COMPOSITE EVALUATION OF THE LEGAL AID AND DEFENDER SOCIETY OF KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI, EVALUATION CONDUCTED AUGUST 18, 19, 20, and 21, 1969

I. DESCRIPTION OF THE PROGRAM

A. Physical setup and office management

The Kansas City, Missouri, Legal Services Program consists of one central office, five branch offices, and an additional attorney stationed in a Community Action Center on the westside of Kansas City. Two of the program's offices are located in Platte and Clay Counties.

The central office is located at 1029 Oak Street in downtown Kansas City. At the time of the evaluation, this office was handling the largest caseload; but since then, the majority of the central office's caseload has been switched to the expanded northside and southside neighborhood offices. Both offices are in target areas. The central office is not in a target area and it possesses some negative qualities even though it is near the county courthouse. The third floor offices can only be reached by walking up two steep flights of stairs or by riding in a small freight-like elevator which one must enter on the westside and then depart from on the eastside. Only one entrance is identified by a legal aid sign. These criticisms are of less importance now that the central office is becoming the administrative headquarters of the program and shifting its caseload to the neighborhood offices. The central office will still handle all divorces, juvenile and criminal cases.

At the time of the evaluation, the lay-out of the central office was inefficient, but at the time of the evaluation follow-up this inefficiency was remedied. No longer were the partitioned stalls being used for intake offices. Now intake is conducted in the complete privacy of a closed attorney's office and the stalls are used as offices for program administrators. The civil section attorneys have their offices along a long hallway located on the southside of the third floor.

The director's office is also located in the central office; however, it is among the criminal defense attorney's offices which are essentially in the southeast portion of the third floor building. To reach the director's office from the reception area, one must walk through a secretarial area. It appears that most visitors tend to divert the attention of the secretaries.

The rent for the central office is $1300 a month. There is an adequate library and adequate office equipment which includes extensive IBM dictating equipment, an MTST typewriter, copier, and a small printing press. Although the central office phones were inadequate at the time of the evaluation, only two incoming lines, the program now has eight incoming telephone lines.

Basically, the intake of clients is handled by attorneys. A client either calls in and arranges an appointment or else he walks in and waits to see an attorney. The receptionist begins gathering basic statistical information about the client by asking him his name, address, age, and occupation. The attorney determines the nature of the legal problem and the client's eligibility. At the time of the evaluation, the program's new civil section supervisor had just formed an intake system whereby one attorney was assigned to that entire office's intake for that day. Although this system has been helpful, it is not being followed as closely as it was at the time of the evaluation.

The director has indicated that he wishes to either move the office from the present location or conduct extensive remodeling of the present office. Both plans are positive approaches to a problem that must eventually be remedied.

The program's southeast office is located at 2920 East 31st Street and is staffed by one managing attorney, two staff attorneys, two VISTA's and two secretaries. The office is located in a target area and it is easily accessible by the 31st Street bus.

Since this office has been recently renovated with wood wall-paneling and indirect lighting, it has a professional appearance. However, at the time of the evaluation, the seven office rooms and reception and waiting area did lack some office furniture. There was a need for a storage cabinet, a typewriter was stored in a desk drawer when not in use because of the fear of theft, there was a lack of chairs for waiting clients, and a lack of shelves and conference tables for the library. Since that time, the program has acquired adjoining space for the law reform unit. It is in this space that a library conference room has been established. There is both adequate shelving and conference tables present. Also, the program has increased the number of chairs in the waiting area to ten. Two file cabinets have been acquired as well as an additional secretarial desk.

The law reform unit consists of five office rooms and a library conference room. There are two incoming phone lines with five extensions. This unit is staffed by one Reggie, three VISTA's and one secretary. Mr. Morgan also acts as law reform director, but he is involved with the unit only part-time.

The northside office is located in a two story frame house at 1615 East 9th Street. At the time of the evaluation, the office was disorganized and it needed furniture, painting, and some patch work for the walls. Since that time, the office has been completely painted and furniture provided. Nevertheless, since the office is located in a frame house it fails to have a completely professional appearance. There are offices located in the second story of the house and they can only be reached by walking up a steep flight of stairs. This office is staffed with one managing attorney, one staff attorney, two VISTA attorneys, a secretary, and a clerk-typist. The office is located within one block of one of Kansas City's large public housing projects the Wayne Minor Housing Project. There is ample near-by free street parking.

