7020 ; 4-23-96 ; 2:30PM ;
65709;# 4
Last year, legal services programs he ped five million of
our country's neediest people resolve civil - not criminal --
legal problems. The vast majority of cases W re simple:
foreclosures, divorces, evictions, child sup ort enforcement.
often advice, a referral or a few letters or phone calls were
enough to solve the problem. Most of these ases were resolved
out of the courts. Such basic assistance ca head off more
complicated legal troubles and make a world E difference in the
lives of clients.
While private law firms, bar associatio 3, and individual
lawyers have increased their donations and P:
-bono hours to make
up for the lack of fund, legal aid clinics S' lll
have
had
to
scale back dramatically on the number of cas
they accept. We
can only hope Congress will not make matters orse.
But right now Congress is further tryin
to tie the hands of
legal aid lawyers by banning them from filing
class action suits,
such as those on behalf of groups of poor cit zens
who
want
to
challenge unfair housing practices or consume
fraud. And even
as Congress touts less federal involvement is local programs, it
is trying to restrict funds that legal aid p1 grams are able to
raise from private sources.
future 1
You may be asking yourself why the debat
over the legal
you even
services programs matters to the average pors #.) It has to do
if you dnit think you'll in real
Buch Lelp
SENT BY:Xerox Telecopier 7020 ; 4-23-96 ; 2:29PM ;
65709;# 3
"Well, I don't have any use for either lady aw professors or
legal aid clinics."
men
Over the years, as director of that cli ic and as a President
Carter's appointments to war the national L gal Services
Corporation that oversees local legal aid pr grams, I met many
people like that judge. But I also met many more men and women
who appreciate the importance of legal aid 1 helping
all
Americans -- not just those who can afford 1 wyers -- find
justice.
For those of us who have seen firsthand the difference that
legal aid has meant in the lives of women, c] lldren, and
families, it is distressing to watch Congres:
8 current attempts
to move the cause of justice backward. Not of
y has there been no
increase in the federal commitment to legal I rvices for many
years, Congress today wants to shrink federal
funding by almost
one-third.
What that means is that somewhere a couj e and their young
children will have to sleep in an unheated C
or on the street
because of an unlawful eviction; a woman will be forced to cower
in her bedroom, a victim of domestic violence
and a child will
go to school hungry because his father refuse
to pay child
support.
2
SENT BY:Xerox Telecopier 7020 ; 4-23-96 ; 2:30PM ;
65709;# 5
with our society's fundamental commitment to justice, law, and
progress for everyone.
I believe that our society became more ust and the legal
profession truer to its fundamental mission ith the
establishment of legal services programs for the poor. The
thousands of legal aid lawyers and the tens P thousands of
private lawyers who donate time to legal aid work are the heart
and soul of the law.
Each time a legal aid lawyer helps a mo er petition for
child support or forces a nursing home to li' B up to its contract
of taking care of elderly residents, our cour ry moves closer to
its ideals.
Legal aid is a way that our country uph ds the one true
contract that individual citizens have with 1 erica -- the
Constitution, and specifically, its promise ( F justice for all.
###
4
770 words
draft
CREATERS Edits
FIRST LADY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
COLUMN FOR RELEASE APRIL 22
TALKING IT OVER/CREATORS SYNDICATE
I was one year out of law school and about to start teaching
law at the University of Arkansas. It was 1974 and President
Nixon had just signed a bipartisan bill to fund legal services
for the poor, and the law school was looking around for someone to
organize its legal aid clinic. I had already worked in legal
services programs my experience, along with being the newest
member of the faculty, marked me for the job.
I didn't know where to begin. There were mountains of
paperwork and logistics to figure out. Before long, I also
discovered obstacles I hadn't imagined -- local lawyers and
judges who were skeptical about any efforts to provide free legal
aid to the poor.
I remember going to a cocktail party where the President of
the local bar took me around to meet everyone, including a senior
member of the bench. "Judge," he said, "this is the new lady law
professor. She is going to teach criminal law and run the legal
aid clinic."
Without taking a breath, the judge looked at me and said,
1
"Well, I don't have any use for either lady law professors or
legal aid clinics." "
Over the years, as director of that clinic and as President
Carter's appointment to chair the national Legal Services
Corporation that oversees local legal aid programs, I met many
people like that judge. But I also met many more men and women
in
who appreciate the importance of legal aid and its potential for
helping all citizens Americans) not just those who can afford lawyers --
find justice, under the law.
For those of us who have seen firsthand the difference that
legal aid has meant in the lives of women, children, and
families, it is distressing to watch Congress's current) attempts to move
the cause of justice backward. Not only has there been no
increase in the federal commitment to legal services for many
years, Congress today wants to shrink federal funding by almost
one-third.
What that means is that somewhere a couple and their young
children will have to sleep in an unheated car or on the street
because of an unlawful eviction; a woman will be forced to cower
in her bedroom, a victim of domestic violence; and a child will
go to school hungry because his father refuses to pay child
support.
2
Last year, legal services programs helped five million of
our country's neediest people resolve civil -- not criminal --
legal problems. The vast majority of cases were simple:
evictions foreclosures, divorces, child support enforcement.
Often advice, a referral a few letters or phone calls were
Most
were
enough to solve the problem. Very few of these cases needed to
out of
be resolved in the courts, Such basic assistance can head off
more/ more complicated legal troubles and make a world of difference in
the lives of clients.
While private law firms, bar associations, and individual
lawyers have increased their donations and pro-bono hours to make
The lack of tunds
up for some of the funds already cut, legal aid clinics still
have had to scale back dramatically on the number of cases they
accept. That's because the number of people who need legal
assistance is increasing at a time when the dollars are
diminishing. We can only hope Congress will not make matters
worse.
But right now Congress is further trying to tie the hands of
legal aid lawyers by banning them from filing class action suits,
such as those on behalf of a group of poor citizens who want to
challenge unfair housing practices or consumer fraud. And even
as Congress touts less federal involvement in local programs, it
is trying to restrict the limited the funds that legal aid
programs are able to raise from private sources.
3
You may be asking yourself why this debate over the & Legal
Services Corporation programs matters to the average American. /person/ It has to
do with our society's fundamental commitment to justice, law, and
progress for everyone.
I believe that our society became more just and the legal
cotablishment of
profession truer to its fundamental mission with the founding of
legal Services programs for ne poor.
the Legal Services Corporation. The thousands of legal aid
lawyers and the tens of thousands of private lawyers who donate
time to legal aid work are the heart and soul of the law.
Each time a legal aid lawyer helps a mother petition for
child support or forces a nursing home to live up to its contract
of taking care of its elderly residents, our country moves closer
to its ideals.
Legal aid is one way that our country upholds the / one true
contract that individual citizens have with America -- the
Constitution, and specifically, its promise of justice for all.
###
4
draft #1
FIRST LADY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
COLUMN FOR RELEASE APRIL 22
TALKING IT OVER/CREATORS SYNDICATE
I was one year out of law school and about to start teaching
was 1934 and
law at the University of Arkansas. President Nixon had just
signed a bipartisan bill to fund legal services for the poor and
the law school was looking around for someone to organize its new
5
legal aid clinic. Being the newest member of the faculty, the
task fell to me. ) had abeah unleed at legal Services pmo pass
so m experience oldy
w/ bey he
I didn't know where to begin. There were mountains of
hever'
menth
paperwork and logistics to figure out. Before long, I also
discovered obstacles I hadn't imagined -- local lawyers and
a Fauth, he
judges who were skeptical about any efforts to provide free legal warled
we for
aid to the poor.
hijob.
I remember going to a cocktail party where the President of
the local bar took me around to meet everyone, including a senior
member of the bench. "Judge," he said, "this is the new lady law
professor. She is going to teach criminal law and run the legal
aid clinic."
