Veterans Relief Project

By Maura Weber – Project Director

In October 2013 I was proud to be named the first project director of Legal Aid’s Veterans Relief Project. There are an estimated 1,400 homeless veterans in the Kansas City metro area. Many of these Veterans have legal problems impeding their ability to obtain or maintain stable housing. The Veterans Relief Project began with the idea that if we could help veterans overcome the legal barriers to stable housing, we can help the community get one step closer to ending veteran homelessness in the Kansas City area.

The majority of my clients are referrals from community partners. We work closely with the Kansas City VA Medical Center, the Salvation Army Kansas City, Catholic Charities of Kansas City – St. Joseph, and reStart, Inc. to identify veterans who are in need of legal assistance. In the year since I started working as project director I have assisted over sixty veterans with various legal problems. I also attend various community outreach and Stand Down events to meet with Veterans directly.

Ted served in the National Guard for five years. Unfortunately, his service did not qualify him to receive medical care through the Department of Veterans Affairs. He has ongoing mental health problems, some of which stemmed from being homeless for over 20 years. Ted was unable to obtain medical treatment because of his lack of insurance and inability to go to a VA Medical Center. Legal Aid’s Veterans Relief Project helped him obtain MO HealthNet for the Aged, Blind, and Disabled. He is now receiving regular care, both mental and physical. The community partner who referred Ted to the Veteran Relief Project also helped Ted obtain stable housing, so he is now able to have a safe place to live in addition to obtaining important medical care.

Frank was referred to Legal Aid Veteran Relief Project by a community partner. His child support allotment was unduly high, making it difficult for him to afford rent and utilities in addition to his child support payments. Frank lost his job a year ago and had been unsuccessful finding a new one. Legal Aid represented Frank in court and reduced his monthly child support payments by more than half, which in turn helped him afford his monthly cost of living.

First Lady Michelle Obama, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs recently announced the creation of the Mayors Challenge to End Veteran Homelessness. Kansas City Mayor Sly James has committed to this program and the goal of ending Veteran Homelessness in the Kansas City community by 2015. I am proud to support this goal and the area veterans.

The Changing Nature of the Legal Profession

Gregg Lombardi - Executive Director

At the 40th Anniversary of the creation of the Legal Services Corporation, there were lots of speeches by impressive dignitaries. There were also lots of impressive and surprising facts bandied around about the changing nature of the legal profession.

Here are a number of noteworthy facts and statistics that I came away with and which might be of interest to you. I have not done any confirmation of these, but can only tell you that they come from credible sources:

--The cost of litigation is resulting in alternative dispute resolution processes that are outside of the legal system. For example, in 2013, e-Bay resolved 6 million on-line disputes without the assistance of any attorney;

--In 2013, there were 335,000 cases brought in federal court in which the court provided an interpreter for a party or a witness who did not speak English;

--Washington State is considering issuing limited licenses to practice law, that would allow students to graduate from law school in substantially less time if they were only going to focus their practice on a specific type of work (for example, divorces on municipal court cases);

--New York State now allows law students to skip their final term of law school and take the bar exam in February, if they spend their final term working for a not-for-profit organization;

-- Justice Scalia at the conference said: "Access to justice is the most fundamental American ideal."

--The United Kingdom has de-regulated law. They now allow non-lawyers to own law firms;

--According to a 10-year Harvard study, the average new attorney changed jobs roughly 4 times between 2002 and 2012; 

--In half of the cases filed in the 7th Circuit in 2013 at least one party was not represented by counsel;

--In 90% of the divorce cases filed in Connecticut in 2013 at least one party was not represented by counsel;

--In 1978, federal funding for legal aid programs nationally was $205 million. That equates to $747 million in funding in 2014 dollars, when adjusted for inflation. That is more than twice the current level of federal funding for the legal aid programs’ work;

--Discretionary funding in the federal budget (which is where Legal Aid funding comes from) is now about one-third of the budget. In 2024, it’s estimated the discretionary funding will account for only 15% of the budget;

--In 1994, the largest 200 law firms in the country did about 900,000 of pro bono work. In 2013, they did over 5 million hours of pro bono work.