The Independence, Missouri, office is located at 136 East Maple in Independence, a low-middle income community adjoining Kansas City. This office is staffed with one attorney and one secretary. The office is located in a CAP center, but there is no indication from the outside that legal services are available in the building. There is a problem of client confidentiality at this office since when one enters the CAP office, there is a guest book which all visitors must sign. Visitors must also state the purpose of their visit and thus many of the Legal Services clients depict their legal problems. The program's secretary has attached a penciled sign below the book stating that Legal Services clients do not have to sign it; nevertheless, many clients are still signing the book. Also, since the secretary occupies partitioned space among the other CAP employees; and since she conducts the initial interview and obtains eligibility information, there is a lack of privacy at this stage of the intake procedure.

Most of this office's clients are seen by appointment. There are no evening or Saturday office hours. The attorney who staffs this office has not formulated any community education program for the low-income in this community. The office's library is inadequate since it has no Missouri Digest, Missouri or Southwestern Reports and municipal ordinances for Kansas City and Independence. Plans should be formulated to establish legal offices separate from the CAP center and to equip such offices with an adequate law library.

The Clay County office is located in Liberty, Missouri, the county seat of Clay County. The office is located in a neighborhood CAP center which is a store front building at 26th and Main. The office is staffed three days a week by one secretary and one attorney. At the time of the evaluation, the Legal Services secretary acted as receptionist for everybody who came into the CAP center; however, since that time, her desk has been moved away from the entrance and now she is able to use her time on Legal Services matters.

There is a serious drawback as to client confidentiality in this office. The secretary conducts the initial intake interview with the client in a large open work area in which other employees and visitors can overhear the conversation. The attorney's office also lacks privacy since two of the four walls don't reach the ceiling. In addition, neither the attorney's office space or the client's file cabinet can be locked. Although there has been no known occurrence of an intrusion into the client's files, it is possible that a client's file could be viewed by anyone coming into the CAP center during the two days the Legal Service's attorney is not present. Immediate attention should be given to acquiring a locked file cabinet so as to safeguard the privacy of attorney-client records. In addition, further steps should be taken to insure privacy with all attorney-client conversations.

The Platte County office is also located in a CAP center which occupies a two story house at Platte City. There is no outside sign which indicates there is a Legal Services office present in the center. The office is on the second floor in what was once apparently the bedroom. The office is open two days a week and it is staffed by the same secretary and attorney who staff the Liberty office. When the client enters the center, he must present himself to the CAP secretary and not the Legal Services secretary. Since the secretary is located at a desk in the hallway outside the second story office and since she has no telephone, many times she is by-passed by the secretary downstairs who will contact the attorney directly. On occasion this may interrupt a conversation the attorney is having with a client already present in the office.

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Neither the Platte City nor Clay County offices have legal libraries. There are Poverty Law Reporters in the Platte City office and the Clay County office has Vernon's Missouri Annotated Statutes and the first and second volumes of Missouri Practice and Pleading. Also present are loaned copies of Missouri Revised Statutes. Otherwise, there are no other legal references in these offices and plans should made to establish a complete library for these offices.

The final office is the westside office. This office is staffed five days a week by one attorney and one secretary. It is located in a westside CAP center which houses its offices in the basement of a former church. The office itself occupies a stall along the wall with other CAP office stalls. The walls to these stalls are waist high and thus there can be no attorney-client privacy unless conversations are conducted in subdued tones.

One of the purposes of this office was to bring the program closer to the Mexican-Americans in Kansas City. Since the program's compiling of MIS statistics did not differentiate between caucasians and Mexican-Americans, it is unknown how many Mexican-Americans were being served. There are plans to change the statistics so as to reflect the number of Mexican-Americans served. Plans are underway to expand the westside office into a two-man office. This along with separate and completely private offices plus a law library is necessary. A single attorney office is inefficient in that when the attorney is in court, he cannot serve clients who have come into the office.