Without taking a breath, the judge looked at me and said,
"Well, I don't have any use for either lady law professors or
1
Presider Cater
legal aid clinics."
national
civilid Legal
Over the years, as director of that clinic and later as
chair of the Legal Services Corporation that oversees local legal
aid programs, I have met many people like that judge. But I have
animal
not
also met many more men and women who appreciate the importance of
crinine
legal aid and its potential for helping all citizens -- not just
those who can afford lawyers -- find justice under the law.
For those of us who have seen firsthand the difference that
legal aid has meant in the lives of women, children, and
families, it is distressing to watch Congress's attempts to move
the cause of justice backward. Under the current budget plan,
Legal Services Corporation stands to lose $122 million of its
funding.
No increase federal construct since 2 was on board.
What that means is that somewhere a couple and their young
children will have to sleep in an unheated car or on the street
because of an unlawful eviction; a woman will be forced to cower
in her bedroom, a victim of domestic violence; and a child will
go to school hungry because his father refuses to pay child
support.
in
Last year, legal services programs helped five million of
our country's neediest people through their legal troubles. The
vast majority of cases were simple: evictions, foreclosures,
2
divorces, child support enforcement. Often advice, a referral, a
few letters or phone calls were enough to solve the problem.
Very few of these cases needed to be resolved in the courts.
Such basic assistance can head off more complicated legal
troubles and make a world of difference in the lives of clients.
While private law firms, bar associations, and individual
lawyers have increased their donations and pro-bono hours to make
up for some of the funds already cut, legal aid clinics still
have had to scale back dramatically on the number of cases they
accept.
As the number of people who need legal assistance is
increasing, the dollars are diminishing. We can only hope
Congress will not make matters worse.
But right now Congress is further trying to tie the hands of
legal aid lawyers by banning them from filing class action suits,
such as those on behalf of a group of poor citizens who want to
challenge unfair housing practices or consumer fraud. And even
as Congress touts less federal involvement in local programs, it
is trying to restrict the limited the funds that legal aid
programs are able to raise from private sources.
You may be asking yourself why this debate over the Legal
Services Corporation matters to the average American. It has to
3
do with our society's fundamental commitment to justice, law, and
progress.
I believe that our society became more just and the legal
profession truer to its fundamental mission with the founding of
the Legal Services Corporation. The thousands of legal aid
lawyers and the tens of thousands of private lawyers who donate
time to legal aid work are the heart and soul of the law.
Each time a legal aid lawyer helps a mother petition for
child support or forces a nursing home to live up to its contract
of taking care of its elderly residents, our country moves closer
to its ideals.
Legal aid is one way that our country upholds the one true
contract that individual citizens have with America -- the
Constitution, and specifically, its promise of justice for all.
###
4
FIRST LADY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
COLUMN FOR RELEASE APRIL 22
TALKING IT OVER/CREATORS SYNDICATE
I was one year out of law school and about to start teaching
law at the University of Arkansas. President Nixon had just
signed a bipartisan bill to fund legal services for the poor and
the law school was looking around for someone to organize its new
legal aid clinic. Being the newest member of the faculty, the
task fell to me.
I didn't know where to begin. Not only were there mountains
of paperwork and logistics to worry about, but many lawyers and
judges in town weren't exactly enthusiastic about the concept of
giving free legal aid to people who could not afford it.
I remember attending a bar association cocktail party
shortly before school started. The President of the Bar took me
around to meet everyone. He introduced me to one senior judge by
saying, "Judge, this is the new lady law professor. She is going
to teach criminal law and run the legal aid clinic." Without
taking a breath, the judge looked down at me and said, "Well, I
don't have any use for either lady law professors or legal aid
clinics."
Over the years, as director of that clinic and later as
chair of the Legal Services Corporation which oversees and
distributes federal funding to the clinics, I have met many
people like that judge. But I have also met many more people who
appreciate the importance of legal aid and its potential for
helping all citizens -- not just those who can afford lawyers --
find justice under the law.
For those of us who have seen firsthand how legal aid has
helped millions of Americans, it is distressing to watch
Congress insist on taking the cause of justice backward. In the
latest budget, the Legal Services Corporation stands to lose one-
third $122 million -- of its funding.
What that means for American citizens who happen to be poor
and cannot afford legal help is this: Somewhere a couple and
their young children will have to sleep in an unheated car
because of an unlawful eviction; a woman will be forced to cower
in her bedroom, trapped in a marriage to an abusive spouse; and a
child will go to school hungry because his father refuses to pay
child support. Under the cuts, proposed by many who also claim
to support families and family values, more than one million
people children and troubled families among them -- will be
denied legal assistance.
Last year, legal services programs helped five million of
1
our country's neediest people through their legal troubles. The
vast majority of cases were simple: evictions, foreclosures,
divorces, child support enforcement. Often advice, a referral, a
few letters or phone calls were enough to solve the problem.
Very few of these cases needed to be resolved in the courts.
Such basic assistance can head off more complicated legal
troubles and make a world of difference in the lives of clients.
[personal example goes here]
While private law firms, bar associations, and individual
lawyers have increased their donations and pro-bono hours to make
up for some of the funds already cut, legal aid clinics still
have had to scale back dramatically on the number of cases they
accept. Many lawyers have been laid off.
Congress is also trying to tie the hands of legal aid
lawyers by banning them from filing class action suits, such as
those on behalf of a group of poor citizens who want to challenge
unfair housing practices or consumer fraud. Legal services
representatives also would not be able to participate in cases
involving welfare reform nor could they lobby governments.
You may be asking how this debate over the Legal Services
Corporation affects the average American. It has to do with our
society's fundamental commitment to justice, to law, and to
progress.
I believe that our society became more just and the legal
profession truer to its fundamental mission with the founding of
the Legal Services Corporation. The thousands of legal aid
lawyers and the many more thousands of private lawyers who donate
time to legal aid work are the heart and soul of the law. They
are helping our country uphold the one true contract individuals
have with America -- the Constitution, and specifically, its
promise of justice for all.
Each time a legal aid lawyer helps a mother petition for
child support or forces a nursing home to live up to its contract
of taking care of its elderly residents, this country, this
society moves closer to its ideals.
This is no time to move away from them.
###
2
draft #1
FIRST LADY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
COLUMN FOR RELEASE APRIL 22
TALKING IT OVER/CREATORS SYNDICATE
I was one year out of law school and about to start teaching
law at the University of Arkansas. President Nixon had just
signed a bipartisan bill to fund legal services for the poor and
the law school was looking around for someone to organize its new
legal aid clinic. Being the newest member of the faculty, the
task fell to me.
I didn't know where to begin. There were mountains of
paperwork and logistics to figure out. And before long, I also
discovered obstacles I hadn't imagined -- that a lot of local
lawyers and judges were skeptical about efforts to provide free
legal aid to the poor.
I remember attending one cocktail party shortly before
classes started where the President of the local bar took me
around to me et everyone, including an important senior judge.
"Judge," he said, "this is the new lady law professor. She is
going to teach criminal law and run the legal aid clinic."
Without taking a breath, the judge looked at me and said,
"Well, I don't have any use for either lady law professors or
1
legal aid clinics."
Over the years, as director of that clinic and later as
chair of the Legal Services Corporation that oversees and
local letgre and perpane
distributes federal funding to the clinics, I have met many
people like that judge. But I have also met many more men and
women who appreciate the importance of legal aid and its
potential for helping all citizens -- not just those who can
afford lawyers -- find justice under the law.
For those of us who have seen firsthand the difference that
legal aid has meant in the lives of women, children, and
families, it is distressing to watch Congress's attempts to move
the cause of justice backward. Under the current budget plan,
Legal Services Corporation stands to lose one-third -- $122
million -- of its funding.
What that means is that somewhere a couple and their young
children will have to sleep in an unheated car or on the street
because of an unlawful eviction; a woman will be forced to cower
a victim 9 dames he rolever
in her bedroom, trapped in a marriage to an abusive spouse; and a
child will go to school hungry because his father refuses to pay
child support.
Last year, legal services programs helped five million of
our country's neediest people through their legal troubles. The
2
vast majority of cases were simple: evictions, foreclosures,
divorces, child support enforcement. Often advice, a referral, a
few letters or phone calls were enough to solve the problem.