--Attorneys in Texas in 2013 did 2.5 million hours of pro bono work.

LSC's 40th Anniversary Kick-Off Conference

Gregg Lombardi - Executive Director

For the last three days, I have had the good fortune to be the guest, along with all of the other legal aid program directors, of the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) at the 40th anniversary of LSC in Washington, D.C.

Guest speakers included Attorney General Eric Holder, Vice President Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (who was one of the first presidents of the Legal Service Corporation Board), Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Antonin Scalia, as well as the deans of Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Duke law schools. Every living U.S. President sent a congratulatory letter.

From all, the essential underlying message was the same: the work of the legal aid programs is critical to the justice system and to the very success of the country as a whole. As Justice Scalia, of all people, put it: "Access to justice is the most fundamental American ideal."

We were repeatedly thanked profusely for our work, but those thanks really belong to the people who do the work on the front lines every day. So, to everyone who works for the cause-- attorneys, paralegals, secretaries, intake staff, volunteers and even the folks in administration-- please know that at the highest levels of government and the judiciary in our country, your work is known, understood and appreciated.  

And you should also know that, almost uniformly among the speakers we heard, there was a clear recognition that the work of the legal aid programs is grossly underfunded. 

There are a lot of good people at the Legal Services Corporation, the ABA, the Justice Department and the NLADA working hard to translate the appreciation we heard into increased support for our work. 

_________________________

There were lots of amazing facts and statistics bandied about at the conference. Later this week, I hope to get out another post with some of the more memorable ones.

Getting Missourians Access to Healthcare

by Gregg Lombardi - Executive Director

I’m excited to report, albeit belatedly, about the work that Stacy Schaub and others have been doing on the Legal Aid Family Support Division Work Group in regard to problems the State of Missouri has been having in processing Medicaid applications. Other members of the Work Group include: Billie Orr, Alicia Johnson, Lisa Gentleman, Jeffiner Thompson, Emily DeStefano and Abbie Rothermich.

In the last year, the State has made major funding cuts and office reorganization in the Family Support Division (known as the FSD), which processes applications for public benefits, including Medicaid, Food Stamps, and Temporary Assistance. 

Medicaid provides health insurance for low-income Missourians who are permanently and totally disabled and, because of their disability, are not capable of gainful employment. It also pays for or subsidizes health insurance for children in low to moderate income families. For thousands of low-income Missourians, Medicaid is their only viable means of accessing long-term, pro-active medical care and the prescription medications they need to bring the pain and other aspects of their maladies under control.

The FSD funding cuts and reorganization have meant that for many Medicaid applicants there is no one to talk to from the State about questions they have on their applications and no one even to give them a receipt when they submit required documentation supporting their applications. We have had many situations in which we have actually faxed in information, like an income verification to the FSD for a client only to have the FSD send the client a letter several weeks later, saying that their application has been denied because they did not provide the FSD with the birth certificate.

The FSD also has gotten much slower in processing applications for Medicaid. So, now it can take several months to get a decision back from FSD, which is a long time to wait when you have a serious medical issue. 

Because of these obstacles and others, from September 2013 through March 2014, Medicaid enrollment in Missouri dropped 3.9% (approximately 33,800 people, one of the largest drops in Medicaid enrollment in the country. While this saves the State and the federal government money in the short-term, it greatly damages the health of the people who need Medicaid and leads to major costs for the hospitals that treat people who are wrongly denied Medicaid when they have catastrophic health crises as a result of not receiving the care they need.

Stacy Schaub, who is the Supervisor of Legal Aid’s Public Benefits Team in our central office, is part of a team of Legal Aid attorneys and other staff who are strategizing on how to respond to problems in the FSD’s processing of Medicaid applications and the processing of other public benefits. 

