agreement that would ensure cooperation in several specific respects on the national, regional, State and local levels. We intend to continue these activities in the future, and to identify other agencies and organizations that can help us deliver legal services to the elderly. The second step is more training of service providers, particularly paralegals, in areas that concern the elderly. Our office of program support is currently making plans to train more attorneys and paralegals for legal services work— including many areas that affect the elderly-than has ever been done before on a national level. The need for lawyer training is obvious. But paralegals have also been of immeasurable value in expanding the ability of our programs to deliver legal services efficiently and effectively, though they are not the answer to all delivery problems. Each paralegal must work under the supervision of an attorney in order to ensure the quality of work and avoid the unauthorized practice of law. A legal services program can utilize paralegals only to the extent that it has the resources to maintain proper supervision. Finally, we urge the Congress as a whole to adopt this committee's recommendation that increased funding for the Legal Services Corporation is essential. The specialized outreach and educational programs necessary to give the elderly access to legal services are costly, and the cost of providing individual service to such persons is therefore higher. Although legal services programs are sensitive to the necessity for such efforts, the financial realities of the last 6 years have precluded needed special efforts. Operating on frozen budgets during a period of high inflation, legal services programs could undertake extensive outreach only at the expense of other clients. The increases in the Legal Services Corporation's appropriation for fiscal year 1977 will help but not solve the problem. We will not be able to restore the programs to their pre-1970 capabilities, much less enable them to implement the types of projects necessary to reach more of the elderly poor. It is only by substantially increasing the Legal Services Corporation's budget that our present programs will have the resources to make those efforts and that we will be able to establish new programs to serve areas that presently have no access to legal services at all. We do not recommend that funds be earmarked to provide specialized services to the elderly. The corporation's mandate is to provide service to all of the poor, concentrating only upon those least able to afford such service. Earmarking funds for any group would inevitably mean less efficiency in working toward that goal. It would mean that other clients or groups would be denied access to the legal system altogether. Such trade-offs should not be necessary when the sound solution is to provide the corporation with sufficient resources to perform the job for which Congress established it. In sum, the Legal Services Corporation is concerned with the problem of delivering legal services to the elderly poor, just as we are with all groups of poor people. We believe we have made progress in that direction. But we are aware of the problems in reaching the elderly poor, and agree that more must be done in the future. Given adequate resources, we can do the job. Senator KENNEDY. Thank you very much. Mr. Wharton, would you like to make a comment? STATEMENT OF A. C. WHARTON, MEMPHIS AND SHELBY COUNTY LEGAL SERVICES, MEMPHIS, TENN. Mr. WHARTON. The only comment I would have would be to emphasize President Ehrlich's comment about the lack of data base as to how many senior citizens are presently being served in legal service programs. In my own program, however, we do have figures based on 6 months of service. Now based on that 6 months experience we were able to determine that at least 79 percent of those senior citizens who were served were persons who were faced with problems which, had it not been for the special outreach components and these legal services programs, would simply have suffered with those problems and allowed them to bother them for a longer period of time. HOUSE CALLS FOR THE ELDERLY One other interesting statistic is the fact that 59 percent of those served were served at locations other than central offices. We have a program pursuant to which the attorneys actually made house calls, if necessary, and during our first 6 months of operation, approximately 60 percent of the clients were served in their homes at places other than the downtown locations, not simply by choice but by necessity because of handicap or other inabilities to obtain transportation. Senator KENNEDY. I think both Mr. Ehrlich and Mr. Wharton anticipated the first question-that is the degree of commitment of the corporation to providing services for the elderly. It seems to me that most governmental programs do not sufficiently involve the elderly. I think this is true, in general, of health and manpower training programs. The elderly end up participating minimally in these kind of programs. USE OF INCREASED FUNDS I would like to know what plans there are for the money that was threatened with rescission this year. Also, what programs do you have that are geared to serving the legal