Very few of these cases needed to be resolved in the courts.
Such basic assistance can head off more complicated legal
troubles and make a world of difference in the lives of clients.
While private law firms, bar associations, and individual
lawyers have increased their donations and pro-bono hours to make
up for some of the funds already cut, legal aid performance clinics still OK
have had to scale back dramatically on the number of cases they
accept. Many Tawyers have been laid off 6 The numbers 9
people who need legal anish' is increaseng an me
# is demonishing The problem gritg the growny need is era cabated
We can only
Congress is also trying to tie the hands of legal aid hope Congress
will willnet
lawyers by banning them from filing class action suits, such as make
matters
those on behalf of a group of poor citizens who want to challenge were.
unfair housing practices or consumer fraud. Legal services
representatives also would not be able to participate in cases
involving welfare reform nor could they lobby governments 6
fruting decentrating, in is seeking # to unpose in restructions
respond be imquires Even when compens is
You may be asking why this debate over the Legal Services even
on
Corporation matters to the average American. It has to do with dates
may
our society's fundamental commitment to justice, to law, and to
18th
progress.
Thank
table
ad
ago
cleanis
I believe that our society became more just and the legal
protection
3
that legal and are
services
programs asle predees
to raise federal
1
profession truer to its fundamental mission with the founding of
the Legal Services Corporation. The thousands of legal aid
lawyers and the tens of thousands of private lawyers who donate
time to legal aid work are the heart and soul of the law.
Each time a legal aid lawyer helps a mother petition for
child support or forces a nursing home to live up to its contract
of taking care of its elderly residents, our country moves closer
to its ideals.
Legal aid is one way that our country upholds the one true
contract that individual citizens have with America -- the
Constitution, and specifically, its promise of justice for all,
###
4
draft/js
FIRST LADY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
COLUMN FOR RELEASE APRIL 22
TALKING IT OVER/CREATORS SYNDICATE
I was one year out of law school and had just arrived at the
University of Arkansas School to teach law (and to be near my
boyfriend).
It was 1974 and President Nixon had just signed a bipartisan
bill to fund legal services for the poor. The law school was
looking around for someone to organize its own new legal aid
clinic. Being the new kid on the faculty, the task fell to me.
est member 8
I didn't know where to begin. Not only were there mountains
of paperwork and logistics to worry about, but many lawyers and
judges in town didn't quite support the concept of free legal aid
to people who could not afford it. were + exactly enthuriastic almo
shorth after ) and
For instance, I remember attending a bar association
cocktail party that fall. The President of the Bar took me
around to meet everyone. He introduced me to one of the senior
without
judges by saying, "Judge, this is the new lady law professor.
She is going to teach criminal law and run the legal aid clinic."
this
The judge looked down at me and said, "Well, I don't have any use
for either lady law professors or legal aid clinics."
that clinic
fedure
Thave also mermay now
Over the years, in my capacity as a legal aid clinic
director and as chair of the Legal Services Corporation which
oversees and distributes funding to the clinics, I have met many
people like that judge. But despite these opponents, many more
people have come to realize appricate the importance of legal aid and its
potential for helping all citizens not just those who can
afford lawyers find justice under the law.
For more 3 06 who have seen first hand The to with as
it is disturt
That's why I am so distressed that some in Congrees are
insisting on taking the cause of justice backward. Congress is
by
proposing to slash funding for the Legal Services Corporation by
Theaks
one-third.
will to
This:
What that means for American citizens who happen to be poor
and cannot afford legal help is that somewhere a couple and their
young children must sleep in an unheated car because of an
unlawful eviction; a woman is cowering in her bedroom, trapped in
a marriage to an abusive spouse; and a child is going to school
proposed
hungry because his father refuses to pay child support. Under the
Congressional cuts, some 1.3 million people will be denied legal
assistance.
Last year, legal services programs helped 5 million of our
country's neediest people most of them women and children --
1
through their legal troubles. The vast majority of cases were
simple: evictions, foreclosures, divorces, child support
enforcement. Often advice, a referral, a few letters or phone
calls were enough to solve the problem. Very few of these cases
needed to be resolved in the courts.
From my own experience, I know how such basic assistance
can head off more complicated legal troubles and make a world of
difference in the lives of clients. [example goes here]
Under a temporary spending measure, some of the cuts
Congress is considering have already taken place. And while
private law firms, bar associations, and individual lawyers have
increased their donations and pro-bono hours to make up for some
of the lost funds, Legal Aid societies still have had to scale
back dramatically on the number of cases they accept. Many of
les
their lawyers have been laid off.
and clinic
Congress is also trying to tie the hands of legal aid
lawyers by banning them from filing class action suits. Legal
aid lawyers would not be able to bring suits on behalf of a group
of poor citizens who want to challenge unfair housing practices
or consumer fraud. Legal services lawyers also would not be able
to participate in cases involving welfare reform and would be
prohibited from lobbying legislatures or governments.
You may be asking how this debate over the very existence of
the Legal Services Corporation affects the average American.
Well, it has to do with our society's fundamental commitment to
justice, to law, and to progress.
Cesal
I believe that our society became more just and the law
profession became truer to its fundamental mission with the
founding of the Legal Services Corporation. The thousands of
legal aid lawyers and the many more thousands of private lawyers
who donate time to legal aid work are the heart and soul of the
law. They are helping our country uphold the one true contract
individuals have with America -- the Constitution, and
specifically, its promise of justice for all.
Each time a legal aid lawyer helps a mother petition for
child support, or forces a nursing home to live up to its
contract of taking care of its elderly residents, this country
this society moves closer to its ideals.
In this current political climate, we cannot lose sight of
the cornerstone of our democracy: justice for all.
###
2
draft/js
FIRST LADY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
COLUMN FOR RELEASE APRIL 22
TALKING IT OVER/CREATORS SYNDICATE
One of the first things I did when I moved to Arkansas to be
with my soon-to-be husband was to help set up a legal aid clinic
at the University of Arkansas School of Law.
It was 1974 and President Nixon had just signed into law a
bipartisan bill to fund legal services for the poor.
When arrived in Arkansas that summer, the dean of the school
asked me to get the school's own legal aid clinic up and running.
It was tough. Not only were there piles of paperwork and
logistics to worry about, but many lawyers and judges in the
community did not quite support the concept of free legal aid to
people who could not afford it.
The very first evening I was in town, I was invited to the
county bar association's welcoming cocktail party for the law
school faculty. The President of the Bar took me around to meet
everyone. He introduced me to one of the senior judges by
saying, "Judge, this is the new lady law professor. She is going
to teach criminal law and run the legal aid clinic." The judge
looked down at me and said, "Well, I don't have any use for
either lady law professors or legal aid clinics."
In the years since that cocktail party, I have met many
people like that judge. But despite such opponents, many more
people realized the importance of helping all citizens not
just those who can afford lawyers -- find justice under the law.
Last year, legal services programs helped 5 million of our
country's neediest people -- most of them women and children --
through their legal troubles. The vast majority of cases were
simple: evictions, foreclosures, divorces, child support
enforcement. Often advice, a referral, a few letters or phone
calls were enough to solve the problem. Very few of these cases
needed to be resolved in the courts.
From my own experience, I know how such basic assistance
can head off more complicated legal troubles and make a world of
difference in the lives of clients. [example goes here]
But today, the very survival of the Legal Services
Corporation, which funds local legal aid clinics, hangs in the
balance. Congress has proposed that funding for the Legal
Services Corporation be slashed by one-third. LSC's final fate
will be determined in the weeks to come.
1
through their legal troubles. The vast majority of cases were
simple: evictions, foreclosures, divorces, child support
enforcement. Often advice, a referral, a few letters or phone
calls were enough to solve the problem. Very few of these cases
needed to be resolved in the courts. Such basic assistance can
head off more complicated legal troubles and make a world of
difference in the lives of clients. [personal example goes here]
Under a temporary spending measure, some of the cuts
Congress is considering have already taken place. And while
private law firms, bar associations, and individual lawyers have
increased their donations and pro-bono hours to make up for some
of the lost funds, legal aid societies still have had to scale
back dramatically on the number of cases they accept. Many legal
aid linic lawyers have been laid off.
