Discussion of Standards Applicable to LSC's Consideration of Program Service Areas and Decisions Involving Changes to Such Areas Within a Given State:

LSC Staff Response to the NLADA Memorandum of August 17, 2001 Submitted to the Task Force on Configuration of Service Areas

The purpose of this document is to provide historical, philosophical, and operational context to the issues presented in the current conversation relating to the configuration of LSC program service areas. In addition, the document addresses a number of the issues developed and discussed in the memorandum of August 17, 2001 from the National Legal Aid and Defender Association. We begin with a brief review of the overarching values and objectives of the State Planning Initiative (SPI), and then move to a discussion of the relationship between service area configuration and the values and objectives of the SPI. Following this, we explore the standards and criteria relevant to decisions affecting service area configuration and finally address the process and procedure issues presented in the NLADA memorandum.

Before proceeding with our comments, we would like to specifically note that LSC has long valued its partnership with NLADA. That partnership has allowed our two organizations to work together in many substantive and geographical arenas to improve services for low-income clients and to improve the legal services delivery system to which many of us have devoted most of our professional lives. As a membership organization, NLADA also plays an important, effective and specific role in representing the interests and concerns of its member programs and in bringing those concerns and interests to the attention of LSC in a coordinated manner. As LSC Board Member Hulett (Bucky) Askew has often noted when commenting on their valuable and unique role in advocating for the field and in functioning as a "safety valve" for the concerns and frustrations of the field: "If NLADA didn't exist we would have had to invent them".

1. CONTEXT AND OVERARCHING OBJECTIVES

LSC's State Planning Initiative commenced in 1995 primarily in response to the programmatic changes and budget cuts that were threatening the very survival of legal services delivery across our country. In 1998, state planning became a key LSC strategy to achieve fuller access to justice and improve the quality of services delivered by LSC-funded legal services programs. LSC specifically announced its intent to put staff energy and financial resources into the creation of comprehensive, coordinated and integrated statewide legal services delivery systems in Program Letters 98-1 and 98-6. On January 28, 2000 the LSC Board of Directors adopted a strategic planning document-- Strategic Directions 2000-2005 -- which established two strategic goals:

• By 2004, LSC will dramatically increase the provision of legal services to eligible persons.
• By 2004, LSC will ensure that eligible clients are receiving appropriate and high-quality legal assistance.

In that document, state planning is specifically identified as LSC's primary strategy to achieve the above goals.

Through its longstanding support of LSC's State Planning Initiative, NLADA and the broader national civil equal justice support community have repeatedly recognized and affirmed support for the following overarching values.

• LSC is our nation's federal investor in civil equal justice efforts in every state and territory. LSC s primary objective is to promote the effective and efficient delivery of such services to poor and vulnerable people in every state and territory, consistent with the purposes defined in the Legal Services Corporation Act of 1974, as amended, and the relevant Appropriations Acts adopted by the United States Congress.

• To achieve this objective, and to promote the realization of justice for the millions of low income people across the nation who annually experience important civil legal needs, and in light of the extreme scarcity of resources available to meet the overwhelming demands on the civil equal justice system in every state and territory, it is prudent and appropriate to engage in a thoughtful planning process. Such a process should promote the development of efficient and effective civil equal justice delivery systems, with the federal investment through LSC serving as an underwriting source of support for the basic legal services delivery infrastructure.

• Effective delivery systems are responsive to the most compelling legal needs of those in need of assistance, ensure the highest and most strategic use of all available resources, and maximize the opportunity for all clients within the geographic area of relevance to receive timely and responsive legal assistance when in need.

• States and territories serve as the relevant geographic areas of planning focus for developing strategies to meet the civil equal justice needs of poor and vulnerable people. (Program Letters 98-1 and 98-6. See also NLADA/CLASP Draft Discussion Document on Comprehensive, Integrated Statewide Systems for the Delivery of Civil Legal Assistance (Project for the Future of Equal Justice, June 1998)). The inquiry is no longer what is good for clients in a particular region or geographic service area. The relevant inquiry is what is best for clients throughout the state. (Id. LSC Program Letter 2000-7).

