Funds or Community Chests, which represents over 51% of the total expenditure for civil Legal Aid in the United States. The next most significant contribution is nearly $725,000 from bar associations and private attorneys. The balance is derived from various sources, such as registration charges, token fees, foundations, investments, and gifts. Defender offices In last year's report, NLADA listed 136 Defender offices in the United States. This number has now increased to 162 (126 public; 19 public-private; and 17 voluntary). Public agencies receive their support from the county, city, or state; the public-private offices receive their support from both public and private sources; and the voluntary offices receive all of their support from private sources. Twelve of the private and public-private Defender offices receive some or all of their support from local United Fund or Community Chest agencies. History THE NLADA Incorporated in 1949, succeeding previous National Association of Legal Aid Organizations organized in 1923. Board and Executive Committee Board of Directors numbers 48, with members serving 3-year overlapping terms. Executive Committee of 20 members elected by the Board. Last year the Board met three times, with an average attendance of 19 (quorum 15). The Executive Committee met 7 times, with an average attendance of 10. Staff Junius L. Allison, Executive Director; and 8 more full-time, 2 part-time professional staff members; 7 full-time secretarial and clerical workers; 2 parttime secretarial; 1 full-time bookkeeper-accountant, and 1 full-time mail clerk. Structural relations with communities Membership of the NLADA consists of 229 autonomous service agencies in 39 states, the District of Columbia, Canada, Puerto Rico, and the Philippine Islands; over 1,500 individual lawyers (Professional Members); and 35 organizations (Associate Members) engaged in improving the administration of justice. WHAT THE NLADA DOES (a) Promotional and Housekeeping Materials.-The NLADA develops, tests and supplies various publications relating to the initiation of new and operation of existing agencies. Some 75 different pamphlets and reprints are available. (b) Consultative and Field Service.-Surveys and studies of societies are provided to improve local services. These are made in cooperation with the society, the bar association, and the United Fund, Chest or Council. (c) Publications and Exhibits.-Periodic publications such as BriefCase, Annual Conference Proceedings, and the Legal Aid and Defender Directory; lighted displays; and "how-to-do-it" packages are made available for promotional work and on-going activities. (d) Research and Special Projects.-The Association makes studies of special legal problems of Legal Aid clients, more lengthy studies in areas with multiple problems, and participates in joint survey projects. Human needs served As population and industrialization grow, so does the need for organized Legal Aid. There are only 6 cities of more than 100,000 population where there are no Legal Aid societies, and 15 areas of 75,000 to 100,000 with no organized legal services for the poor. Twenty cities in the larger group have only "paper" organizations. National studies show that 71⁄2 people out of every 1,000 need free legal services. There are 26 counties of more than 400,000 population with no organized Defender facilities. The 252 Legal Aid offices and the 162 Defender services constantly call upon NLADA for technical help in many areas. It is the only national agency existing with facilities to meet these needs. PROGRAM EMPHASIS 1966 Gaps in organized legal aid services and improving substandard offices The events of the past few years in the criminal field and the entry of the federal government into support of legal programs for the poor under the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, have prompted a vigorous self-appraisal by NLADA of its programs and goals. A significant development was the revision of its standards for civil offices and for defender services. The results are clear, concise directives for furnishing better organized legal services to the indigent. The adoption of these standards at NLADA's 1965 annual meeting is a serious challenge for most existing services and will command considerable attention by the staff of NLADA in assisting the compliance of local offices. Close cooperation has been established by NLADA with the legal services program of the Office of Economic Opportunity in the anticipation that expanded and improved services can benefit from the support now offered by the federal government. Included in NLADA's target for development are the 33 central cities in counties of more than 100,000 inhabitants where the only Legal Aid plan is a committee of the bar association. NLADA credits such as an "active" service since individual members of the committee advise clients; however, there are within these informal arrangements such weaknesses that adequate service is seldom available. NLADA's long and successful experience with the use of matching fund grants as the most effective way to promote Legal Aid and Defender programs will be continued and will be coordinated with the Office of Economic Opportunity so as to avoid duplication of effort. It is expected that the OEO will call and rely heavily upon NLADA's many years of experience in evaluating applications for funding under the government programs. NLADA goals The NLADA hopes to make Legal Aid and Defender services available everywhere