Congress is also trying to tie the hands of legal aid
lawyers by banning them from filing class action suits, Legal
aid awyers would not be able to bring suits on behalf of a group
of poor citizens who want to challenge unfair housing practices
or consumer fraud. Legal services lawyers also would not be able
to participate in cases involving welfare reform and would be
prohibited from lobbying legislatures or governments.
You may be asking how this debate over the very existence of
the Legal Services Corporation affects the average American. It
has to do with our society's fundamental commitment to justice,
to law, and to progress.
I believe that our society became more just and the legal
profession truer to its fundamental mission with the founding of
the Legal Services Corporation. The thousands of legal aid
lawyers and the many more thousands of private lawyers who donate
time to legal aid work are the heart and soul of the law. They
are helping our country uphold the one true contract individuals
have with America -- the Constitution, and specifically, its
promise of justice for all.
X
X
Each time a legal aid lawyer helps a mother petition for
child support or forces a nursing home to live up to its contract
of taking care of its elderly residents, this country, this
%
society moves closer to its ideals.
In this current political climate we must not turn away
from them.
###
2
FIRST LADY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
COLUMN FOR RELEASE APRIL 22
TALKING IT OVER/CREATORS SYNDICATE
I was one year out of law school and had just arrived at the
University of Arkansas to teach law.
It was 1974 and President Nixon had just signed a bipartisan
bill to fund legal services for the poor. The law school was
looking around for someone to organize its new legal aid clinic.
Being the newest member of the faculty, the task fell to me.
I didn't know where to begin. Not only were there mountains
of paperwork and logistics to worry about, but many lawyers and
judges in town weren't exactly enthusiastic about the concept of
free legal aid to people who could not afford it.
I remember attending a bar association cocktail party
shortly after I arrived. The President of the Bar took me around
to meet everyone. He introduced me to one senior judge by
saying, "Judge, this is the new lady law professor. She is going
to teach criminal law and run the legal aid clinic.' Without
taking a breath, the judge looked down at me and said, "Well, I
don't have any use for either lady law professors or legal aid
clinics."
anywer
Over the years, as director of that clinic and later as
chair of the Legal Services Corporation which oversees and
distributes federal funding to the clinics, I have met many
people like that judge. But I have also met many more people who
appreciate the importance of legal aid and its potential for
helping all citizens not just those who can afford lawyers
find justice under the law.
millions
of
Ma
the
particular
children & familes
For those of us who have seen firsthand the positive effect
legal aid has had on the lives of many Americans, it is
distressing to watch as Congrees insists on taking the cause of
justice backward. Congress is proposing to slash funding for the
Legal Services Corporation by one third.
fund
2 re
2 Today
is
stands
to
Core
re
and
6
1
schemb
What that means for American citizens who happen to be poor
eater
and cannot afford legal help is this: Somewhere a couple and
2
their young children will have to sleep in an unheated car or an Resheets
because of an unlawful eviction; a woman will be forced to cower
men
in her bedroom, trapped in a marriage to an abusive spouse; and a
see
child will go to school hungry because his father refuses to pay
who
child support. Under the proposed Congressional cuts, some 1.3
million people will be denied legal assistance.
me Than me
willin
Last year, legal services programs helped 5 million of our
country's neediest people most of them women and children
1
While private law firms, bar associations, and individual
lawyers have increased their donations and pro-bono hours to make
up for some of the lost funds, Legal Aid societies still have had
to scale back dramatically on the number of cases they accept.
Entire offices have closed. Many lawyers have been laid-off.
What that means for American citizens who happen to be poor
is that somewhere a couple and their young children must sleep in
an unheated car because of an unlawful eviction; a woman is
cowering in her bedroom, trapped in a marriage to an abusive
spouse; and a child is going to school hungry because his father
refuses to pay child support. Under the Congressional cuts, some
1.3 million people will be denied help.
Congress is also trying to tie the hands of legal aid
lawyers by banning them from filing class action suits. Legal
aid lawyers would not be able to bring suits on behalf of a group
of poor citizens who want to challenge unfair housing practices
or consumer fraud. Legal services lawyers also would not be able
to participate in cases involving welfare reform and would be
prohibited from lobbying legislatures or governments.
You may be asking how this debate over the very existence of
the Legal Services Corporation affects the average American.
Well, it has to do with our society's fundamental commitment to
justice, to law, and to progress.
I believe that our society became more just and the law
profession became truer to its fundamental mission with the
founding of the Legal Services Corporation 22 years ago. The
thousands of legal aid lawyers and the many more thousands of
private lawyers who donate time to legal aid work are the heart
and soul of the law. They are helping our country uphold the one
true contract individuals have with America -- the Constitution,
and specifically, its promise of justice for all.
Each time a legal aid lawyer helps a mother petition for
child support, or forces a nursing home to live up to its
contract of taking care of its elderly residents, this country,
this society moves closer to its ideals.
In the current political climate, we cannot lose sight of
these ideals nor can we lose sight of justice.
###
2
Page 11
7TH STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
Copyright 1996 McClatchy Newspapers, Inc.
Sacramento Bee
March 30, 1996, METRO FINAL
SECTION: EDITORIALS; Pg. B6
LENGTH: 1040 words
HEADLINE: FORGOTTEN PROMISE OF EQUAL JUSTICE
BYLINE: Anthony Lewis
DATELINE: BOSTON
BODY:
In the American dream, law is the great equalizer. Rich and poor alike can
seek their rights in court -- and obtain what the motto inscribed on the
pediment of the Supreme Court building promises: Equal Justice Under Law.
That promise would be undermined by legislation near passage in Congress. It
would savagely cut the funds and restrict the work of the Legal Services
Corporation, which finances legal representation for those who need it but who
cannot afford it.
President Nixon signed the Legal Services bill into law in 1974. The
nonprofit corporation it created gives funds to local programs all over the
country, helping 5 million people last year. Now the radical Republicans in
Congress are working to destroy it. And President Clinton has not spoken out to
defend its great purpose.
The Legal Services budget for this year has already been cut from $ 400
million to $ 278 million under the temporary spending measures repeatedly passed
by Congress. The further assaults on the program are in an appropriation bill
that awaits resolution of the overall funding conflict between Congress and the
president.
RESTRICTIONS IN the appropriation bill would prohibit legal services from:
* Bringing class actions. Such cases are a tiny part of Legal Services' work,
but they may solve significant problems -- for instance, the illegal cutoff of
Social Security disability payments to thousands of people.
* Handling cases that involve political redistricting.
* Representing anyone who claims to have been treated illegally after a
change in state welfare rules.
*
Representing prisoners, such as those who claim theyhave been
systematically assaulted or sexually abused, or aliens such as those seeking
political asylum.
FIRST LADY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
REMARKS FOR SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW
DALLAS, TEXAS
MARCH 5, 1996
[Acknowledgments: Gerald Turner, SMU President; Paul Rogers, Dean of Law School;
Todd Gilbert, President of Student Bar Association; Jackie Gabbidon, [GAB-id-din] Vice-
President of Student Bar Association]
Friends, colleagues, and fellow lawyers; future lawyers and teachers of
the law who are here this evening: Thank-you very much for inviting me to
give this eighteenth annual Roy Ray Lecture.
I welcome this opportunity because it gives me a chance to reflect on
what a legal education and a career in the law has meant in my life -- and
could mean in the lives of the students here in this room. It is also an
opportunity to think about the ways a legal career can fulfill its most important
purpose -- to be an instrument of good, a vehicle for making our society a more
just one for all citizens.
I went to law school in the early 1970s, during a time of great political
and social ferment. To me and many aspiring lawyers of my generation, law
was an avenue for positive social change. For helping the vulnerable, the
weak, the poor. For protecting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
1
Then, as now, there were many ways to reach one's goals as a lawyer.