• Each state should strive to develop a comprehensive and integrated delivery system that provides client access to a full continuum of civil equal justice delivery capacities, including: information and advice; the capacity to engage in self-help representation; access to preventative education; attorney representation on discrete matters; extended representation in complex matters; and outreach and community engagement. Each system should be able to meet the needs of clients in all relevant forums.

• No low-income individual or community in need of legal assistance should suffer a disproportionate lack of access to necessary civil equal justice services because of cultural, geographic, social, technological or other isolating factors.

• As an underwriting investor in every state and territorial civil equal justice community, LSC has a duty to promote (a) relative equity of access to the full continuum of services to clients throughout the state; (b) relative equity in the availability of the full range of client service capacities needed to meet the full continuum of client legal needs regardless of where the clients live; (c) relative equity in the capacity to serve client communities in all of their diversity; and (d) relative equity in the investment of civil equal justice resources (federal, state, private, and in-kind/pro bono) throughout the state. (Program Letter 2000-7).

Nothing in the NLADA presentation of August 17, 2001 suggests any disagreement with these overarching objectives.

2. RELATIONSHIP OF SERVICE AREA CONFIGURATION TO OTHER RELEVANT STATE CIVIL EQUAL JUSTICE PLANNING CONSIDERATIONS

As the NLADA memorandum acknowledges, a number of considerations are relevant to the development of effective and efficient state civil equal justice communities. These are listed in the program letters, correspondence between LSC and NLADA, in the wealth of correspondence between LSC s state planning staff and representatives of state planning entities in the various states and in NLADA and CLASP publications. Since they have previously been provided to the Task Force, they will not be reiterated in this document.

While the configuration of LSC's grantee service areas in each state and territory is a dedicated area of inquiry in program Letters 98-1 and 98-6, we do not agree with NLADA s characterization that configuration is the "Trojan Horse" employed to achieve a fundamental reconfiguration of program service areas simply for the sake of reducing the overall number of programs or to achieve other non-client oriented objectives.

To the contrary, all of our SPI work, as it is described in some detail in our publication "Building State Justice Communities", is directed to developing the most effective and efficient state equal justice communities. We view service area configuration as a key component of a comprehensive set of strategies employed to promote the creation and sustainability of comprehensive, integrated state civil equal justice communities. We believe that several factors including the number, quality of, location, internal capacity, external capacity, relationship to other LSC-funded and non-LSC funded legal services delivery entities, and relationship to client communities and related services providers can significantly effect the degree to which the overarching client service capacity and delivery objectives can and will be achieved in any given state.

Intuition tells us that it makes little sense for a state with 50 counties to have 50 LSC grantee entities delivering services. It is equally obvious that in some states, historical, economic, cultural and geographic characteristics suggest that a unified statewide LSC grantee program may not be the best vehicle to promote the client service delivery and delivery capacity objectives sought to be promoted. The challenge to state planners and LSC is to thoughtfully pursue a planning process that results in the best configuration that will advance the client service delivery and capacity development goals within each state today, tomorrow, and into the foreseeable future. The "thoughfulness" of the process that LSC has used over the last six years since the 1995 Program Letter was published (and the 3 1/2 years since Program Letter 98-1 was promulgated) can best be illustrated by the fact that LSC has substituted it judgment for the judgment of the planners in the various states only three times since October 1998.

Were it historically the case that programs and states had initiated comprehensive efforts to diagnose the need for change in a national delivery system that had largely operated in the same way for twenty-five years and to implement those needed changes on their own without the active direction, support and cajoling of the federal funding partner there would be little need for the State Planning Initiative. But it is critical that we understand the realities here. Prior to the publication of LSC's 1995 Program Letter, there had been little, if any, structural change in most states' legal services delivery systems since those systems were created in the late seventies. And subsequent to the 1995 Program Letter only a handful of states --such as New Jersey and Washington--engaged in active state planning and an even smaller number included configuration issues as part of their planning.

