Affordable Legal Services For Lawyers

Lawyers Weekly, Inc.

From the February 04, 2002 Lawyers USA.

Feature Story

Lawyer network Helps Small Firms

While Providing Affordable Legal

Services

Program Basics

What started out three years ago as an occasional meeting between a handful of law professors and sole practitioners, has blossomed into a full-fledged network of more than 50 solos and small-firm lawyers trying to improve their practices while doing good for their communities.

Civil Justice - an unusual partnership between the University of Maryland law school and small-firm lawyers - provides technical, business, legal and even personal support for participating lawyers while offering discount legal services to those who otherwise might not be able to afford an attorney. On Saturday, the program received the ABA's Louis Brown Access to Justice Award.

The project has established a computer network through an Internet listserv to keep members abreast of topics ranging from how to hire an accountant to the latest court ruling in a range of specialty fields. Other topics have included what phone plan works best, what to look for in a palm pilot, and even the personality traits of local judges.

Another goal is to help lawyers fill out their practices by matching them with clients who need work at a reduced fee.

Like most client/lawyer matching services, the success of this part of the program has been limited, with network lawyers only taking on a few of these cases each year, according to Director Denis Murphy.

However, the network has other ways of providing members with clients. The attorneys often refer to each other and use each other as co-counsel. This has been very valuable, said Annapolis attorney Peter Holland.

"In some ways it's like a virtual law firm," Holland said.

But the driving force behind the program was a desire to provide affordable legal services. "The law is more than billable hours and economics. It's about serving people in need," says the organization's mission statement. It speaks about creating a "new model for legal practice" which "makes it economically viable for lawyers to serve people of moderate means at reduced rates." Lisa Tunick of Kensington, Maryland, joined the network a year and a half ago. She had recently decided to go solo after spending her first three years out of law school as an attorney with the federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) program.

"The mission of Civil Justice was really in tune with the philosophy of my practice, which was not just to make money but to help people understand the law," she said. "I got into law really for the social justice aspects of it, but I found out I was really in the minority out there. Finding a network of similar-minded people was wonderful for me after meeting lots of lawyers hell bent on growing their client base and being nasty to each other and not caring at all about people."

Murphy joined the program after 31 years in private practice in Columbus, Ohio, where he was president of the non-profit Ohio Legal Assistance Foundation.

"There are an awful lot of unserved people in our justice system because they don't qualify for any kind of free legal aid but they don't have the income to afford some of the high-priced attorney fees," he said.

Civil Justice has tried to find creative ways to help these folks, which include using fee shifting statutes such as those in consumer protection cases, offering reduced rates and educating its membership on unbundling services to reduce the cost to clients while maintaining a profitable billing rate for lawyers.

A Network For Small Firms

In spite of its high-minded mission, Civil Justice also provides a wide range of very tangible benefits to lawyers themselves.

Holland was one of the original lawyers involved in the group and is still a member. He said his involvement with the organization dovetails nicely with his goals of representing the underdog but also doing well financially for himself.

Holland said the information he gets from the network is invaluable.

"Recently I had a case with an ERISA question having to do with insurance proceeds," he said. "I put the question out there and within 10 minutes I had responses with the leading Supreme Court case along with the briefs from both sides and transcripts of the oral arguments. It's true I could have found that on my own but it would have taken me a lot of time and this person in the network had the information right there and passed it on.

"The network helps on so many levels, even with trial tactics. I once posted a question asking if anyone had to argue a motion before a certain judge and someone was able to tell me about the judge and what he likes. That's incredibly valuable information."

Westlaw. It also gives law students a chance to work on cases and get courtroom experience. Michael Milleman, a law professor at the University of Maryland, was involved in the group's infancy. He said many attorneys want to go solo and want to use their law degree to help people but often find they're not equipped to do either.

"One of the problems with legal education is that we don't really teach lawyers the business of law practice and the administration of a law office," said Milleman. "Law schools are dropping

graduates off into practice without the proper preparation for the business and development of a law practice. We wanted to help with that and connect solos with each other."

To do this, the network relies heavily on peer mentoring to help new solos and those working in small firms develop niche practice areas and economically sound practices, Murphy said. In addition to the on-line connections, the members also hold monthly face-to-face meetings. Murphy said the program found that the traditional mentoring model of an older, experienced lawyer helping out a younger attorney did not seem to work.

"What we found works really is peer mentoring, in this case mentoring via the Internet for the most part," he said. "I think this works because it's through peers, it's immediate and in some ways it's anonymous. It also works for us because there's a commitment to sharing among our members." Attorney Anthony Fatemi of Bethesda went solo straight out of law school four years ago. He heard about Civil Justice at a Maryland State Bar meeting and said the network has provided him with invaluable contacts and information.