B. Personnel

The director of this program is Mr. Paul T. Miller who has been director of the program since March, 1968. Within one month's time after he became director, Kansas City had undergone a riot. The police, the bench, and the bar were helped significantly by Mr. Miller in coordinating their efforts to restore justice. Such efforts established a meaningful image of the program among such diverse groups as low-income Blacks, low-income White, militants, the bar association, and the general public. Since creditability among the low-income had been one of the major weaknesses of the program, Mr. Miller's dynamic approach was needed. Since the program is also funded as Kansas City's Public Defender and since it has defended controversial people, Mr. Miller has had to act as a buffer for criticism against such legal defense action.

In addition, since the evaluation, Mr. Miller has initiated an active recruitment plan whereby he intends to hire young dedicated attorneys who will involve the program in significant court action. Since the evaluation, he has acquired seven VISTA's, two Reginald Heber Smith Fellows, and several staff attorneys. One of the Reggies as well as one of the staff attorneys is Black. In addition, the program's law school and community education coordinator is Black. These Black professionals have helped increase the program's creditability among the low-income Blacks.

Since Mr. Miller became director of the program, he has been changing its management. The former director had concentrated mainly on the criminal side of the Society. Mr. Miller has established two equal divisions which have their own directors who are responsible to him. At the time of the evaluation, Mr. Morgan, the civil division director, had been with the program just two months and the criminal division head was resigning.

At the time of the evaluation, Mr. Morgan, along with Mr. Miller, recognized one of the program's deficiencies as a lack of attorneys with litigation experience. Although the program was gaining more competent personnel, it had still failed to utilize each attorney fully as an active in-court advocate for the poor person. The MIS statistics for the year preceding the evaluation show that nearly seventy-five per cent of the cases closed were by lawyer referrals and the giving of advice only.

Since Mr. Morgan has been with the program, he has instituted immediate over-all administrative changes. He has had the central office shift most of its caseload to the neighborhood offices in the north and southeast areas of Kansas City. Now the central office's civil section tends to concentrate only on handling the majority of the juvenile and domestic relation matters for the immediate Kansas City area. If a client goes to a neighborhood office to obtain a divorce, that client is referred to the downtown central office. This frees staff attorneys in the neighborhood offices to concentrate on consumer, housing, and welfare cases. Also, Mr. Morgan has reassigned attorneys among the various offices, created intake duties among each attorney, and established areas of specialization

for each attorney. These areas of specialization include not only substantive legal areas such as welfare and housing, but also trial specialization, staff training, and other administrative areas. The progrm is now holding weekly staff meetings.

Mr. Morgan is also responsible for the direct supervision of the two VISTA attorneys and the Reginald Heber Smith Fellow attorney who make the program's law reform unit. This unit devotes its full time to law reform work and they began a series of law reform orientated cases.

Another important addition to the staff has been Mr. Dewey Jones, formerly a supervising attorney in the Chicago Legal Services program, who now holds the position of law student co-ordinator. Mr. Jones is on the Society's staff but he has offices at the University of Missouri at Kansas City Law School. Essentially, his basic duties are to recruit, orientate, and supervise law school students who volunteer to work in the program. The students receive school credit hours for their work, but they are not paid. Also, after gaining approval from the law school, Mr. Jones hopes to start some poverty law courses.

Mr. Jones has students interview clients for two hours each week. He has written a detailed manual which the students use in this work. It instructs them in how to conduct an interview and it details the many various legal problems which a low-income person may encounter. The students follow up on each case by doing all necessary investigative work, law research, drafting of pleadings and helping the attorneys with the court presentation. Mr. Jones closely follows the activities of these students by having them fill out a "recording" sheet which depicts why a client comes into the office, the basic dialogue between client and student, and what action the student took. The use of law students is much better than before since now they gain proper supervision and they are able to identify the many legal problems that face a low-income person. Another area which Mr. Jones is developing is program publicity. He has employed a local Black printing company to develop program posters and a program calendar to be used as community education aides.

At the time of the evaluation, the VISTA attorneys involved in the program had definite duties, but they appeared to lack a commitment toward the program. Since that time the program has acquired different VISTA attorneys who have proven to be much more committed to the program.

At the time of the evaluation the program did not have a personnel plan. Since that time one has been developel. It defines each position as well as vacation, sick leave, and compensatory time rights. At the present time, the plan has been turned over to the Board of Directors for approval. Implementation of this plan is imperative so that the staff members are aware of each other's specific duties.

