RECOMMENDATIONS
67 FORDHAM LAW REVIEW 1751 (1999)
1. The recommendations are consecutively
numbered for ease of reference. Citations to these recommendations elsewhere
in this volume shall be as follows:
Recommendations of the Conference on the Delivery
of Legal Services to Low-Income Persons, 67 Fordham L. Rev. 1751, Recommendation
___, at ___ (1999) [hereinafter
Recommendations].
RECOMMENDATIONS 67 FORDHAM LAW REVIEW 1778 (1999)
66. Programs should collaborate with each other on the use, avail-ability,
and allocation of resources and make efforts to in-crease
available resources to ensure a delivery system offering a full range
of services. The resulting delivery system should
reflect and have the capacity to respond to local priorities and input
on the community level.
67. Programs should encourage experimentation with different de-livery
techniques, including centralized intake and other inno-vative
methods.
RECOMMENDATIONS 67 FORDHAM LAW REVIEW 1779 (1999)
B. Program Priorities
68. Programs have an affirmative obligation to reach out to under-served
groups. Program intake systems should be structured
to overcome barriers created by geography, language, culture, physical
and mental disabilities, and employment or family
obligations.
69. Programs should clearly identify their goals and set priorities.
Programs should publicly disclose their goals and priorities.
All criteria for selecting cases, including any grounds for ex-ceptions
to general principles, should also be made public.
70. Programs have an affirmative responsibility to set goals and priorities
through a process of consultation with the client
community and to periodically reassess the decisions made.
(a) Programs have an affirmative responsibility to ensure that the process
of consultation is meaningful and effective.
(b) Meaningful consultation requires an ongoing dialogue with the community
through many information sources in-cluding
both formal and informal community interaction. Advisory boards and
surveys should not be the principal
means of obtaining community input.
(c) In order to receive meaningful input from the community, programs
must collect and disseminate information that
would help community members to understand and evalu-ate the program's
goals, priorities, and effectiveness.
71. Program goals must include efforts to make institutions (such as
government benefit departments, schools, hospitals, and fi-nancial
and other private institutions) that are important to the client community
more responsive to its needs.
72. Programs should give serious consideration to the goal of as-sisting
institutions and community groups in promoting activi-ties
that increase economic stability and growth in the communities that
they serve.
73. Because priorities are set by the board, programs should have broad
discretion to determine the composition of their boards
in order to reflect the needs and resources of the community.
(a) Legal Services Corporation requirements concerning the composition
of Boards are unduly restrictive. (Footnote 19)
(b) Further study of the composition and role of boards is needed.
74. In order to better meet the needs of low income individuals, consideration
should be given to raising LSC mandated in-come
guidelines. Non-LSC programs should also consider
19. There was some dissent to this
subpart.
RECOMMENDATIONS 67 FORDHAM LAW REVIEW 1780 (1999)
whether their income guidelines unduly hamper their ability to represent low income individuals in need of legal services.
75. Programs should not seek or accept funding that requires the diversion
of ongoing resources from legitimate program
priorities.
(a) the importance of the interests at stake: Ordinarily, this
reflects the level of pain, discomfort, or harm associated with the
legal matter;
(b) the degree to which the use of the program's resources will make
a difference in the outcome desired by the individual
client: The application of this concept would result in a lower preference
for representing clients who would be
successful even without representation as well as who would most likely
not be successful regardless of represen-tation.
The concept of "legal success" is broader than merely whether the case
is won or lost;
(c) whether a case offers a long term benefit rather than merely short
term relief;
(d) whether there is a collective benefit to the community; (e) the
commitment of program resources required;
(f) any alternative resources that may be available, including other
legal and social services programs;
(g) the degree of emergency: While it is appropriate to con-sider the
urgency of the situation, programs should resist
putting all resources into responding to emergency cases to the exclusion
of other cases that may provide long term
solutions and collective benefits to the community; and (h) whether
the case has been referred from a community-based
organization when cooperation with such organiza-tion is part of the
program's goals and priorities.
77. Case acceptance should not be influenced by the attorney's personal
judgment of the moral worth of the client or the un-popularity
of the issue.
The Working Group on Client/ Matter/ Case Selection did not agree on
the weight to give attorney preference and the need for profes-sional
development. Views varied from treating this as a positive fac-tor,
an impermissible factor, or a tie-breaking factor among competing
and important matters.
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