for all those financially unable to employ private counsel. Specifically, it aims: (1) to assist existing Legal Aid civil offices to measure up to NLADA standards and practices and thus improve and broaden their services to ingredients; (2) to have Legal Aid offices in every city of 50,000 or more population; and at least a voluntary committee of the local bar association in every other city or county; and (3) to have Defender service that is competent, complete, and loyal in every county (including neighborhood branches) having a substantial number of indigent defendants. EXHIBIT No. 3 [From the American Bar Association Journal, February 1966] LEGAL AID'S ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY The entrance of the Federal Government with financing for legal aid activities has provided the Bar and the organized legal aid societies with a crucial opportunity to improve their services, Mr. Westwood writes. Too long the established legal aid agencies have been timid and impoverished, he says, but now the Office of Economic Opportunity has given legal aid an economic opportunity of its own. (By Howard C. Westwood* of the District of Columbia Bar) *A 1933 graduate of Columbia Law School, Howard C. Westwood has practiced in Washington since serving a year as law clerk to Justice Harlan F. Stone. He served on the Legal Aid Commission of the Bar Association of the District of Columbia and is on the boards of trustees of both the Legal Aid Society and the Neighborhood Legal Services Project. Each year the National Legal Aid and Defender Association points with pride to the increase in the number of legal aid organizations and the cases they handle.1 In recent years the increase has been impressive and the pride may 1 The association reports that legal aid offices, excluding defender offices handling only criminal cases, have increased as follows: 1949, 87; 1954, 116; 1959, 130; 1964, 244. While N.L.A.D.A.'s statistics on total cases are incomplete because of irregular reporting to it, the data are of significance for comparative purposes. Total new civil legal aid cases reported to the association have been as follows: 1954, 274,000; 1959, 350,000; 1964, 414,000. be pardoned. But these increases have a limited meaning. They do show progress, but not the extent to which the existing need for legal aid remains unmet or the rate at which the need may be growing. If, despite progress, there remains a large gap between the service provided and the service needed by the poor and if at the same time the need for legal aid is increasing, the pride we take in our progress had better be replaced by a driving discontent. That the need for legal aid is growing is plain, for our population is leaping upward at a frightening rate. In 1950 the population of the United States was just over 150,000,000. In 1965 it had increased to 194,000,000. By 1970 it will have grown to 209,000,000, by 1980, to 245,000,000. By the close of the century, just thirty-five years hence, it will have reached almost 340,000,000. That will be an increase over present population by an amount nearly equal to the total population of the United States fifteen years ago. It is startling to consider what this means. In New Jersey, for instance, a density of population of nearly 870 persons per square mile today will have jumped to about 1,130 by 1980. That density will be far greater than that expected in Japan, one of the world's most crowded countries; even in the year 2000 Japan's density is expected to be 885 persons per square mile, not much greater than New Jersey has already attained. While we all hope that our living standards will continue to rise and that the fraction of our population that is pauperized will tend to decrease, the providing of legal aid becomes more difficult as population becomes more dense. In a city of 100,000 the needy people can be serviced without too much trouble. But the complexity of the problem increases with a kind of geometric progression as a city grows. It is a homely but compelling fact that the large city is a more lonely place than the small one-that in the former it is much easier to get lost. Even if the total need for legal aid does not grow quite as fast as the rate of the population explosion, our ingenuity and resources will be strained to the utmost because of the vast concentrations of people that are in prospect. Nowhere are we prepared to meet what is ahead of us. But we need not speculate about the extent to which we are unprepared to meet future needs, for recently we have witnessed a conclusive demonstration that even well-organized legal aid, as we know it today, falls far short of meeting present needs. Legal aid would have to grow much faster than its current pace merely to do the job now demanded, even if the population suddenly stood still. The demonstration occurred in 1965 in Washington, D.C. For some time the population growth of the District of Columbia has been slow because of geographic limitations. Between 1955 and 1965, the District's population increased by only 2 percent, from 785,000 to 803,000. While the traditional legal aid society in Washington-now more than thirty years old-serves the entire metropolitan community, about 90 percent of its clients are District of Columbia residents. With the population of the District relatively static, it might be assumed that the total need for legal aid has been fairly constant in recent years and it would seem that a long-established legal aid society was meeting that need. Moreover, the society does not handle criminal cases, so the extent of its potential clientele has not been affected by recent decisions extending the right to counsel in criminal cases. Actually, that society's case load has increased in the last few years by a very health amount. Not counting an artificial growth caused by the society's taking over of a special unit in the municipal courthouse formerly operated by The Bar Association of the District of Columbia, new cases jumped from 6,232 in 1957 to 8,512 in 1964 -nearly 37 per cent in just seven years. If the need for legal aid were being met anywhere in the nation, one would assume that surely it was being met in the District of Columbia. 