C. Clients

The program's clientele averages between half Black and half White. The basic eligibility requirements are $2,100 a year for an individual and an additional annual allowance of $300 for each additional dependent. Flexibility guidelines are also applied.

II. SCOPE OF SERVICES

The program excludes only one type of case-civil fee generating cases. Since the program is also funded by Kansas City to operate a public defender, it is able to take those clients who are indicted for felonies.

The court work that the program was engaged in at the time of the evaluation was minimal. Although the attorneys were seeing a substantial number of clients, the majority of their work involved "advice only" matters or cases which were resolved by a telephone call or a letter.

In the last reporting period of 1968, the program closed 680 cases, 558 of these were closed by referral, advice only, and negotiation. The majority of the cases were divorce or family matters. In the first MIS statistic period for 1969, 1138 cases were closed. Nine hundred eleven of these were closed by referrals, advice only and out of court negotiation. In the second MIS statistic period for 1969, 513 cases were closed. Four hundred fourteen of these were closed by referrals, advice only and negotiation. However, since the evaluation the program has acquired several younger attorneys who have been trained to recognize poverty law problems and to empathize with their client's problems. Some of these attorneys have staffed the law reform unit and this unit has already engaged in thirty or so law reform cases which are or will lead to

court work. Also, the Reggie and two VISTA attorneys who help staff the northside office have been advocating many welfare cases within the welfare department. They have also been involved in housing cases. This new impetus is a significant departure from the advice only and domestic relations court work practice which the Society had been involved in at the time of the evaluation. In addition to the deputy director's specialization and "duty-day" plan to free attorney's time, the Society has the central office concentrate on the juvenile and domestic relation matters for the immediate Kansas City area. This allows the neighborhood offices to concentrate on housing, welfare and consumer problems.

A. Community education

At the time of the evaluation, the program had created a new position of Community Education Coordinator. At that time she had just completed the training of VISTA attorneys in teaching techniques for low-income legal education training sessions.

In addition, there are plans to produce a legal aid newsletter. Various displays about Legal Aid have been placed with social agencies throughout the city. Also, an open house was held at one of the recently opened neighborhood offices.

At the time of the evaluation, the past year's VISTA attorneys had been responsible in training VISTA associates about an individual's basic legal rights and obligations. The associates in turn are used to inform the neighborhood people with whom they come in contact.

The law school coordinator is also actively involved in the community education effort. At the time of the evaluation, he was preparing, in conjunction with a Black artist employed by a Black-owned printing firm, cartoon-like posters and a calender to publicize Legal Services and the various problem areas that Legal Services is involved in. The law school coordinator is also active in group discussions with various local agencies such as the caseworkers of the welfare department.

Several of the staff attorneys are active in meeting with low-income groups. B. Law reform

Test and law reform cases being pursued at the time of the evaluation involved welfare, (testing the denial of the benefits while a decision was being determined) consumer law, and a case suggesting that the magistrate court system was unconstitutional. The constitutional question of due process was raised in two landloard tenant cases in which the landlord's attorney had brought eviction suits in a magistrate court outside the venue of the defendants.

Since the evaluation, full-time and part-time law reform units have been formed. The full-time law reform unit has been involved in numerous consumer fraud cases involving local used car dealers, a business college and door-to-door salesmen. Also, this unit has a military draft case which challenges the local draft board for not granting hardship classifications and a civil rights case in which the Kansas City police conducted an allegedly unwarranted investigation of a parent who was protesting a decision of the previous school board. The decision related to the firing of a teacher who has since been reinstated by the current school board. The part-time law reform unit, which is housed in the northside office, has developed four welfare cases asking for various types of relief and challenging present welfare standards and policies.

The program does represent several low-income groups. The program's attorneys along with CAP neighborhood aides helped organize low-income residents to enter citizen participation boards to help plan Model Cities Proposals. The A. D. C. Mothers consider the Legal Services as their counsel. The program has also represented individuals associated with Black Youth of America and the Black Committee of 20. The program also represented the Council of Tenants Association in negotiating their rental lease with the Public Housing Authority. This group representation is highly commendable and is another step forward to a successful law reform effort.

III. GOVERNING BOARD

Since January 1, 1970, the board has been holding regular monthly meetings at 4:00 pm in the library of the central office instead of quarterly meetings which