It is a widely acknowledged "truism" within the social sciences that the need to make changes in an organization or delivery system is often triggered from outside of an organization. Left to their own devices, organizations are very conservative and strive for stability and continuity. Before the SPI, and before LSC placed the issue of configuration on the state planning table a move that was actively opposed by NLADA and CLASP during the consultations prior to the issuance of Program Letters 98-1 and 98-6 few if any states undertook a client-centered re-evaluation of relationship between the configuration of their programs to the capacity of the state civil equal justice system to meet the full spectrum of needs of clients whoever they were and wherever they resided. In most instances it was LSC that has made them do it.

In the context of state planning and configuration, it is LSC that triggered the need for our grantees to make fundamental changes in their delivery systems. The state planning process as re-inaugurated in 1998 required LSC grantees, as a condition of receiving federal funding, to take a hard look at whether current program area configurations serve or detract from the system s ability to achieve the client service delivery and capacity objectives in ways that meet the four equities identified in program letter 2000-7. It was this requirement that served as the necessary external impetus for structural change in the delivery system.

Despite the suggestions in the NLADA paper that LSC has an ulterior objective of reducing the number of programs for the sake of doing so, our motivation is exclusively the improvement of the national delivery system through the creation of highly coordinated and integrated state equal justice communities. The statement in the NLADA paper that LSC's "aggressive" agenda has resulted in the reduction of the number of LSC recipients from 290 recipients in 1996 to 167 recipients in 2002 is not presented in the correct context. The context in which this reduction in the number of recipients occurred is as follows: a six year process marked by extensive involvement of LSC staff and consultants with state planners, at a time in which internal and external pressures--including but not limited to funding cuts, growing costs, high levels of turnover, a number of weak legal services programs marked by ineffective services to clients, and Congressional opposition--were threatening the ability of clients to receive essential services.

It is true that LSC staff believe that LSC has a statutory and fiduciary responsibility to invest its resources strategically, to promote the creation of efficient, effective, comprehensive and integrated state civil equal justice communities. To the extent that the number, size, or geographic configuration of LSC grantees in a given state or territory undermine or limit the potential to achieve such ends, we believe that LSC has a duty to promote necessary structural changes within the delivery system to enable the system to meet the needs of low-income clients. And in those states we have acted on this assessment and communicated it to the relevant state planning entities and person. However, we have not engaged in ambush tactics.

Throughout the history of the State Planning Initiative, LSC staff have worked in the manner outlined in the May 28, 1999 Letter from LSC to NLADA, CLASP and the FCC. Moreover, the materials provided to the Board's Task Force on Configuration clearly demonstrate that LSC staff clearly and frequently communicate our planning expectations to the various states, work with planners in each state to assist them in addressing the issues outlined in our various Program Letters, provide technical assistance and technical assistance dollars to enable states to hire their own consultants to resolve "sticky" planning issues, and review draft plans that are sent to us for our comment.

The NLADA paper does not take issue with the responsibility of LSC to define a program configuration in each state that is reasonably calculated to promote the objectives outlined in the LSC Act and State Planning Initiative. It does take issue with the means by which LSC staff members have acted on this responsibility. From NLADA s perspective, if a state community can develop a plan to engineer its way out of the need to reconfigure into more efficient service areas, it should be left alone, regardless of whether the approach used creates enduring infrastructure that will ensure the longevity of the client service delivery capacity gains.

Amazingly, it is even suggested that structural impediments to effective and efficient client service capacity can be ignored where there exists sufficiently strong personal leadership to hold the disparate parts of a system or program together. LSC strongly believes that we do our clients and ourselves a disservice by suggesting that the strengths of an individual leader should relieve a state from taking action to overcome structural impediments to effective client service delivery. No effective system or organization can or should run on a cult of personality. And after all, we all recognize that strong leaders come and go and that leadership development and succession planning remains a universally- recognized challenge within the legal services community.

It is time to be honest. The willingness of states and regions to engage in civil equal justice planning is not uniform. Over the past three years LSC staff members have worked closely with state planning entities to promote the active consideration of service area configuration in direct relationship to these objectives. In many states and regions, our encouragement has been the catalyst for an engaged effort to explore issues of configuration in a thoughtful and open manner. In a number of these states and regions within states--Ohio, West Virginia, California, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Indiana, Arkansas, Arizona, Illinois, North and South Carolina, to name a few-- the process has resulted in a substantial change in the configuration of service areas, consolidation of capacities, achievement of new client service efficiencies, and the enhanced coordination of activities and initiatives. Perhaps of greater importance given that the recent SPI initiative is only three years old, there is a promise of substantially enhanced client service.

