Missouri Supreme Court, the Society is attempting to establish right to jury trial in municipal court where the offense is one indictable at common law.40 8. Police-Community Relations. Our lawyers work with the community relations officer of the police department and with community groups in a liaison capacity. Numerous cases in which citizens feel that the police have overstepped the bounds of their authority are settled informally. In cases of alleged police brutality, the first step is always to refer the matter to the police department; however, if the police department fails to act, our lawyers have sometimes found it necessary to pursue the matter further. 9. Riot-Emergency Plans. A few years ago when serious rioting broke out in Kansas City, our lawyers and the legal profession generally were called on for round-the-clock services in providing defense counsel for those charged with violations. We have therefore been working with various groups of community lawyers, the police department and sheriff's office, and the local ministers and social workers in developing a plan to serve the community if another similar emergency situation should develop. III. Economic Development Legal Aid attorneys have been working with many social and governmental agencies and with many community groups in efforts to promote economic development in the poverty areas. Our economic development unit has been assisting groups in getting incorporation papers, either for profit or as non-profit organizations, at a rate of ten to twelve a month. "Package" services have been provided for a number of enterprises, such as an "under-18" nightclub, a black advertising firm, a retail clothing firm, and a proposed insurance company to offer group automobile insurance to inner-city residents. An inner-city bakery is being organized, with plans to purchase surplus commodity flour from the government, and sell bakery goods retail at a competitive rate to local residents. Plans also call for training inner-city youths in bakery operations. Expected funding from OEO and the Surplus Commodity Foods programs is $185,000. A rural feeder-pig cooperative is being organized in Platte County, which will help poor tenant-farmers gain income year-round. The program calls for OEO funding, and should provide the additional advantages of group rates in shipping, purchasing feed, etc. 40. State of Missouri ex rel. Cole v. Nigro, No. 55617, Supreme Court of Missouri, relying on Baldwin v. New York, 38 U.S.L.W. 4554 (decided June 22, 1970). Discussions are being held by some of our lawyers with several influential Kansas City corporate executives to interest them in "Project Enterprise," a governmental program in which a private corporation pledges a minimum investment of $150,000 in a minority small-business investment company. This company in turn finances business projects by members of minority groups. The government matches each dollar with two dollars, and the private investors receive certain tax benefits. Two large corporations have shown definite interest in contributing to this project. Conclusion It has not been the purpose of this article to give a complete view of the work of the Legal Aid and Defender Society of Greater Kansas City. Any such study to be complete would necessarily have to include a discussion of the Society's public defender work, as well as descriptions of its lawyer referral program, its several programs involving law students from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and its varied activities in the field of community legal education. It is hoped, however, that the above treatment will be of value as a description of day-to-day work in poverty law in a medium-large metropolitan area, as performed by a legal services organization which is trying to serve the community and at the same time to remedy existing inequities between rich and poor before the law. THE LEGAL AID AND DEFENDER SOCIETY OF GREATER KANSAS CITY PESONNEL LIST, DECEMBER 8, 1970 Central office, 1029 Oak Street, Kansas City, Mo. 64106, 474-6750: Bearce, Lorraine E., nonprofessional Caldwell, Sarah L., nonprofessional Morgan, William B., chief, civil division Parris, Walt L., administrator Robinson, Mary C., nonprofessional Shulenberger, Margaret, community education coordinator Taylor, Dorthea B., nonprofessional Walsh, Gerald, staff attorney Wilson, Charles D., staff attorney Law reform unit, 1029 Oak Street, Kansas City, Mo. 64106, 474-6750: Bolton, Josephine E., nonprofessioanl Ervin, Ward H., staff attorney Habiger, Richard J., staff attorney, R.H.S. Harwood, Steve, staff attorney Hunt, Coleen, nonprofessional McCormick, Harvey L., managing attorney Criminal division, 1029 Oak Street, Kansas City, Mo. 64106, 474-6750: Bunch, Willard B., chief, criminal division Cosgrove, John J., staff attorney Denny, Larry O., staff attorney