needs of the elderly? How are we going to be able to measure their effectiveness? Mr. EHRLICH. Those funds are to be used, Senator, in two major ways. One is to increase the capabilities of existing programs, which have had, as you know-including the ones in Boston and others in Massachusetts-frozen budgets for 5 hard years. Those programs will be able to strengthen their capability to serve the poor, to begin particularly the kinds of outreach efforts that you are interested in that can deal with the needs of the elderly in ways that particularly are important for them. The second major area is to provide service in at least some parts of the country where there now is no access to justice at all, where the elderly and nonelderly poor are totally outside the legal system. Senator KENNEDY. Is this rural as well as inner-city? Mr. EHRLICH. Sadly, it is both urban and rural in much of the country-the South and the Southwest particularly-where there are no legal services programs at all. This coming year, because the Congress has appropriated $125 million, and in the next 3 years, if we are successful in reaching our goal, we will provide service throughout the country. We are not now doing that and at the end of this year there will still be some areas of the country, including some where a good many elderly people live, who have no service. RESPONDING TO NEEDS OF ELDERLY Senator KENNEDY. Can you give us an idea as to how you are going to assure that there will be adequate commitments to the needs of the elderly? You stated earlier that percentages of individuals using legal services was not an appropriate measurement. How will the elderly be able to judge that there is a strong commitment to their legal needs? How are we going to know then that you are measuring up to those standards? Mr. EHRLICH. Our commitment is clear and the test, of course, will be the performance on that commitment. In our view, training is probably the singlemost important factor involved-training of lawyers and training of paralegals. We must be sure that both in the substantive law, particularly related to the elderly, and in other areas where the legal problems of the elderly poor are the same as those of others who are poor, legal services staffs are well trained. WHAT ARE LAW SCHOOLS DOING? Senator KENNEDY. What are the law schools doing? What is Stanford doing? Mr. EHRLICH. The short answer is: Not enough. Stanford does, as it happens, have a seminar that deals on a clinical basis with legal problems of the elderly, in conjunction with a program there that the Administration on Aging supports. But in most law schools, including my own, that field has been too often neglected. The corporation has its own training programs, designed especially for legal services lawyers, to provide training in areas that relate particularly to the elderly and other areas, such as administrative benefits. Our training programs also try to give some sense of the special problems that those who are elderly face when they come up against the law. The second area of training deals with paralegals. We can do more than we have done in terms of training paralegals. Very often paralegals come from the very community where they will be working. If they are elderly as well, that is an additional advantage in working with the elderly. Senator KENNEDY. Would it be useful if we had a letter from you and Dr. Flemming to the bar association urging them to urge the law schools to develop these kinds of programs? Perhaps we could ask the bar examiners to include questions on these areas of the law. Would you work with us on this?" Mr. EHRLICH. We would be delighted to work with you and your staff in encouraging the bar to help provide legal services to the elderly poor. We might think in terms of prodding the law schools as well. Senator KENNEDY. I hope that next year we will be able to find out what is being allocated and what is being committed to legal services for the elderly so that we can more accurately assess their impact. This is important as there is a very strong impression that legal services for the elderly has not been as strong as other areas. We want to be fair, both to you in terms of judging performance and to the elderly, in assuring them that their needs are being responded to. I think they are entitled to have a clear understanding of what resources are being devoted to their needs. I ask that we try to work that out with the staff. I have some other questions which I will submit to the witnesses. I would like to know what is being done in rural areas to extend the outreach programs. MODEL LEGAL SERVICES PROGRAMS Dr. Flemming, the section 308 model legal services programs have finished their first year of operation. How successful have they been? What is your evaluation of them and what can be done to assure their success? Dr. FLEMMING. May I say, first of all, that as far as the grants that were made to the organizations that in turn have been rendering technical assistance to State and area agencies, I feel that the organizations have done a good job. This is why we have renewed most of those grants. When it comes to some of the more specialized model projects, I have taken note, for example, of the work done by the Legal Services