While the reconfiguration decisions are not self-executing i.e., they don t immediately translate into enhanced client service capacity -- we believe, as do many observers within each state that have "reconfigured", that they have operated to create a more appropriate structural framework for state and regional planners to promote, develop and implement a wide array of initiatives that will benefit poor and vulnerable clients, both within the new service areas, and throughout the state.

Unfortunately, despite our best efforts over a prolonged period of time, planners in a few states have refused to engage with us on the issue of program configuration, opting instead to assume the validity of the status quo for state planning purposes or to make changes in the delivery system only when they correspond with staff resignations. LSC staff does not wish to engage NLADA in a tit-for-tat conversation about what has happened in any of the states identified in the NLADA memorandum. However, it is fair to observe that our perceptions concerning what happened in states like Michigan differs from the perceptions of NLADA. We believe that planners in a few states actively ignored the issue of program configuration until LSC advised of its intent to do so from afar. Then, and only then, did the planners begin to recognize the need to look at configuration. They did so not because they accepted the assumption made by both NLADA and LSC that there exists a relationship between service area configuration and the capacity of the statewide system to improve client access and services, but because they feared that we would act to fill the planning vacuum.

We fully agree with NLADA's assessment of the significant costs of reconfiguration. Because of these costs and LSC's desire to fully understand the challenges and opportunities facing each state, LSC staff devotes considerable time and energy to a state--and to our deliberations about how to proceed--before making the reconfiguration decision. In addition to all the factors described in our Program Letters and this memorandum, we also carefully consider the timing and the ability of a specific state to carry out a reconfiguration decision and in some instances we have specifically encouraged the use of subgrants to provide a state adequate time to implement a decision that either the planners within the state or LSC has made. However, we would also note that the costs of maintaining the status quo can be quite significant in terms of the impact upon clients and client services, both in the short and long term.

States in which there are weak programs and in which the quality and scope of services to clients varies considerably are very costly in terms of the impact--or lack thereof--on our clients. NLADA suggests that LSC staff should undertake a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis before directing the reconfiguration of its investment in a given state. While this would be a laudable exercise, we humbly submit that it is beyond the current capacities of management and social science measurement to effectively predict and quantify the costs as described in the NLADA paper.

What are the costs that need to be weighed? How does one quantify the anticipated client service benefits resulting from service area reconfiguration? How does one quantify the costs to clients that flow from a weak or deficient program that is allowed to continue to operate over a period of many years simply because it has existed since the creation of LSC? And if LSC staff members are required to undertake a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of reconfiguration, shouldn't grantees also be under a similar obligation to undertake a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of continuing with the status quo as part of their planning? And are we willing to set aside the considerable financial resources that would enable LSC and its grantees to fund the cost-benefit analysis proposed by NLADA in every state understanding that dollars appropriated to the field for legal services delivery could conceivably be reduced?

Unfortunately and to the occasional discomfort of the field and of NLADA, in the final analysis LSC must make the judgment call as to whether LSC s investment in a state justice community should be administered through one configuration or another configuration of grantee entities. Although that judgment call must be weighed against the overlay of LSC s statutory mission and the objectives that guide the State Planning Initiative, in the final analysis someone has to make the final call and we believe that the appropriate "someone" is the LSC President with the assistance of his staff.

Please understand that the President and the staff do not want to make this decision by themselves. The preferred means of exercising this judgment is to engage planners within the delivery system in each state and the Designated State Planning Body in an interactive conversation about the pros and cons of a range of different options. Where such conversations have been held with openness and good will, decisions acceptable to both the DSPB and LSC have almost uniformly been achieved. On the other hand, in those situations in which LSC has been consciously left out of the conversation and the DSPB has independently developed its own recommendation or in situations where key stakeholders have been intentionally excluded from the planning process, the chances of there being a disagreement on the exercise of planning judgment are heightened.