2 Population figures are taken from United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports Series P-25, No. 304, 10 (April 8, 1965); id., No. 317 (August 27, 1965); id., No. 286 (July, 1964). 3 These density figures are based on statistics contained in Current Population Reports, No. 317. 2 (August 27, 1965) and No. 301, 4 (February 26, 1965); and in U.S. Census of Population-1960, U.S. Summary, Number of Inhabitants, Report PC(1)-1A, Table 12, pages 1-20 (1961). Population Reference Bureau, 21 Population Bulletin, No. 4, page 84 (October, 1965). Current Population Reports, No. 304, 10 (April 8, 1965) and No. 317, 2 (August 27, 1965). Report of the Commission on Legal Aid of the Bar Association of the District of Columbia 59 (1958). " Id., at 64. 8 Annual report of the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia for 1964. But it was not. Just after the first of January, 1965, there was opened in the District of Columbia the first neighborhood legal aid office of a new organization funded by the Office of Economic Opportunity. As of the end of September, 1965, seven neighborhood offices were in operation. They apply the same standard of indigency as does the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia. They handle some criminal cases, which are not taken by the Legal Aid Society. But since. as of the end of September, their criminal cases amounted to only 7 per cent of their total case load, it is fair to say that they and the society are serving much the same legal aid need. These offices serve clients only in their neighborhoods within the District; they do not operate throughout the community, as does the society. Moreover, they refer to the society nearly all domestic relations cases.' Despite the fact that the society is well-organized and experienced, these new neighborhood offices have met with a steadily increasing demand for service. As of the end of September, their case load had reached an annual rate of 7.812. Thus, within but nine months, while these offices were getting started and opening only gradually through the period, their case load already was approaching closely the total new case load of the thirty-plus-year-old Legal Aid Society (exclusive of its recently acquired municipal court branch). And the neighborhood offices' case load was and has continued to be on a sharp upward trend. At the same time the Legal Aid Society's case load has continued to grow. During the first nine months of 1965 its new cases (excluding those in the municipal court unit) exceeded by 396 its new cases during the same period of 1964, before any neighborhood offices were opened. WASHINGTON EXPERIENCE DEMONSTRATES NEEDS What this experience shows is that the usual type of legal aid operation. though long established, widely known and well-organized and staffed, does not meet even the larger part of the existing need even in a compact area such as the District of Columbia. When legal aid is taken out into the community and operated on a decentralized, neighborhood basis, we find a pressing, heartbreaking need, both in amount and nature, far beyond the need met theretofore. The lesson of the experience in Washington cannot be dismissed on the ground that it has a larger Negro population, among whom poverty seems to prevail to a great extent, than other cities. The lesson we have been provided is not one of numbers of cases per unit of population but of the inadequancy of legal aid. as it is now provided, to meet the total need in a community. But to decentralize legal aid to numerous neighborhood offices close to the clients is a costly undertaking. Unit costs soar. The increase in the case load and the more aggressive participation in neighborhood problems greatly add to total costs. And if legal aid is to pay decent salaries to its lawyers, is to have adequate clerical staffs and is to add to its force what is beginning to be recognized as essential if an effective job is to be done—that is, a staff of investigafors-the annual budgets of legal aid organizations must be increased far beyond anything we have dreamed of. It is a cold fact that the increased funds required to meet the existing urgent need—without considering the increase in need that the population explosion foretells for the near future-cannot be secured from private sources. Foundations have been generous in recent years, but they cannot be relied on for permanent financing. Community chests are stretched to the limit. The legal profession has never contributed funds adequately anywhere, but not a great deal more can be counted on from that source in most cities. Only from the government can there come substantial additional revenues. The Legal Aid Society of New York City, long the bellwether for the whole entry, has found this ent. In 1961 it first turned to