for the Elderly Poor in New York City. They have been able to obtain statewide injunctions in New York and New Jersey to prevent massive transfers of residents out of nursing homes pursuant to utilization reviews under medicare. Under these injunctions, residents may be transferred only after they have been given the opportunity to exercise their rights to a hearing. This injunction has prevented the transfer of about a thousand residents and thereby significantly reduced the negative aspects of transfer trauma. The legal research services for the elderly here in Washington has developed a law and aging manual to assist the area agencies in developing resources for the elderly and this manual has been widely distributed. Likewise, it has assisted the State agency on aging for West Virginia in obtaining a grant under title XX to establish a paralegal services program consisting of 30 trained paralegals who are senior citizens to visit sites where elderly are congregated in an effort to identify and resolve their legal problems or to refer them to an appropriate legal service. The first job that has been done is one consistent with our desire to build up the capacity and capability of State and area agencies. Paul Nathanson, in connection with his work growing out of the center in southern California, has performed a similar service for the States in the West and also some in the Middle West. So I would say, just looking back at just 1 year's operation, that the grants that we have made have helped to move us forward. Now as I indicated in my opening statement, we are going to try to build on that by institutionalizing this operation at the State level. Senator Kennedy, one of the things I have tried to keep in mind in connection with the legal services operation is to do everything possible to make it a meaningful and integral part of the operation of the national network on aging. You were responsible for providing very effective leadership in making it possible for us over the period of the last 22 years to put this national network into place. It is in place and it is working. I feel it is very important for us to relate legal services to that network. We are very anxious to develop a capacity and capability at the State level which will provide leadership at the area level and the community level and move us forward in this area. One of the things that we are going to do in order to get a fix on this is to find out within the next 30 to 60 days how many older persons are or have been served through legal services programs in a given geographical area. Then we are going to ask for an estimate as to the number that will be served by the end of this fiscal year. Then we will be doing the same thing as far as 1978 is concerned. It is interesting to note that even though the network is new, and we are just getting underway, that at the present time there are about 100 local legal service projects for older persons which are financed in whole or in part by area agencies. They are using somewhere between $2 and $2.5 million of their money for that particular purpose. That is in addition, of course, to the money that we have allocated at the national level. SPECIAL LEGAL SERVICES TRAINING TITLE Senator KENNEDY. Would it be useful to have a special title in the Older Americans Act for legal services training? Dr. FLEMMING. As far as the Older Americans Act is concerned you have given us a clear legislative history on it in terms of using some of our IV-A training funds for this particular purpose. I have indicated we are in the process of doing that. This is the second time this has been done. Personally, I rather like that approach as contrasted with putting in a separate title. If we begin to put in special titles for specific areas we could be opening up a Pandora's box. But we are delighted to have the Congress give us a clear indication of intent and then delighted to move in and implement that intent. Mr. EHRLICH. The Legal Services Corporation does want to see as much focus on legal services as is possible. In this area, we care less on the particular mechanism, whether it is a separate title or the clear mandate to do the kinds of things we have been talking about today under the Administration on Aging, and the necessary funding. If it can be done best through a separate title, that would be finethat would be the very clear indication of the importance of legal services to the elderly. In all events, we do hope to have that indication. Senator KENNEDY. Thank you very much. Mr. EHRLICH. Thank you, sir. Dr. FLEMMING. Thank you. Senator KENNEDY. We will be looking forward to seeing you sometime next year. Mr. EHRLICH. We look forward to working with you. Dr. FLEMMING. Very much. Senator KENNEDY. Mr. F. William McCalpin, assistant secretary of the American Bar Association, formerly served as chairperson of the special committee on prepaid legal services and the standing committee on legal aid and indigent defendants. He is also a practicing attorney in St. Louis with Lewis, Tucker, Rice, Allen, & Chubb. Mr. McCalpin, we are going to have a short recess and then my colleague, Senator Randolph, is going to be here to continue with the hearing. We will recess. Mr. MCCALPIN. Thank you, Senator. |