One could become an advocate, a legislator, a teacher, a corporate litigator, a
prosecutor, or a public defender. I'm sure all of those choices will be reflected
in the careers you choose when you leave here. And I know how difficult that
choice can be because I've tried a number of those careers myself.
But being here on a law school campus, I'm reminded mostly of my
experiences as a law professor in Arkansas.
I had never thought of teaching law until the summer of 1974, when my
service on the House impeachment committee was ending and I needed to find a
new job. I decided to call the dean of the law school at the University of
Arkansas -- where a young man I knew was then teaching -- and took the
dean up on his long-standing offer of a professorship. When I asked him what
he wanted me to teach, he answered, "I don't know. I'll tell you when you get
here."
I showed up in Fayetteville in August 1974. And he said, "Well, I want
you to teach criminal law and run the legal aid clinic, and run the prison
2
projects at the state and federal prisons, and by the way, I want you to teach
trial-advocacy, too." I swallowed hard and immediately began trying to figure
out how to start.
The very first evening I was in town, I was invited to the county bar
association's welcoming cocktail party for the law school faculty. The
President of the Bar took me around to meet everyone. He introduced me to
one of the senior judges by saying, "Judge, this is the new lady law professor.
She is going to teach criminal law and run the legal aid clinic." The judge
looked down at me and said, "Well, I don't have any use for either lady law
professors or legal aid clinics."
In the years since that cocktail party, I have met many people like that
judge who do not believe in legal services for people who could not afford
them. But despite those opponents, the Legal Services Corporation, which was
founded by bipartisan Congress and signed into law by President Nixon to fund
local legal aid programs, still managed to help millions of Americans.
After twenty-two years, legal aid societies have become a part of
3
American life. The Legal Services Corporation is one of the instruments our
society has to nurture and practice one of its most cherished ideals -- that of
justice for all Americans.
Last year, legal services programs helped 5 million people who otherwise
could not afford legal assistance. The vast majority of cases handled were non-
controversial: evictions, foreclosures, divorces. Often advice, a referral, a few
letters or phone calls were enough to solve the problem. Very few of these
cases needed to be resolved in the courts.
From my own experience as founder of Ozarks Legal Services in
Arkansas and as a former chair of the Legal Services Corporation, I know how
such simple assistance can head off more complicated legal troubles and make a
world of difference in the lives of clients.
But today, the very survival of the Legal Services Corporation hangs in
the balance. Over the past year, opponents in Congress have tried to cut
funding. Still other members are determined to kill this vital institution. As of
the first of this year, funding for the Legal Services Corporation in a temporary
4
spending measure was slashed by one-third. LSC's final fate will be
determined later this year.
While private law firms, bar associations, and individual lawyers have
increased their donations and pro-bono hours to make up for some of the lost
funds, Legal Aid societies still have had to scale back dramatically on the
number of cases they accept. Entire offices have closed. Many lawyers have
been laid-off.
What that means for American citizens who happen to be poor is that
somewhere a couple and their young children must sleep in an unheated car
because of an unlawful eviction; a woman is cowering in her bedroom, trapped
in a marriage to an abusive spouse; and a child is going to school hungry
because his father refuses to pay child support. Under the Congressional cuts,
some 1.3 million people will be denied help.
Congress is also trying to tie the hands of legal aid lawyers by banning
them from filing class action suits. Legal aid lawyers would not be able to
bring suits on behalf of a group of poor citizens who want to challenge unfair
5
housing practices or consumer fraud. Legal services lawyers also would not be
able to participate in cases involving welfare reform and would be prohibited
from lobbying legislatures or governments.
You may be asking how this debate over the very existence of the Legal
Services Corporation affects you -- our nation's future lawyers. Well, it has to
do with our society's fundamental commitment to justice, to law, and to
progress.
A famous law school dean [Roscoe Pound, Harvard] once said: "Law
must be stable, and yet it cannot stand still." He meant that law must evolve
with the times, offering the security of permanence and hope for change.
I believe that our society became more just and our profession became
truer to its fundamental mission with the founding of the Legal Services
Corporation 22 years ago. The thousands of legal aid lawyers and the many
more thousands of private lawyers who donate time to legal aid work are the
heart and soul of our profession. They are helping our country uphold the one
true contract individuals have with America -- the Constitution, and
6
specifically, its promise of justice for all.
Each time a legal aid lawyer helps a mother petition for child support, or
forces a nursing home to live up to its contract of taking care of its elderly
residents, this country, this society moves closer to its ideals.
I'm not asking all of you to become legal aid lawyers. I'm just asking
you to consider how the law can and does affect the daily lives of people at
every level of society. A career in the law should mean a life of service and a
commitment to justice. These ideals are embodied in the work of the Legal
Services Corporation, which in the current political climate needs your support
more than ever.
One of the most wonderful things about growing older is discovering that
the struggle for progress in our society is often as important as the end result.
At some point, however idealistic we may be, we accept that the
principles of fairness, justice, and equality often become flawed in their
application. We accept that we will not solve all problems in our lifetimes.
7
But we keep striving, keep struggling for these ideals because we have to
keep alive commitment and hope for the next generation.
As so many of you already now, and as so many of you will learn, the
cause of justice is worth a lifelong struggle. Thank-you.
###
8
Page 12
Sacramento Bee, March 30, 1996
Another provision forbids Legal Services from getting attorneys' fees when it
wins a case, even if a statute requires payment. Still another says that no one
working for an organization funded by Legal Services may appear as a witness
on legislative matters, even in response to a congressional request for
testimony.
One more clause provides that all the restrictions apply to any local law
office that gets even a small part of its money from Legal Services. So an
organization supported by a local bar association gives up its freedom to choose
cases if it takes $ 1 in federal funds.
The restrictions and severe budget cut reflect a deep animosity to the
corporation. Why should there be such hatred of an enterprise promoting a
profoundly American ideal, equal justice under law?
Some of the opposition comes from the Christian Coalition. It says Legal
Services is "anti-family" because it represents poor women in divorce cases.
Most of those cases involve domestic violence, child abuse and the like. Is the
Christian Coalition in favor of family violence and incest? Or does it think
women should be bound to continue suffering such lawlessness?
In 52,000 cases it handled last year, Legal Services pursued fathers
delinquent in child-support payments. Is that "anti-family"?
But something else must be involved in the attacks. It is resentment:
resentment by those who have power in this country when, occasionally, they are
held legally accountable for injuries to the weak.
AGRIBUSINESS HAS complained bitterly about Legal Services, for example --
because lawsuits have made farmers provide minimum decencies such as sanitation,
required by law, to seasonal workers. In other words, like so much else done by
the radical congressional Republicans, it is a case of the haves against the
have-nots.
Alexander Forger, the distinguished New York lawyer who is president of
Legal Services, said he was puzzled by the onslaught. "We have a stake in a
civil community," he said. "I cannot understand the objection to people solving
their problems through the system."
Clinton's silence in the face of all this is puzzling. Hillary Rodham Clinton
was chairwoman of the Legal Services Corporation from 1979 to 1981. Are she and
her husband really going to sit by while it is destroyed?
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE: April 1, 1996
Page 13
12TH STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
Copyright 1996 National Public Radio
NPR
SHOW: Morning Edition (NPR 6:00 am ET)
March 26, 1996
Transcript # 1832-11
TYPE: Package
SECTION: News; Domestic
LENGTH: 1373 words
HEADLINE: Legal-Aid Programs Face Budget Cuts by Congress
GUESTS: ANDREA PONJWONI, Legal-Aid Attorney;PATRICIA REESE;Rep. CHARLES TAYLOR
(R-NC);Rep. BILL McCOLLUM (R-FL);
BYLINE: DEREK REVERON
HIGHLIGHT:
The Legal Services Corporation, which distributes federal funds to legal-aid
programs across the country, is facing budget cuts. Conservatives feel the
programs promote a liberal agenda.