Ultimately, the process of evaluating the service area configuration of LSC grantees in a given state involves the application of weight to a wide array of variables, both tangible and intangible. Each stakeholder entity is likely to apply different weights to different variables, and it is fair to say that no algebraic formula can guarantee a commonly acceptable mathematical result to the weighing process. LSC s interest is distinct, and flows from its statutory authority and board-established policy. It is not subject to the range of political and personality-oriented pressures that some state planning entities may experience especially those weighted with the substantial presence of LSC program directors and recipient board members. As the federal funder we may or may not share the same set of values and apply the same weight to the endless variables applicable to a decision on service area configuration that a state funding entity may apply. Where there is opportunity to avoid conflict, we have uniformly tried to do so. But we understand that we should not and cannot avoid our obligation to make tough and unpopular decisions when called upon to do so.

LSC cannot abdicate its legitimate interests in ensuring that its investment in a given state promotes the statutory goals and the goals articulated in its State Planning Initiative. But that is precisely what NLADA suggests. To paraphrase the memorandum:

LSC should not be allowed to act contrary to a configuration recommendation of a DSPB unless it can convincingly demonstrate that [the DSPB is] wrong.

If LSC is dissatisfied with the process leading to the flawed recommendation, it should not exercise its statutory duty to define the most efficient and effective means of supporting civil equal justice services in the state, it should send the plan back to the planners to come up with a better plan.

LSC has a burden to demonstrate to state planners and to itself that its decision will produce better results for clients in cases where it elects to deviate from the recommendation forwarded by the DSPB."

LSC should substitute its judgment for that made in a state plan only if the service area decision by LSC will provide greater capacities for client services than the service area configuration proposed by the state plan."

Adoption of decision-making thresholds such as these would effectively gut the State Planning Initiative. If they had been operational during the last three years--had planners been able to operate from the knowledge that their decisions, regardless of their substance, were presumptively rational and that LSC could only substitute its judgment upon a convincing demonstration that the state planners decision was wrong (whatever that means)-- it is fair to say that few if any of the gains made over the past three years would ever have been realized. The unification of LSC service delivery capacity in the Bay Area and the LA Basin in California, and in states like West Virginia, Arkansas. Indiana, Nebraska, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Virginia--changes that most observers agree have been positive changes although they were controversial at the time they were made--probably would not have taken place.

LSC needed both the power and the ability to persuade state planners that it was willing to wield that power to reengineer service area boundaries to promote the evolution of comprehensive, integrated state justice systems. In the absence of either one, LSC would have been unable to bring the necessary stakeholders to the table and hold their feet to the planning fire. Stated another way, had planners not understood both the fact of LSC s power and its willingness to employ it, these very substantial client service capacity gains would in all likelihood never have been realized.

3. SPECIFIC RELEVANT STANDARDS

Though NLADA suggests tying the analysis to the specific areas of planning focus articulated in Program Letter 98-1, we believe the inquiry is much simpler. In the language of Program Letter 98-1, the single, applicable standard is:

Programs should be configured in a manner that maximizes the effective and economical delivery of high quality legal services to eligible clients within a comprehensive, integrated delivery system.

All decisions relating to service area configuration should be evaluated against this standard. These include the relationship of configuration to the capacities identified in each of the substantive areas of planning focus identified in 98-1 and 98-6, and highlighted in the NLADA memorandum. And while it may be appropriate to segregate each area of planning focus and evaluate whether the program configuration promotes or undermines the overall development of a comprehensive, integrated delivery system, this is not the end of the inquiry, there must be an evaluation of the service area configuration itself. As Program Letter 98-1 observed:

There is no magic number of programs or a single delivery model that fits all states. In some states, a statewide LSC provider makes the most sense; in others, a regional approach or other configuration may be appropriate. Each state must examine what configuration, from a statewide perspective, maximizes services and benefits for clients throughout the state [emphasis in original].

