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April 11, 2000, Tuesday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section B; Page 3; Column
4; Metropolitan Desk
LENGTH: 882 words
HEADLINE: Legal Aid in a Fight for Financing
BYLINE: By JOHN SULLIVAN
BODY:
Legal Services for New York City, a nonprofit
agency that provides legal representation in civil cases for almost 20,000 poor
New Yorkers each year, has been threatened with loss of federal financing in a
dispute over record-keeping.
The cut would be a serious blow for the
agency, which receives roughly 40 percent of its annual budget from the federal
government. Agency officials say it would be impossible to replace the money on
short notice, and programs will have to be cut if the money is lost. The dispute
arose last month after the Legal Services Corporation,
theprivate, quasi-federal agency that provides financing for legal services
nationwide, requested client records from 30 regional agencies including the one
in New York City. The request, by the corporation's inspector general, followed
audits by the inspector general and the General Accounting Office that detected
record-keeping problems in programs across the country. The audits did not
reveal fraud, but uncovered inaccurate reports of the number of clients
represented and the types of legal issues involved.
While most of the
other agencies provided the records, the legal services groups in New York City
and Baltimore did not. The Legal Services Corporation responded
by threatening to cut financing for the agencies unless the records were
forwarded by May 1.
New York legal services officials said providing the
records would violate the confidentiality of clients' records. In a response to
the Legal Services Corporation, the agency bolstered its
position with arguments from two legal ethics experts, including a former
chairman of the American Bar Association's committee on ethics.
The
Legal Services Corporation said it had tailored its request for
records specifically to avoid any conflicts with confidentiality requirements.
Corporation officials said the regional agencies were asked to provide two
separate lists: one showing all case files, coded by type of legal problem, and
the other listing case files identified by clients' names. The corporation said
it had promised not to connect the two lists, and therefore could not identify
any particular client's legal problem.
But lawyers for Legal Services
for New York City said that lawyers are not allowed by their professional ethics
to release confidential records -- even in separated form and even if the
recipient promises not to reconnect them.
"We did not do this lightly.
This is a very serious issue for us," said Andrew Scherer, director of the legal
support unit for Legal Services for New York City.
He said that
revealing information about cases could disrupt clients' lives: "Let's say a
woman who is a victim of domestic abuse comes to us and says she is considering
taking out an order of protection against her husband, but she can't bring
herself to do it. That is a quintessential privileged relationship between an
attorney and a client."
Legal Services for New York City is the
second-largest legal service agency in the country, with an annual budget of $27
million, of which roughly $11 million is provided by the federal government. The
agency represents poor city residents in a variety of civil legal matters. The
largest number of its clients are in housing court.
The agency is not
connected with the Legal Aid Society, which primarily defends poor people in
criminal matters.
Mr. Scherer said his agency has offered to provide the
lists of cases with encoded clients' names. But he said the inspector general's
office has rejected the offer.
Edouard R. Quatrevaux, the inspector
general, said an important part of the audit is determining whether any of the
cases reported by the agencies are duplicates. To do that, the auditors must
review the names of clients. When the inspector general's office audited
regional agencies in 1998, it uncovered 41,000 cases that should not have been
reported, either because they were duplicates or because they were ineligible
for financing.
The number of cases has no impact on how much federal
money the regional agencies receive -- legal service budgets are based on census
data, not on cases -- but are important for measuring programs' efficiency.
"It begs the question of how well they are serving their clients," Mr.
Quatrevaux said. "Congress has a legitimate interest in receiving accurate
information."
In recent years, Congress has moved to restrict the kinds
of cases legal service organizations can handle, primarily limiting their
ability to file class-action lawsuits. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court
agreed to rule in a case over whether Congress had overstepped its authority in
ordering the restrictions. At various times in the last 15 years, Congress has
considered eliminating financing for legal services, and has cut it back several
times.
Legal Services for New York City has requested a hearing with the
Legal Services Corporation to try to avoid suspension of
financing. Officials at the New York agency said they would make every attempt
to comply with the Legal Services Corporation's requirements.
The inspector general has the authority to subpoena the records from
regional groups, and Mr. Quatrevaux said that he may ask a federal judge to
order the New York officials to provide the records.
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LOAD-DATE: April 11, 2000