In early August, the Missouri HealthNet Oversight Committee held a meeting in Jefferson City on the status of Missouri’s Medicaid system. At the meeting, FSD leadership testified that, although there were problems that needed to be addressed, FSD had adequate funding and staffing to handle them. Stacy provided powerful testimony at the meeting bringing to light the numerous problems that the FSD is having.

I’m very proud of the work that Stacy and the other members of Legal Aid’s FSD Task Force have done on this issue. It’s a major step towards getting lots of Missourians in need the healthcare they need and that, under the law, they deserve.

Ed Ford: 50th Anniversary Guest Blogger

Councilman Ed Ford, Kansas City Missouri City Council 

Councilman Ed Ford (circa 1979)

I started working for Legal Aid when I was a third year law student at UMKC (1977-1978), and upon graduation, was hired full-time. The Professional Building, Linwood Multipurpose Building (now the Mohart Center) and the Jackson County Juvenile Court were all places I called home during my Legal Aid tenure. I was a guardian ad litem for abused and neglected children, represented alleged mentally ill folks who were staving off commitment (back in the day before one had to be both mentally ill and dangerous to oneself or others) and worked on education issues of children with disabilities.

It was during these early years at Legal Aid that I was first introduced to City Government and its politics. In 1978, a fellow Legal Aid Attorney, Jerry Riffel, was running for KCMO City Council. Jerry was a long haired liberal leaning candidate who headed up Legal Aid's housing unit. None of us really thought Jerry had a chance as he was running against an “establishment” attorney, with plenty of campaign money and the support of the powerful Citizens' Association. To make it even more of an uphill battle, Jerry was running in-district for the affluent 4th district- the political heart of the city. Jerry and his team of volunteers staged an impressive grass roots campaign that outworked his opponent and ended up winning the Council seat in 1979. “Wow,” I thought. What a great city we lived in when someone like Jerry could get elected.

My final years with Legal Aid were spent at the South Office, where we represented our clients on a variety of issues including many landlord tenant matters. It became apparent that many of the legal issues that confronted our clients were primarily financial in nature. Clients were being evicted not because they were bad tenants but because they didn't have the money to pay the rent.  The South Office is where I first met an energetic minister by the name of Rev. Emmanuel Cleaver II who was advocating for the same folks Legal Aid was representing. 

My opportunity to serve as an elected official began when I was first elected to the KCMO City Council in 1995. I am now starting my 16th and final year (term limits). I have been privileged to serve with four Mayors including Kansas City's first African- American Mayor, Emmanuel Cleaver II, and its first woman Mayor, Kay Barnes.  I am proud of the progress we have made in many areas of Kansas City, especially Downtown and in the Northland. Unfortunately, the problems of poverty, crime and racism continue to hold back progress in other areas, especially the urban core. 

I still believe in Legal Aid and its mission. I continue to be an advocate for Legal Aid funding recognizing its great work in neighborhoods, housing issues and municipal court. If it wasn't for my time at Legal Aid, I don't believe I would have run for City Council. I still practice law with a small firm in Kansas City North and am pleased to be a part of the Volunteer Attorney Project (VAP).

[In celebration of Legal Aid of Western Missouri's 50th anniversary, we will feature guest bloggers. If you have Legal Aid memories or reflections you would like to share in a guest post, please contact Karen Cutliff - kcutliff@lawmo.org.)

George D. Blackwood, Jr. Shares His Legal Aid Memories (Reprint from 1989)

The following Legal Aid of Western Missouri “memory” first appeared in our 1989 Annual Report. We repost it here as part of our 50th Anniversary celebration.

