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Legal services lawyers in Baltimore and New York
City have found themselves between a rock and a hard
place.
The rock, in this case, is the Legal Services Corp.’s
inspector general, who ordered them to turn over the names of every
client they had in 1999, along with a description of the client’s
legal problem.
The hard place is the profession’s code of ethics,
which generally prohibits lawyers from disclosing confidential
information about clients without their consent. |
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Legal services lawyers say they can’t afford to lose
their LSC funding, which accounts for $3.2 million of the Baltimore
office’s $11 million budget this year and $11.2 million of the New
York office’s nearly $28 million budget. Yet they can’t knowingly
violate their ethical obligations to their clients and risk running
afoul of state disciplinary authorities, either.
So they
proposed a compromise. Having already turned over a list of file
numbers to the inspector general, along with descriptions of
clients’ legal problems, they offered to produce a corresponding
list of files using only pseudonyms.
But that wasn’t good
enough for Edouard Quatrevaux, the LSC’s inspector general, who is
also in a difficult position.
Pressure From
Above
Quatrevaux is not unmindful of the
rules governing the attorney-client privilege. But he’s been ordered
by Congress to audit the LSC. And the only way he can properly do
that, he says, is by having access to the clients’ names.
So
Quatrevaux proposed his own solution. He promised to erect a
so-called Chinese wall between the collection of clients’ names and
the collection of the clients’ corresponding legal problems so that
nobody who had access to one list would have access to the
other.
But that wasn’t good enough for the legal services
lawyers in Baltimore and New York City, who say the rules prevent
them from even divulging such information to a third party as long
as there is any possibility the attorney-client privilege could be
breached.
At that point, Quatrevaux subpoenaed the records,
but both offices refused to comply. Then he filed suit against them
in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., where his application
for an order to show cause why the subpoenas should not be
judicially enforced was pending in early June.
"Nobody’s
looking for a fight with the inspector general," says An- drew
Scherer, director of the New York office’s legal support unit. "We
did this because we felt compelled to do it, and because we think
it’s the right thing to do."
Wilhelm Joseph Jr., executive
director of the Baltimore legal aid office, says this: "Sometimes we
lose sight of the fact that poor people are people,
too."
Among those expressing concern about the stalemate is
the ABA’s Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent
Defendants.
Chair Doreen Dodson, in letters to Quatrevaux and
LSC President John McKay, said the committee understood the LSC’s
need to produce accurate and credible case statistics in a timely
manner. But she also said the committee felt it was inappropriate
for the inspector general to continue to insist that the two offices
turn over client information after they had raised serious,
good-faith questions about the propriety of complying with his
request.
The Brennan Center for Justice, a New York
City-based think tank and public interest law firm, is planning to
file an amicus brief in support of the legal services lawyers on
behalf of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. The
center has also urged the inspector general to find a way to
accomplish his objectives "without creating a two-tiered system of
protections that sacrifices the privacy of low-income
clients."
Even the LSC itself seems conflicted by the dispute
between its own inspector general and two of its biggest
grantees.
The LSC originally threatened to cut off funding to
the two programs unless they complied with the inspector general’s
directive by May 1. In mid-April, however, the agency announced it
would not discontinue funding while it considers the administrative
appeals of the New York and Baltimore offices.
If
Quatrevaux’s resolve appears to be wavering, though, he’s not
letting it show.
"There’s nothing to negotiate," he says. "As
far as we’re concerned, this is
nonnegotiable."
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