However, despite the fact that only one standard seems truly necessary, we generally agree with the other proposed standards placed on the table by NLADA since they are nothing more than a reorganization and restatement of LSC's standards as recognized by NLADA in its own document. Although our "standards" have been variously described by NLADA as "indicators" and "criterion"--as opposed to "standards"--and although we have not published them in NLADA's format, the similarities between the NLADA document and LSC's numerous publications on state planning demonstrate that there is really not much of a question as to what LSC's standards are. (And we would also respectfully note that when one looks up the term "criterion" in any thesaurus, the term "standard" is given as a synonym.)

In the years since the issuance of Program Letter 98-1, our on-site experience in a variety of states has helped identify additional practical, objective areas of inquiry to inform program service area configuration decisions to which the Task Force may want to give some thought. These include:

1. The socio-cultural and economic affinities throughout the state or territory, with particular focus and consideration given to the regional relationships that are most relevant to low income clients and client communities;

2. The geographic, physical, and historical distinctions and affinities within the state or territory;

3. The location and configuration of governmental, judicial, human services and other relevant regional delivery planning areas in the state;

4. The structural configuration of a system of staffed legal services providers (LSC and non-LSC) and complementing state support capacities (including technology, private bar support, training, etc.) that will best serve the full range of legal needs of low-income clients throughout the state regardless of where they might reside;

5. The capacity of programs in every region of the state to identify, quantify and overcome disparate local and regional resource and geographic access barriers for clients and client communities living in the most remote areas of the state, to ensure that such clients have relatively equivalent access to the full range of capacities, services and relationships contemplated in an integrated statewide civil equal justice delivery system;

6. The critical mass and capability of the staffed programs to support innovative, expansive, and client service delivery initiatives for rural and urban-based clients and client communities, meet the needs of client communities that experience disparate treatment or suffer from disproportionate barriers to access, and participate effectively in statewide civil equal justice initiatives;

7. The capacity of all programs to access essential statewide support, training, technological and technical assistance to meet client service delivery obligations;

8. Structural and other obstacles that may affect the capacity to develop and share urban-based justice system resources with rural clients who suffer from a disproportionate lack of access to civil equal justice services;

9. The commitment and capacity to develop, nurture, promote and retain staff and leaders who are diverse, culturally competent, and capable of carrying the civil equal justice effort forward, and

10. The relationship between the federal investment strategy and the corresponding development and investment of state based resources in the civil equal justice delivery system.

4. THE PROCESS ISSUES

As part of an agreement reached between NLADA and LSC Presidents John McKay and John Erlenborn in June 2001, LSC promulgated Program Letter 2001-04, which creates a process of internal review for reconfiguration decisions made by LSC, which may be "at odds" with decisions reached by state planners. NLADA acknowledges that this Program Letter addresses many of the process issues that state planners have raised with respect to LSC's reconfiguration decisions but offers a few additions. With one or two exceptions, we believe that these additions are positive additions to the process. We would also agree that recodification of the applicable standards may be useful. However, several of these suggested changes are problematic for LSC.

NLADA suggests that recommendations made by Designated State Planning Bodies carry a presumption of substantive validity, and that such decisions should be binding on LSC unless it can convincingly demonstrate that a given recommendation is wrong. For the reasons previously discussed, the programs staff believes that such a standard would operate to abdicate LSC's statutory responsibility and effectively delegate the same to outside entities that are not accountable to the Congress. Such an outcome is bad public policy.

Of equally significant concern is the potential that such a standard might operate to create substantive property rights to perpetuate the existence of current client service areas, and that LSC would be legally constrained from taking action that would interfere with such property rights. Were the NLADA suggestions implemented, Designated State Planning Bodies and individual programs would have the ability to claim a right of continued operation within defined service areas, and LSC could move to change such service area designations if, and only if, it was able to convincingly demonstrate (to whom, we don't know) that a third party entity s determination of program service area boundaries was wrong. Aside from the unwarranted dilution of federal authority over the matter of civil legal services delivery, one can only imagine the wealth of litigation that such a standard would engender.

As the federal instrumentality designated to carry out the will of Congress as it relates to the provision of civil legal services to poor and vulnerable people, LSC must safeguard its statutory prerogatives, and should avoid taking actions that effectively operate to limit its authority to act in accordance with the same.