By George D. Blackwood, Jr. - Board of Trustees President 1986-87

I had been a member of the Board of Trustees of Legal Aid for a number of years when I received a phone call from John Phillips in the fall of 1985 inquiring whether I would be willing to serve as the 1986-87 President. Recognizing that the organization was still under Jody Raphael’s leadership and having considerable respect for her abilities, I readily consented. Little did I know that she would tender her resignation mid-way through my term and that I would be forced to shepherd the potentially arduous process of selecting her replacement. Happily, Dick Halliburton was able to pick up where Jody left off and the transition occurred with hardly a ripple.

One of the significant events to me during my tenure was the physical move from totally inadequate facilities at 11th and Grand to relatively luxurious quarters in the Lathrop Building. For the record, the office is now cool in the summer, warm in the winter and the heating pipes do not clang.

The two years I served as President were not, however, without turmoil. The steadily eroding financial support from the Legal Services Corporation, coupled with the constant battle with local funding sources made economic stability akin to walking a very narrow tightrope. But Dick and his able staff did it with style. His administrative assistant Mary Beth Denzer was particularly helpful to me as I attempted to be as supportive as possible to the cadre of attorneys and support staff who fill a vital role in insuring that all citizens of our service area receive legal assistance regardless of their ability to pay.


While I was flattered to receive one of the Missouri Bar Pro Bono Awards for 1988 in recognition of my service to Legal Aid, I consider it more of a tribute to the selfless people in the Legal Aid organization about whom no one can say that “they are doing it for the money.”

[In celebration of Legal Aid of Western Missouri's 50th anniversary, we will feature guest bloggers. If you have memories of Legal Aid you would like to share in a guest post, please contact Karen Cutliff - kcutliff@lawmo.org.)

GUEST BLOG POST: How It Was for Me

Marcia Walsh - 50th Anniversary Guest Blogger

Marcia Walsh

I graduated from KU law school and started working for the Legal Aid and Defender Society (Legal Aid of Western Missouri) in 1973. Richard Nixon was our President. In March that year the last US troops were going to be withdrawn from Vietnam. 

The War on Poverty, which had begun under President Lyndon Johnson in 1964, continued into 1973.  The programs involved in fighting this war were coordinated by the Office of Economic Opportunity, the OEO, and it was this federal agency that established the guidelines for and awarded federal funds to local legal services groups.  In 1973, President Nixon decided that the OEO ought to be terminated, and with it the Legal Services Corporation.  He appointed Howard Phillips to head the OEO and he directed him to dismantle the entire OEO.  

During 1973 and every year for the next several, Legal Aid’s continued existence seemed to me never to be a sure thing.  We had to scramble so hard for funds from whatever source we could find.  It wasn’t that our legal services weren’t needed by the Kansas City community.  It was that Legal Aid might not have enough money to pay the bills.  I think my memory on this is accurate, 
that at one point we all voted to take pay cuts rather than to lay off any Legal Aid employees.

In 1973, Legal Aid had a north office, a south office, a juvenile office and a central office in Kansas City. I worked in the central office, on the second floor of a building at the corner of 11th and Oak Streets. I remember that Effie Day was already working at Legal Aid, I think in the north office, when I started.  [For months there was a pink notice attached to the door leading from the street to the stairs up to our offices, telling us—and our clients—that the building had been condemned by the City and that no one should enter it under threat of arrest.] 

Executive Director Lloyd Silverman had hired me to work in the Municipal Court Defense Unit. Others in this Unit when I started were Terry Lechner, Mike Dailey, Frank Zetelski and Tom Notestine. Our managing attorney was Bill Dittmeier and you could not have asked for a better boss.  

There were no female prosecutors or judges and I was the first “woman attorney” to appear in Municipal Court on a daily basis and to represent defendants. [I use the phrase “woman attorney” even though I don’t like it.  I agree with Gloria Steinem, who said:  “Whoever has power takes over the noun—and the norm—while the less powerful get an adjective.”]

 In fact, until December, 1973, there was really no municipal courthouse. Instead, Court met in two locations: at the top floor of the police station, where a large elevator opened right into the courtroom. There the “custody defendants,” those people held overnight in custody for inability to post bond, were seated—and sometimes sleeping and snoring—in the open-door elevator, waiting for us to interview them and for the judge to call their cases. The other location was the second floor of the Continental Trailways bus station at 11th and McGee.

