Legal Aid's High-Impact Litigation

Gregg Lombardi - Executive Director

Today James Jenkins will be arguing the case of Blanks v. Faulkner before the Missouri Supreme Court. The case presents the question of whether barring parents whose children were born out of wedlock from filing Family Access motions violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

The Family Access Act allows parents whose former spouses take their children away from them in violation of a custody order in a divorce decree to have their cases heard on an expedited docket and requires the courts to decide the cases promptly. The process under the Act also encourages the motions to be filed without the assistance of counsel. Parents whose children are born out of wedlock are barred from taking advantage of any of the benefits of the Act. And, for many of them, the cost of hiring counsel precludes them from taking any legal action to get their children back.

The argument is noteworthy both because of the important legal rights at stake for thousand of low-income parents, but also because this is the first time in more than 10 years that Legal Aid has had an argument in the Missouri Supreme Court.

Furthermore, James is not the only one doing high-impact work these days. Effie Day and Katie Wood are prosecuting the state court appeal of the denial of Medicaid benefits to a Truman patient who is on dialysis. The case could impact Medicaid benefits for a hundred or more similarly situated patients throughout the state. Michael Duffy and his team have played a key role in stopping Wells Fargo Bank from selling over 200 foreclosed properties in Kansas City in bulk at auction, which almost certainly would have resulted in many of those properties becoming blighted. Michael’s work on that project has led to 60 of those properties being donated by Wells Fargo to area not-for-profits to be rehabbed. Michael is now turning the team’s attention to hundreds of other foreclosed properties in Kansas City that are at risk of being sold in bulk.

I am proud of all of the high impact work that we as an organization are doing. In the coming months and years my hope is that you’ll be hearing about even more high impact work that Legal Aid will be doing.

Sly James: KC's Next Mayor

Gregg Lombardi - Executive Director

I’m psyched to have Sly James be the next mayor of Kansas City. Sly is a former board member for Legal Aid and has been a long-time supporter of the organization. He’s smart, savvy and has a strong understanding of the challenges and opportunities that are facing the city.

Perhaps most importantly, he’s a great communicator who knows how to build consensus. The City Charter of Kansas City gives the mayor very little power. So, to be effective, a mayor needs to be able to rally the other members of the City Council and lead by persuasion. Sly is up to the task.

The election also gave us a talented group of City Council members, including former Legal Aid attorney Ed Ford. With the talent that will be assembling in City Hall, there could be positively exciting times ahead for the City.

They Did It!

Gregg Lombardi - Executive Director

The events of the last three weeks in Egypt have shown the power that brave people can have when they band together.

For 30 years, the Egyptian people lived in fear of their government and the police. On January 25, thousands of them took to the streets to deliver a clear message: they had had enough.

Every one of the demonstrators was risking being beaten, jailed or worse. And while the final chapter of the uprising won’t be written until free and fair, new elections have taken place and the rightfully elected government has taken power, it looks like the Egyptian people have brought an end to 30 years of oppression.

In my book, this is the most awesome and inspiring demonstration of the power that the masses have when fighting for what’s right since Tiananmen Square.

Happy Thanksgiving

Gregg Lombardi - Executive Director

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. There’s pretty much no pretense or commercialization to it. It’s a great time to relax with family or friends and test out your talents in the kitchen. I also like to take some time during the holiday to think about all of the things I have to be thankful for.

In these times of partisan bickering, it’s easy to lose track of the fact that, even after the economic downturn, we as Americans in the 21st century are among the wealthiest and most fortunate people to have ever walked the planet (although we are sometimes not all that great about sharing that wealth among ourselves). Things that we take for granted, including a warm, dry place to sleep at night, aisle after aisle of food in the grocery store, abundant clean water and indoor plumbing remain luxuries for many. I am thankful for those things.

I am also thankful for the opportunity to work at a great organization with lots of wonderful staff members. And most of all, I am thankful for my wife and two sons, each of whom bring tremendous joy into my life.

I find that when I take the time to think about these simple joys in my life, it makes me appreciate them all the more. It’s an exercise that I would recommend to anyone. With that, I wish you and yours a wonderful Thanksgiving.

A journey of a 1,000 miles begins with a single step.

Gregg Lombardi - Executive Director

Today marks the start of the Legal Aid Wellness Committee’s Million Step Challenge and I’m psyched.

The committee has challenged Legal Aid’s staff to walk one million steps between today and the end of March. That translates into about 500 total miles or 3 miles per day. The committee has also created alternative exercise options so as many staff members as possible can participate. It’s an intimidating challenge, but I’m very pleased that nearly a third of our staff has taken it on.

I myself am just back from my first 2,500 steps. I know that trying to keep up with a 3 mile per day pace is going to be tough, but I also know from my past experience with exercise, it’s going to be well worth it. When I make myself take time to exercise, I find that, not only am I healthier, but I also find that I have a lot more energy and just feel better about the world.