Finally, NLADA also suggests that the LSC Board become actively involved in oversight of decisions on service area configuration. In light of the history of interference in program operations during times in the history of the Corporation when a Board of Directors hostile to the mission governed LSC, this is a truly amazing suggestion. The Board of Directors of LSC, like the board of any other non-profit organization, has three primary functions: (1) hiring and firing of the CEO; (2) establishing policy to guide the operations of the CEO and the entity; and (3) ensuring accountability of the CEO and the operations team to the statutory mission and policies established by the board. The Board must be ever vigilant in avoiding the temptation to engage in decisions operational in nature.

5. Reflective Comments

At the beginning of this paper, LSC specifically noted that as a membership organization, NLADA plays an important, effective and specific role in representing the concerns and interests of its members and in bringing them to the attention of LSC and other funders in a coordinated manner. Although we desire to be responsive to the concerns expressed by NLADA on behalf of our recipient legal services programs, we cannot lose sight of the fact that LSC has a direct responsibility to Congress to insure the highest and best use of appropriated taxpayer monies. LSC and its recipient programs are not on an equal footing in this regard. As with any relationship between a grantor and a grantee, it is the grantor who has the authority to place conditions upon the distribution and use of the funds awarded to a grantee and it is the grantor who bears the ultimate responsibility to be accountable for the use and stewardship of those funds. In the same way that LSC is not on equal footing with or in an equal partnership with Congress, NLADA members who are recipients of LSC funding are not on an equal footing with LSC

While we recognize that in many instances the interests held by and positions suggested by NLADA in advocating on behalf of its member programs will converge with the interests of LSC, there are other instances in which the interests of LSC and NLADA will not be identical. In the context of program reconfiguration it is perfectly understandable why the interests of NLADA and the interests of LSC may diverge. Although LSC should recognize and be sympathetic to the concerns that our grantees have as to whether their organizations will continue to exist in their present form in the coming years and the sometimes wrenching impact that reconfiguration will have on their programs and their employees, LSC cannot and should not abdicate its responsibility to ensure that federal dollars are used in the most effective and efficient manner to improve and enhance client access and client service.

The goals of an integrated system were articulated in the State Planning Considerations appended to Program Letter 98-6:

The Corporation encourages development of statewide civil legal services delivery systems which are responsive to the most compelling needs of eligible clients, ensure the highest and most strategic use of all available resources, and maximize the opportunity for clients throughout the state to receive timely, effective and appropriate legal services. In accordance with prevailing professional norms, such a system should:

• Identify and address the most important legal needs of eligible clients, as determined by appropriate needs assessments, taking into account the diversity of persons and needs in the state and its various communities;

• Strive to provide low-income persons throughout the state broad and equal access to legal services regardless of such obstacles as disability, geographical isolation, culture and language;

• Provide high quality legal services to clients throughout the state, regardless of regional distinctions in demography, the economy, or the presence or absence of other local resources to provide or support the provision of legal services to low income persons;

• Encourage innovation in the delivery of legal services accompanied by appropriate assessment of results;

• Minimize duplication of capacities and administration and make the best use of resources available to the delivery system as a whole and its component parts; and

• Have the capacity and flexibility to respond effectively and efficiently to new and emerging client needs and other changes affecting the delivery of legal services to the poor.

There were one or two notable exceptions, but across the country, the rule was that the status quo was just fine, and there was no reason to undertake an assessment of the relationship between program configuration and the capacity of the state civil equal justice system to meet the needs of clients.

LSC staff recommend that the Task Force members review this letter in detail, as it lays out with substantial clarity the nature, substance and scope of staff engagement on state planning issues, and addresses many of the issues currently raised in the August 17th NLADA memorandum.

See, e.g., NLADA Memorandum at p. 5: LSC has an independent responsibility to carefully evaluate the standards and weigh the costs and benefits of particular configuration decisions

See, e.g., NLADA Memorandum at p. 6 where it is suggested that the leadership within the program may be sufficient to overcome otherwise extant client service capacity limitations.

Note that this should be a forward-looking analysis, not an attempt to rationalize continuation of the status quo in any given state.

These considerations complement those set out in the state planning letters (and which are all but ignored in the NLADA memorandum). See, e.g., Program Letter 98-01 at 10.

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