It was exciting and interesting work, and fast-paced. We were in court every morning, representing defendants in trials and pleas and probation revocation hearings. We represented clients who had come into our office and about whose cases we knew something in advance of the trial, and we represented defendants whom we met and interviewed for the first time in court that morning. 

There were six Legal Aid attorneys and seven active courtrooms. Every judge expected us to be in his courtroom when any case was called on which Legal Aid had furnished an entry of appearance and also when that particular judge wanted to appoint a Legal Aid attorney to represent a defendant on the spot. We were kept running. And if one of us was sick, or was signed out for a vacation day or week, our Unit called on attorneys from other Legal Aid offices for help. They always came through for us. 

When we returned from morning court, we interviewed clients. Four of us shared one office, about 12 feet by 12 feet. Two big metal desks were crammed back to back into this space. We could interview only one client at a time in that office. The three attorneys not involved in the interview were either still in court or waited elsewhere on the premises so that our client’s privacy could be respected. 

In the afternoon, we typically had fewer clients scheduled in court and there were typically fewer court appointments, so only two of us went to court. The others interviewed clients and did any required research. 

That was Monday through Thursday. Fridays were different. Friday mornings were usually light dockets in court. Two of us did not go to Municipal Court but instead went across the street to Circuit Court to handle the de novo appeals from Municipal Court. Municipal Court had no Friday afternoon docket and we did not interview clients on Friday afternoon. I remember taking long lunches at the Vineyard or at Bryant’s or some other restaurant on Fridays, and talking about cases, and discussing possible defenses and arguing search and seizure issues. On Friday afternoons, we did research, wrote briefs and motions and prepared our cases for the upcoming week. 

I remained at Legal Aid for 10 years, in the Municipal Court Unit for about five years, and then at the juvenile unit, the consumer unit, and the litigation unit. I was then elected by the City Council and the Mayor to be a judge in Municipal Court, becoming the first full-time judge who happened to be a woman at any judicial level in Kansas City. The day I was appointed, a Legal Aid attorney/friend said she thought it was maybe more significant that the Council had chosen a Legal Aid attorney for the judicial position than that they had chosen a woman.

[In celebration of Legal Aid of Western Missouri's 50th anniversary, we will feature guest bloggers. If you have memories of Legal Aid you would like to share in a guest post, please contact Karen Cutliff - kcutliff@lawmo.org.)

Senseless & Tragic

Gregg Lombardi - Executive Director

After 21 years as a parent, I have come to know what all grandparents know—that it takes a tremendous amount of patience, hard work, heartache and love to raise a child to adulthood.

 

I also know the tremendous joy of seeing a young life bloom with potential and of seeing that potential realized. There are few, if any, greater joys in life.

 

The taking of any life is a tragedy. The taking of a young life when the child has just begun to recognize his potential is heartbreaking. Yesterday, a depraved, pathetic and cowardly man took away three lives in a matter of hours-- solely as an expression of senseless, irrational hatred. It makes me sick to think about it.

 

I join with everyone in the community and in the nation who denounces this vile act.

Better Late Than Never

Gregg Lombardi - Executive Director

As of Tuesday this week, Legal Aid is now doing something that we should have done long ago. We are beginning the process of recognizing that any two people who are committed to each other as a family should be treated as a family.

So, effective this week, we have started domestic partners coverage under our health insurance policy. If a staff member lives with and is committed to a partner, that staff member now has the same right to obtain health insurance for that partner as she or he would if the couple were legally married.


The policy applies regardless of whether the partners are of the same or opposite gender. We will be looking at other ways of recognizing domestic partners, including changing our dental insurance and leave policies because couples who are fully committed to each other should receive the same respect and treatment regardless of whether the commitment is to the same or the opposite gender.