government for funds. In that year of the society's total revenues of $665,700, the City of New York contri uted $20000. By 1964 the society's revennes had increased to $1,230,000, reflecting a substantial increase in service. Of the increased revenue, $477,000 ere fancy and state governments. The society's dependence on government tords had grown from size Tg per cent în 1961 to nearly 40 per cent in 1964." Addis estimated that in 1963, when its revenues and expenses continued to elima, its dependence on these government sources increased to 45 per cent.” W ཀུ། རྒྱའི་སྐྱེགས་ss have been supplied by The Neckarhood Legal Services Project. of New York City for 1961 and 1964. bok provided by the sterrey æet ret of the society as of November 4, 1965. Fortunately, just as we were beginning dimly to see that we would have to turn to government if legal aid were to have the financing to do the job, the Federal Government, through the Office of Economic Opportunity, offered help in substantial amounts. Some persons have questioned whether government assistance might lead to an impairment in a fearlessly independent representation of the poor. This danger is much less, and much more easily avoided, from a remote federal agency than from city hall just down the street. The possibility of using a legal aid organization for political patronage certainly is much less. Further, the federal bureaucrat, distantly located, could not censor as effectively, even if he would. And the likelihood that a local legal aid society would antagonize a federal agency by its vigorous representation of the poor obviously is not as great as the chance that it would arouse a government closer to home, which it is likely to be battling in sensitive areas. Moreover, we have now had enough experience with the OEO to have some basis for judging whether it presents a danger to the fearless independence of representation of the poor. Experience thus far shows that the danger is illusory. OEO HAS ENCOURAGED VIGOROUS REPRESENTATION The contrary, indeed, is the case. For the OEO's course thus far has been in a direction encouraging much greater vigor in asserting the rights of clients than many legal aid societies have been accustomed to. The OEO's policy is that legal aid societies should pay decent salaries to their lawyers. No single step could be more effective in securing competent, hard-hitting representation than to get away from the pauper level of compensation for legal aid staffs. With rare exceptions, pauper pay in the long run attracts less than superior ability, as we have seen in too many cities. The OEO also has requested legal aid societies to re-examine standards of indigency. In the N.L.A.D.A. it is recognized that these standards often have been too low-sometimes shockingly low-and that they have not kept pace with the march of inflation and the increasing costs of survival in metropolitan areas. The OEO also has asked that legal aid societies provide the full spectrum of legal services, eliminating the artificial limitations that frequently have been applied to the types of cases taken by a legal aid society, limitations that, if they ever had any rational basis, have long been out of date, are a gross discrimination against the poor and are at war with legal aid's basic principle that "Thou shalt not ration justice." 12 Most significantly, the OEO has insisted that its aid go only to organizations that are independent of the control of social welfare or other agencies with which the lawyer for the poor may have to litigate or contend, even though these other agencies may also be funded by it. Finally, the OEO's practice has been such that legal aid organizations receiving its assistance are under the direction and leadership of the legal profession, with strict adherence to professional ethical standards. Central to those standards is the lawyer's complete and singleminded devotion to the interest of his individual client. Given such policies on the part of the OEO, there can be no real danger in its financial help. On the contrary, legal aid can be and will be made both more capable of meeting the need so long neglected and more independent and aggressive than ever in advancing the rights of the poor. In recent months there has appeared some concern about the OEO program on the part of many responsible lawyers. They have expressed the fear that this program might mean socialization of the Bar and erosion of the traditional lawyer-client relationship and ethical standards. Exactly the same fears have been expressed about organized legal aid for half a century. Ever since 1919-when Reginald Heber Smith's Justice and the Poor carried to the entire profession and to all communities the message that had been heeded only in a handful of cities and gave nationwide impetus to the creation of legal aid societies, which leaders of the Bar such as Charles Evans Hughes and William Howard Taft diligently sought to foster-some lawyers have worried about socialization and the weakening of professional service. Would a salaried lawyer on the payroll of a legal aid society serve the client in a truly professional manner? Would a legal aid society's publicizing of its service, so that it would become known to the poor, be incompatible with the See 12 The injunction is that of Judge Learned Hand, used in an address before the 75th annual dinner of The Legal Aid Society of New York City on February 6, 1951. Smith, Introduction, in Brownell, Legal Aid in the United States xviii (1951). |