BODY:
BOB EDWARDS, Host: Legal aid for the poor is under attack in Congress. The
Legal Services Corporation, a quasi-private entity that distributes federal
funds to legal-aid programs, has seen its budget cut by 30 percent, part of a
continuing resolution that trims funding for all federal agencies. Up next,
Congress is proposing tough, new restrictions on the scope of legal-aid lawyers.
For example, they will no longer be able to file class-action lawsuits. Critics
say Legal Services are just a tool for combating conservative political reforms,
and while supporters say they grant the poor the same legal representation as
people who can afford lawyers. NPR's Derek Reveron reports on one program in
Miami that, like legal-aid programs nationwide, is fighting to stay alive.
DEREK REVERON: At Legal Services of Greater Miami, public-housing tenant
Patricia Reese is counseled by lawyer Andrea Ponjwoni [sp].
ANDREA PONJWONI, Legal-Aid Attorney: Ms. Reese, I notice the writ of possession
has already been posted on your door.
PATRICIA REESE: Posted yesterday.
DEREK REVERON: Reese received an eviction notice after failing to pay her rent
for two months, she says, because someone stole her money while she was in the
hospital for a few days. Ponjwoni explains that Reese now has two options.
ANDREA PONJWONI: The one that I hope will work is that I'll just be able to
Page 14
Morning Edition (NPR), March 26, 1996
reach an agreement for you by talking with the attorney for the country, OK? So
we'll try to work something out. If we can't, the fall-back would be we could
probably save your apartment through filing a bankruptcy, OK? OK, so I'm
going to call you as soon as I have some further news, OK?
PATRICIA REESE: OK. Thank you.
ANDREA PONJWONI: You're welcome.
DEREK REVERON: Patricia Reese is typical of legal-aid clients nationwide - poor
people involved in civil cases, mostly housing, divorce and child custody.
While the poor charged with crimes automatically get a court-appointed attorney,
those involved in civil cases aren't legally entitled to a lawyer, and they
can't afford to hire one, so they seek the free help offered by Legal Services.
But a bill proposed by Republicans in Congress threatens to deny help to
hundreds of thousands of poor people. The 1996 federal funding for the Legal
Services Corporation, which distributes money to more than 300 legal-aid
programs, was slashed from $410 million to $278 million. The cuts have hit
legal-aid offices hard. In Miami, for example, the legal staff has been cut
from 55 to 26. And it's poor people like Patricia Reese who will be hurt most
by the cutbacks, says legal-aid lawyer Ponjwoni.
ANDREA PONJWONI: Thousands of similar cases come in every year, and we've got- I
mean, there's a very small pool of attorneys, and I just don't think we're going
to be able to represent nearly as many of the people in need that we used to,
and I think homelessness will certainly be the most obvious manifestation of
that.
DEREK REVERON: Conservatives have been gunning for the Legal Services
Corporation ever since it was born. The program was created during the war on
poverty in the mid-'60s to give the poor access to legal representation. Legal
aid began to score victories in the areas of housing, welfare reform and voting
rights. And in the early-'80s, President Reagan tried to wipe out federal
funding for the Legal Services Corporation, but he was thwarted by a
Democratically-controlled Congress.
Now with Republicans in power, the future of the program looks bleak. Buried in
an appropriations bill are provisions that would prohibit legal-aid lawyers from
handling cases involving class-action suits, welfare reform, and voter
redistricting. Congress could deny funds to programs that violate the
provisions. Opponents of legal aid insist that the restraints are needed to
reel in out-of-control lawyers who use the program to push their own liberal
causes.
Rep. CHARLES TAYLOR (R-NC): It's get into a variety of very left-wing causes
with the general taxpayer's money under the guise of helping the poor. It's get
into areas that most communities would not support.
DEREK REVERON: Charles Taylor is a Republican congressman from North Carolina
who argues that federal funding for the Legal Services Corporation should be
abolished immediately. The government can no longer afford to pay for the
program, says Taylor. And besides, he says, legal-aid lawyers do more harm than
good for the poor by taking their liberal crusading too far. For example, says
Page 15
Morning Edition (NPR), March 26, 1996
Taylor, in many communities, including Miami, legal aid has represented
convicted drug dealers that local governments have tried to evict from public
housing.
Rep. CHARLES TAYLOR: It gets into keeping drug pushers in public housing, taking
the side of the drug pusher and using the taxpayer's money to beat down efforts
of local governments to try to rid those convicted drug pushers from public
housing. When they try to hide behind the poor for what are very radical- very
radical positions, they are not helping the poor. They're joining with those
who prey upon the poor.
DEREK REVERON: Legal-aid attorneys contend that they don't actually represent
convicted drug dealers but people who are being evicted because one of their
children or visiting relatives sold drugs without their knowledge.
But this is the kind of exaggerated claim, legal-aid lawyers says, that
conservatives make because they've long resented the clout that Legal Services
grants the poor, especially through the use of class-action suits. In Florida,
for example, last year Legal Services sued the state's welfare agency. The suit
charged that child support payments made to the agency by estranged parents were
passed onto welfare recipients late and sometimes not at all. The court ruled
that the payments should be made on time each month. Florida Legal Services
have also helped blacks win greater representation in several Florida counties.
Because of victories like this, says Sipon [sp], opponents are out for revenge.
SIPON: I get the feeling that it's payback time and that there is
mean-spiritedness and that it's almost a knee-jerk reaction. 'Legal Services
sued the Housing Authority. Legal Services did this. Legal Services did that.
So now we're going to get rid of them because they're too much trouble.' And
they just get into 'the wild-eyed crazies out there pushing the liberal agenda,'
which really isn't true.
DEREK REVERON: But even many supporters of legal aid believe that its activities
should be curbed, making it clear that even if Legal Services survives it will
be in a scaled-down form. Congressman Bill McCollum of Florida, who considers
himself a defender of the program, proposed the new restrictions on Legal Aid
because he feels that it doesn't have any business fighting poverty with
class-action suits.
Rep. BILL McCOLLUM (R-FL): The Legal Services program needs to be focused on
those things which are most important bread-and-butter issues to the poor, the
issues of everyday things such as landlord-tenant problems and domestic
relations and things that would be normal to somebody finding a need for a
lawyer in a poverty situation. I think the problems of the broader question of
poverty itself and the conditions of society are really and truly political
questions, and they should be dealt with in the political arena.
DEREK REVERON: But McCollum believes that some federal funding for basic legal
services should continue until the program can find other sources of financial
support. In Miami, Legal-Aid attorneys already have begun to make the
transition to a private enterprise. They've stepped up efforts to raise money
from corporations, foundations and the public, and they're shifting calls-action
suits to legal advocates to the poor who don't receive federal funds. In Miami,
I'm Derek Reveron reporting.
Page 16
Morning Edition (NPR), March 26, 1996
The preceding text has been professionally transcribed. However, although
the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid
distribution and transmission deadlines, it may not have been proofread
against tape.
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE: April 5, 1996
Page 3
1ST STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
Copyright 1996 The Washington Post
The Washington Post
April 15, 1996, Monday, Final Edition
SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A01
LENGTH: 1722 words
HEADLINE: GOP Hill Revolution Yields to Compromise; Once Facing Ax, Programs
Survive With Trims
BYLINE: Dan Morgan, Washington Post Staff Writer
BODY:
A year ago, it looked as if AmeriCorps was going to close after opening
night.
Just months after President Clinton launched it in September 1994, to provide
community service work for thousands of volunteers in return for help with
college tuition, GOP budget cutters made it a symbol of their crusade to pare
government. One senior Republican bragged that Congress would gut AmeriCorps and
"get even" with Clinton.
But as Congress returns today, the status of AmeriCorps in the budget battle
reflects the GOP's broader frustrations as well as its achievements.
"The Republican Congress has not accomplished a revolution. It has
accomplished restraint," said a senior administration official who agreed to be
interviewed only on condition that his name not be used.
Because of relentless Republican congressional pressure, the administration
has accepted a deal on AmeriCorps that basically involves a 15 percent cut in
the program's budget from $ 470 million in 1995 to $ 400.5 million this year,
greater cost-sharing by businesses and nonprofit organizations, and reduced
overhead.