"My first case was an auto accident and through the network I was directed to appropriate publications and case law that I needed. It was a great help. It's great to have someone out there you can ask questions of and know they won't turn their back on you," Fatemi said. "I use the network to get information on general legal questions and legal matters that I haven't encountered in the past and I know I'm getting good reliable information on case law, citations and particular statutes."

The experience of network attorneys has also helped in office management.

"One thing that distinguishes this network from other organizations is its emphasis on office management for solos," said Fatemi. "[Other solos] can provide information and create buying power. For instance, I get a discount on Westlaw through them."

Because Civil Justice attracts mostly people in need of housing, consumer and bankruptcy help -and Fatemi specializes in immigration -and special education law - he doesn't get many clients through the network. However, he feels philosophically in tune with its mission and does many of his special education cases pro bono.

There are also a number of less tangible benefits to joining a group like Civil Justice, not the least of which is moral support.

"There's a professional loneliness out there in being a solo practitioner," said Professor Milleman. "So in addition to the tangible benefits of being able to get information about judges, pleadings, referrals and co-counsel, the network serves as a morale booster to lawyers with kindred spirits who are also idealistic about serving people."

After giving birth to her first child a few years ago, Tunick began running her practice part time from her home, doing mostly estate planning. Last year, when she was expecting her second child, she put a message out to the network saying she was overwhelmed and thinking about shutting down her practice.

"I'm doing a very untraditional practice and I guess I was having a hard time of it. I was thinking of just hanging it up," Tunick said. "I got a lot of support from the network, basically people telling me that I wasn't alone in my frustration trying to be a good parent and a good lawyer and that I should hang in there if I could because I was providing valuable services to my clients. I was surprised by the compassion, and later by the follow-up, with people asking how I was doing and telling me they were glad I stuck with it."

Merging Of Practical And Philosophical

While the underlying philosophy of the program is to promote affordable legal services,

implementing that goal also opens up new markets to lawyers, according to Professor Milleman. "We found there are untapped markets out there, especially in the area of consumer protection," he said. "This area has a lot of potential but it's very difficult for a solo because these are very complicated areas of federal and state law involving fee shifting statutes as sources of income. Using the knowledge of the network, however, makes it more doable."

In the past few years, the program has developed a specialty niche in housing law, particularly in combating real estate "flipping" fraud. These cases usually involve unscrupulous agents that sell a house to unsuspecting buyers for far more than the house is worth, often arranging shady financing as well. The buyers frequently run into financial troubles and many are forced into bankruptcy as it becomes apparent their homes are worth only a fraction of their mortgages.

Because these are consumer fraud cases, the plaintiffs can demand the defendants pay for legal fees, Murphy said.

Brenda Braton Blom, a professor with the clinical law program, has worked with Civil Justice as part of her Economic Housing and Community Development clinic. She said that the program is making its name combating flipping practices and noted that it recently secured a grant from the Baltimore-based Abell Foundation to provide free legal advice to first time homebuyers.

"Clearly this law school program is having an impact on creating access to justice," Blom said. Civil Justice can be reached at: www.civiljusticenetwork.org

Questions or comments can be directed to the features editor at: bibelle@lawyersweekly.com.

Program Basics

Two other programs were founded at the same time as Civil Justice in Baltimore - one based at Northeastern University in Boston and the other at City University in New York.

In an effort transform these isolated programs into a movement of sorts, the founders hosted a reception Jan. 3, at the annual meeting of the American Association of Law Schools in New Orleans.

The programs were launched in 1998 with grants from the Open Society Institute. Each has taken on its own flavor. While the Maryland program has developed a specialty in consumer fraud, such as mortgage flipping and relies heavily on Internet connections, the New York program has focuses more on creating practice groups in areas such as immigration, which meet in person on a regular basis. Northeastern's program has focused more on domestic violence.

Today the Civil Justice network survives through grants from local foundations and non-profit agencies such as a local housing advocacy group that has contracted with Civil Justice to provide counseling to victims of housing scams. The program also generates fees from consumer

protection cases it takes on.

The group was originally headed by Clinton Bramberger, an emeritus professor at the University of Maryland Law School who was director of the school's clinical law program prior to his retirement. Membership in Civil Justice is free for the first year, $100 for the second and third year, and $200 for subsequent years. Members must be solo practitioners or working in a small firm.

Beyond a general agreement with the mission of Civil Justice, there are few membership

requirements. There are no quotas as to the number of underserved clients a lawyer must take nor is there are prescribed fee schedule. Whenever anyone contacts the program for a lawyer, Murphy posts the query to the group. If a lawyer is interested in the case, he or she contacts the client and sets up a fee schedule.

"Most of them use a sliding fee depending on the client," said program director Denis Murphy. "We're still a long way from meeting the needs of the underserved but we are making a difference."

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