Swimming is my exercise of choice and there have been lots of days, especially when it’s cold outside, that I’ve gotten to the pool at 7:00 at night, dead tired wondering if I could make it even a hundred yards. By the time I get out of the pool, however, I feel like a new person. Walking also has the added benefit of being an excellent opportunity to socialize with friends, co-workers and loved ones.

So, I’ve got 997,500 steps to go and I’m going to do my best to enjoy every one of them. Many thanks to the committee for giving us this challenge.

--Gregg

PS Below you will find a picture of one of my favorite walking partners.

Zombie Debt - The Bills That Won't Die

Gregg Lombardi - Executive Director

The Zombie Debt Eradication Team has been busy this summer. If you’re not familiar with Zombie debts, they are aged credit card debts sold for less than 5 cents on the dollar to collection agencies. When they’re sold, the buyer generally doesn’t receive any evidence of the debt and they cannot prove up the cases in court, but they still get thousands of judgments per year.

Last year the five largest Zombie debt collectors filed more than 5,600 of these cases in Jackson County. I had Ben Embry, my law clerk for the summer and a former KCUR reporter, do a random study of 200 of these cases. He found that in 95% of the cases defendants are not represented by counsel and in roughly 70% of the cases the plaintiffs obtain default judgments (excluding cases in which the defendant is not served).

In contrast, when Legal Aid and other private attorneys represent the defendants in these cases and ask the defendants to prove that they own the debt and prove that they are entitled to judgment, the Zombie plaintiffs routinely are unable to do so and dismiss their cases.

This summer the Zombie Debt Eradication Team, which consists of VAP attorneys: Dale Irwin, Bernard Brown, Amy Sweeney Davis, Michael Williams, Scott Bethune, David DeSimone and Jim Jarrow, along with Legal Aid attorneys Lisa Livingston Martin, Doug Tschauder, Amber Cutler, James Jenkins and myself drafted a proposed local rule that would require plaintiffs in Zombie Debt cases to file a copy of the assignment that gives them the right to sue with the Petition in their case—something that they have been unable to do in virtually every individual cases we’ve worked on.

Today, the Local Rules Committee of the Jackson County Circuit Court, the Honorable Justine Del Muro, Chair, met for an initial consideration of the rule. The Committee expressed interest in the proposed rule and Judge Del Muro indicated she would pursue it. I’ll keep you posted on what happens.

Good News for Legal Aid Clients

Gregg Lombardi, Executive Director

There’s good news from Washington, DC: Missouri Senator Kit Bond announced on Thursday that he is co-sponsoring a bill to provide $10 million of federal funding for a Medical-Legal Partnership demonstration project.

Medical-Legal Partnerships are collaborations between healthcare providers and Legal Aid programs in which medical staff work with legal staff to resolve the legal problems of low-income patients (e.g. guardianship, Medicaid denials, domestic violence and housing issues, etc.). The Medical-Legal Partnership concept started in Boston and has been so successful that it has now been replicated in over 180 hospitals and health centers around the country.

Studies have found that even when a legal problem does not appear to be directly related to a health issue, resolving the legal problem often has health benefits. For example, a mother in a domestic violence situation whose son is diabetic may be so focused on keeping her family safe that she doesn’t monitor her son’s insulin intake and diet. When Legal Aid helps the mother obtain a protective order or divorce, her ability to tend to the child’s treatment for diabetes greatly improves.

Legal Aid of Western Missouri has a tremendous network of Medical-Legal Partnerships, making our MLP one of the 5 largest MLP’s in the country. Our MLP began with our partnership at Children’s Mercy Hospital and its clinic at Operation Breakthrough. Legal Aid also has a partnership with Swope Health Services and a new partnership with KC Free Health Clinic. We also have a collaborative partnership with Kansas Legal Services (KLS) at KU Medical Center’s Department of Family Medicine, in which we represent KU’s patients who are Missouri residents and KLS represents the Kansas residents.

In terms of hospital staff training, outcomes tracking, Medicaid appeals success, and collaboration with other programs, our medical legal partnerships are on the cutting edge.

Katie Cronin has done a tremendous job in creating and growing the medical-legal partnerships at Children’s Mercy, Operation Breakthrough, Swope Health Services and KU Medical Center. Effie Day also has done excellent work in building our Medicaid Appeals project at Truman Medical Center. Although this is technically not a Medical-Legal Partnership because the medical staff is not involved in the program, it is now one of the largest Medicaid Appeals partnerships (and probably the largest) in the country and is the envy of MLP’s across the country.

The other reason why these programs are such a success is because of our partners. Dr. Jeffrey Colvin at Children’s Mercy Hospital worked for the original MLP at Boston Medical Center. He has been a tireless advocate for MLP at Children’s Mercy and throughout the area. Dr. Colvin recently met personally with members of Senator Bond’s staff to encourage the senator to sponsor the MLP demonstration site legislation. Lydia Jones at Truman and Lewis Popper, the former General Counsel at Truman have also been tremendous, tireless advocates for that program.

I believe, if the demonstration project is created, Legal Aid of Western Missouri would be a leading contender to be one of the demonstration projects. So, this is very good news.