But AmeriCorps lives. "It's not going to be shot down, and it will get a
third year to prove itself while the thunder and lightning goes on in
Washington," said former senator Harris Wofford (D-Pa.), who rallied former GOP
colleagues and governors behind it after he was appointed to oversee the program
last October. Wofford believes that under the deal he worked out with Sen.
Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), with whom he still attends Senate prayer
breakfasts, it should be possible to keep the number of AmeriCorps volunteers
level this year, at around 25,000.
For conservative Republican purists, that is hardly a revolution. But when
Congress reconvenes, House and Senate GOP leaders nonetheless will try to wrap
up negotiations with the White House and among themselves on a long-delayed $
166 billion spending bill incorporating the money for AmeriCorps.
A number of sticking points remain to be resolved in the huge bill, which
Page 4
The Washington Post, April 15, 1996
funds nine government departments and hundreds of programs through September.
But it already reflects a more pragmatic GOP bent than was evident last year.
Congress and the president must finish the huge measure by April 26, when
short-term spending authority runs out. Clinton has threatened to veto any
further interim spending measures.
"It's time to declare victory," said House Appropriations Committee Chairman
Bob Livingston (R-La.).
Indeed, Republicans can point to major successes.
In many ways, the bill that is emerging, together with eight other 1996
appropriations bills enacted into law, represents the GOP's major legislative
accomplishment. While Republicans have nothing to show for their bold plans to
reform welfare, Medicaid and Medicare, they have reined in the growth of the
federal establishment.
Not since 1981, the first year of Ronald Reagan's presidency, has the lid
been clamped down so hard, through cuts in federal activities funded through the
annual bargaining process between Congress and the White House. This
"discretionary" part of the budget covers most of the activities Americans
associate with government, from the Commerce Department and Amtrak to the space
shuttle and repairing the C&O Canal.
The pending measure and the other annual appropriations bills eliminate or
consolidate dozens of marginal or duplicative programs, halt the growth of huge
departments, and dramatically cut some well-established federal activities, such
as legal assistance to the poor through the Legal Services Corp. and the
National Endowment for the Arts.
Through the appropriations process, the Republican Congress has succeeded in
reordering old priorities and establishing new ones.
There will be more money to build highways, but less to help some cities and
towns pay for public bus service. There will be fewer federal dollars to develop
renewable energy and conservation technologies, but more for medical research
and law enforcement.
"If you look at the way we've held the line, I think we've got a tremendous
success story," said Elizabeth Morra, spokeswoman of the House Appropriations
Committee. "We've saved American taxpayers billions and we're going to go at it
again next year."
But when measured against the rhetoric of the "the Republican revolution,"
the spending cuts seem less drastic.
To win support from the White House, Republicans over the last few weeks have
added back some $ 5 billion to $ 6 billion in spending that they had eliminated
earlier, and Clinton administration officials said they will continue to press
for more. The Republicans are staying within their deficit reduction targets by
offsetting the spending with the sale of federal assets and other one-time
maneuvers. But the additional spending undercuts the GOP goal of downsizing
federal programs.
Page 5
The Washington Post, April 15, 1996
Last year's House initiatives to cut the National Labor Relations Board's
budget by 20 percent, eliminate funding for summer youth job programs and do
away with the home heating subsidy for poor people have been abandoned.
The Environmental Protection Agency is emerging relatively unscathed despite
an initial proposal in the House to cut its funding by about 25 percent. GOP
conservatives charged repeatedly last year that EPA was "out of control." But
Republicans have now agreed to give it $ 6.4 billion for the 1996 fiscal year,
just shy of what was allowed for 1995.
Republicans have also agreed to fund at last year's level the Chapter 1
education program that is the main federal vehicle for aiding public schools.
The House last year had voted to slash the program by more than $ 1 billion.
While dozens of programs will be terminated, many of them are tiny or little
known: Christa McAuliffe Scholarships ($ 1.9 million), the Coast Guard HH-65
helicopter gearbox upgrade ($ 2.5 million) and the Microenterprise Grants ($
2.25 million). Meanwhile, the Commerce Department and AmeriCorps, which were
targeted for elimination by last year's congressional budget resolution, appear
to have survived for now.
The big numbers also suggest that the GOP's real accomplishment has been to
restrain the growth of government rather than reshape it radically.
Congress has agreed to let the federal government make new spending
commitments for non-defense programs this year totaling $ 228 billion, $ 18
billion less than was approved by the last Democratic Congress.
But the effect of that will be more to put a brake on the growth of annual
federal outlays than to reduce the size of the federal government. That is
because annual appropriations cover billions of dollars of spending commitments
that run beyond the end of the fiscal year, such as long-term contracts and
research grants.
Even with this year's $ 18 billion in cuts, the federal government in 1996
will lay out about as much cash for domestic programs as in 1995, because it
will be drawing on billions of dollars appropriated by previous Congresses.
Thus, the most severe pain from this year's budget cuts will begin to be felt
next year, or later, when the actions of this Congress begin to pinch.
For example, about $ 6 billion of the 1996 cuts about a third of the total
is a reduction in future funding for subsidized housing for low-income
families. Congress and the White House agree that, in this fiscal climate, the
reductions are the only way to prevent runaway costs of housing programs over
the next 20 to 30 years.
But whether Congress will back away from these and other results of its
handiwork when confronted with protests from lobbyists and pressure groups
remains to be seen. The annual bargaining process by which appropriations bills
are written will lend itself to tinkering with the long-term ceilings on
domestic spending established by Republicans this year.
With little fanfare, Clinton last month presented a 1997 budget that departs
radically from the GOP spending plan, by providing substantially larger outlays
Page 6
The Washington Post, April 15, 1996
for education, the environment and the poor.
Here and there, the appropriators have resorted to bookkeeping maneuvers that
may exaggerate the magnitude of the cuts they have made. There have been
"savings" of $ 700 million resulting from rescinding funds in an illusory
airport trust.
Republicans claimed another $ 1 billion of savings by rescinding money
appropriated to help communities clean up drinking water. The rationale was that
the money could not be spent since the Safe Drinking Water Act has not been
authorized. But that could happen as early as this year, in which case funds
will have to be found.
Nonetheless, there is no doubt that the Republican tenure in Congress has
imposed real cuts on some selected agencies.
An example is the Legal Services Corp., which is facing a 30 percent cut in
its budget and an array of restrictions that will bar legal aid attorneys from
representing prisoners or illegal aliens, and prevent them from participating in
class action suits.
Under the omnibus 1996 spending bill on which final action is near, Legal
Services would receive $ 283.5 million, down from around $ 400 million in 1995.
Using 1,200 neighborhood law offices around the county, Legal Services
lawyers last year handled 1.7 million cases involving spousal abuse, child
support, evictions, denial of medical benefits and disaster relief. But Phyllis
Holmen, executive director of the Atlanta-based Georgia Legal Services Program,
said her operation has been laying off lawyers and staff.
"We are turning away situations where there is not an immediate crisis," she
said. "We have always triaged cases. Now we're at a much lower level of triage."
Some class action cases have been transferred to private attorneys and for
those lawyers who are left, the priority will go to cases involving domestic
violence, the elderly, and housing, Holmen said.
"There is zero political mileage in being on the side of access to justice
for the poor," said Alexander D. Forger, president of Legal Services Corp.
Forger said he appreciates the fact that the White House has mentioned
insufficient money for legal services in messages to Congress.
But he added: "I don't think the president has used the press conference or
the microphone to argue on behalf of representation for poor people."
GRAPHIC: Chart, SURVIVING THE REVOLUTION Although the House Republicans fell
short of their goal of radically reshaping the federal government, they did
sharply restrict the growth of government. Below are key targets of House GOP
budget cutters and their current status in the fiscal 1996 budget: In millions
'96 House Current Program '95 spending proposal status Chapter 1 (Low-income
education aid) $7,228 $6,014 $7,228 Environmental Protection Agency 6,641* 4,892
6,400 Head Start 3,534 3,397 3,570 Low-income heating subsidy 1,474 0 975 Summer
Page 7
The Washington Post, April 15, 1996
youth jobs 867 0 625 AmeriCorps 470 0 400 Drug-free schools 465 200 400 Legal
Services 400 283 283 Goals 2000 371 0 350 Occupational Safety and Health
Administration 311 263 289 National Endowment for the Arts 162 99 99 * Reflects
$600 million rescission. SOURCES: House Appropriations Committee
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE: April 15, 1996April 15, 1996
Page 9
1ST STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
Copyright 1996 The Christian Science Publishing Society
The Christian Science Monitor
April 15, 1996, Monday
SECTION: EDITORIALS; Pg. 20
LENGTH: 439 words
HEADLINE: Legal Aid's Last Stand?
BODY:
PUBLICLY funded legal aid for the poor has been a facet of American life for
more than 20 years. Depending on one's perspective, it has either been a bulwark
of equal justice, or a vehicle for crusading liberals.
In practice, legal aid may have had elements of both. But its day-to-day work
concentrates on such matters as tenant-landlord relations, consumer fraud,
marital problems, and, inevitably considering the clientele, government
benefits. Politics may sometimes cling to disputes in these areas, but politics
is not the purpose.
Yet the political-crusader perspective dominates in today's Republican-led
Congress. Congressional opponents of legal aid have launched their own crusade
to rein in the 323 programs, and 1,200 neighborhood law offices, that last year
drew on federal dollars dispensed by the nonprofit Legal Services Corporation
(LSC).
Like most organizations funded by the government, the LSC has been living on
continuing resolutions in 1996. But its budget has effectively been sliced from
$ 400 million to the House-approved figure of $ 278 million, a one-third cut.
In tandem with the budget blow, legal-services programs face a set of tight
restrictions on their activities - including bans on class-action suits, on
challenges to state welfare reforms, and on lobbying by legal-aid staff. These
rules haven't yet been signed into law, but probably soon will be. President
Clinton opposes them, but isn't likely to withhold his signature from a budget
bill because of them. In budget terms, legal services is very small potatoes.
Neither does LSC loom very large in terms of the need it attempts to meet.
Experts estimate that all the resources devoted to legal aid for the poor - pro
bono work by private lawyers, state and private programs, as well as federal
funding at last year's level - address only about 20 percent of the demand. A
kind of triage is required. Divorce cases handled by legal-aid offices typically
involve extreme cases of spousal abuse. Eviction cases often involve people on
the verge of homelessness.
Sharp funding cuts were bound to come this year. But a crucial question is
whether anti-legal-aid forces will be able to carry their campaign forward next
year and wipe out the program.
Political motives may sometimes figure in the work of lawyers helping the
Page 10
The Christian Science Monitor, April 15, 1996
poor; some tightening of guidelines may be needed. But helping impoverished
people through legal tangles is more public service than politics. It gives
"equal justice" added meaning.
That was recognized in 1974 when Congress and President Nixon established the
LSC. It shouldn't be forgotten today.
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE: April 15, 1996, Monday
THE NEW YORK TIMES, MONDAY, MAY 6, 1996
Nigeria's Waiting Game
Nigeria's military rulers seem to assume that
the case of Moshood Abiola, the front-runner in an
their country's oil and other investment opportuni-
annulled 1993 election who still awaits trial for
ties will give the United States and Europe pause'
supposed treason.
about protesting the suppression of democracy and
This is the record that caused President/Nelson
civil liberties in Nigeria. Regrettably, their strategy
Mandela of South Africa to call for an embargo on
is working.
Nigerian oil, and ought to lead other countries to
Six months after Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight
take diplomatic and economic action against Lagos.
other minority-rights activists were hanged in Ni-
Last week the British Commonwealth, having sus-
geria after a farcical trial, the Clinton Administra-
pended Nigeria's membership, joined in supporting
tion says it is still consulting with other countries on
sanctions already imposed by the United States,
long-promised sanctions. It hints at a decision next
such as prohibiting arm sales to Nigeria or travel
month, but there is no deadline, which suits Lagos
visas for Nigerian leaders and their families.
fine.
But these are annoyances; and the freezing of
The Administration's unseemly hesitation
assets could be readily evaded. An oil embargo,
leaves Senator Nancy Kassebaum, a Kansas Repub-
however deserved, is unlikely. What could truly hurt
lican, as Washington's conscience on Nigeria. Hear-
is a ban on new American investments in a country
ings are set for May 15 on her Nigeria Democracy
where Americans have already sunk some $54
Act, which has 22 co-sponsors. The measure would
billion, mostly in the oil industry. While European
codify existing sanctions against Nigeria, freeze the
and Japanese businesses might benefit from a
assets of the military regime's leaders and, most
United States embargo, there are times when the
potently, prohibit new American investment there.
defense of American principles should take prece-
Hearings can serve the double purpose of refocus-
dence over the expansion of American commerce.
ing attention on Lagos, and ventilating the argu-
Nigeria, like South Africa at an earlier time, is such
ments about a unilateral investment ban.
a case.
The trumped-up trial of the Ogoni activists last
International sanctions against Nigeria would
November is what Nigeria has learned to expect
be preferable, and. the Clinton Administration
under its self-enthroned President, Gen. Sani Aba-
should press reluctant Europeans, notably the Brit-
cha. A new World Bank report says that despite
ish, to cooperate. But if that effort fails, Washington
Nigeria's oil riches, half the population is sinking
should not hesitate to act alone. The world, especial-
below the poverty line, and one of five children dies
ly the United States, should not condone the brutal
before turning 5. Dissenters risk jail or worse, as in
policies of the Nigerian dictatorship.
Legal Services Survives, Barely
The budget bill signed by President Clinton last
becausë his father refuses to pay child support."
week after months of bargaining between the White
The number of cases handled by the already
House and Congressional Republicans deals two
underfunded program may fall by as many as
blows to the American ideal of equal justice. It
500,000, even as the number of poor people in
slashes funding for the Legal Services Corporation
America eligible to receive help is growing. In-
- the 21-year-old federally financed program that
creased pro bono work by private lawyers, though
helps poor people, with their civil legal problems. It
welcome, is not a réalistic way to fill the gap.
also imposes restrictions that will further impede
Congress also insisted on provisions that weak-
the program's effectiveness.
en the ability of Legal Services lawyers to adequate-
President Clinton cited his opposition to the
ly represent their clients. Among other things, they
gutting of Legal Services when he vetoed an earlier
would be barred from filing class-action lawsuits.
version of the budget bill last December. But the
Such suits are a tiny part of Legal Services' work.
Republicans were not moved to rethink their ap-
But they are a practical way to resolve significant
proach. In the end, Mr. Clinton - apparently satis-
issues that affect large numbers of poor people, like
fied that he had won important concessions else-
rules governing eligibility for Medicaid, housing and
where in the bill - swallowed a 30 percent cut in
disability benefits. Other legislative restrictions
Legal Service's budget, from $400 million to $278
prohibit Legal Services attorneys from challenging
million.
illegal or unconstitutional changes in state welfare
These cold figures need to be understood in
rules, and severely limit the freedom to represent
human terms, as First Lady Hillary Rodham Clin-
client interests before legislative bodies and in
ton, a former chairwoman of the Legal Services
administrative rule-making proceedings.
Corporation, noted recently in her syndicated news-.
These sad defeats amount to a victory of sorts.
paper column. "What that means," she wrote, "is
The bill stops short of the outright abolition of Legal
that somewhere a couple and their young children
Services pressed by some Republicans in the first
will have to sleep in an unheated car or on the street
flush of their party's takeover of Congress. Unfortu-
because of an unlawful eviction; a woman will be
nately, to the many impoverished Americans who
forced to cower in her bedroom, a victim of domes-
will now be shut out of the legal system, that will not
tic violence; and a child will go to school hungry
provide much comfort.
Colum
full