Embrey Jr., Hughie L., investigator Watson, Henri J., staff attorney North office, 1718 East 8th, Kansas City, Mo. 64106, 221-3776: Anderson, Joe, staff attorney Dorsey, J. Michael, managing attorney Dye, Christopher, staff attorney Gregory, Sandra K., nonprofessional Kierst, David, staff attorney Wilson, Linda, nonprofessional West office, 814 W. 26 St., Kansas City, Mo. 64108, 848-3988: Brady, Eunice, nonprofessional Bryant, C. Herschel, managing attorney South office, 2920 E. 31 St., Kansas City, Mo. 64128, 861-9388: Gamm, Gordon, staff attorney Halliburton, Richard F., managing attorney Kushner, James A., staff attorney Landreth, Jo Ann, nonprofessional Muller, James L., staff attorney Palmer, Dennis, staff attorney Riffel, Jerome D., staff attorney Smith, Claudette, nonprofessional Sullivan, F. Sherry, nonprofessional Independence office, 136 E. Maple, Independence, Mo. 64050, 836-0737 : Carver, Candace, nonprofessional Krebbs, Jon M., managing attorney Liberty office, 1031⁄2 E. Kansas, Liberty, Mo. 64068, 781-6456: Hicks, Shirley F., nonprofessional Tripp, Donald O., managing attorney Mr. MILLER. First, the panel is composed of, as you mentioned, Dean Patrick Kelly, dean of the University of Missouri at Kansas City, UMKC Law School. He is president of the Board of the Legal Aid Defenders Society of Greater Kansas City, and he is active in the bar and community affairs. He will speak first. Also, as you mentioned, we have James G. Baker, member of the House of Representatives of the Missouri Legislature, member of the Missouri bar; and Arthur A. Benson II, a staff lawyer with the Legal Aid Defenders Society, and also regional director for region 7 of the Poverty Lawyers for Effective Advocacy, which is also known as PLEA. In addition to discussion regarding H.R. 6360 and H.R. 8163, I would also like to tell you a little bit about our Kansas City experience and the relationship each of us has to the Kansas City experience, and the perspectives we can bring as a group. STATEMENT OF PATRICK KELLY, DEAN, UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI, KANSAS CITY, MO. Mr. KELLY. Thank you. As a member of the committee, I am prompted by my professorial colleague, who just addressed you, to mention disclaimers. If it be necessary, I disclaim speaking for my law school or university. My faculty would never assume that such disclaimer was necessary, because they never allow that I have the authority to speak for them. In fact, they speak only en bloc. Mr. FORD. And rarely in unison. Mr. KELLY. I will not, short of your questions driving me to it, attempt to make a scholarly analysis of the two bills. You have a substantial portion of that from Professor Sutton. I assume that you do have some rather ample resources for detailed analyses in comparing those bills. Rather, I hope to be able to bring you some of the expressions of the people who really have the most interest at stake in what happens on these bills. If the legal services programs should be disbanded, I assure you I could return to my teaching and law school duties. The lawyer members on our board might happily return to full time at their law offices, and the lay people on our board, would, I am sure, find other civic activities in which to engage themselves. There are, however, a vast number of people who have come to depend on legal services programs, and am concerned that you have some opportunity to know what they think, and the fact that you are here leads me to believe that you do have some very substantial and genuine interest in what they think. It is undoubtedly an oversimplification of the issue, but I believe that it pretty well comes down to saying that the people whose lives we are touching in this kind of legislation are saying, "What are you doing to our program?" They feel that they have found a friend. They feel that they have found a spokesman, an advocate, and they have heard that there are some people who don't like that. There are people who have said they don't like us, and there are people who have introduced legislation in your chambers that substantially indicates that they don't like these people, who when they come to you, may indeed focus their pleas down on such matters as the number and composition of the board of the new corporation, if it is to be adopted, whether it has 11 or 19 members or whatever number, but I say to you, what they are really saying is not that it be a certain number, but that it indeed be an independent board and one that is prepared to sustain and continue and even extend the program as they know it. On that very issue I feel safe in saying that they would have more confidence in a board composed of persons who had an accountability more than just to a political party. They believe that a bipartisan board is good, of whatever number, but they would recognize an advantage in having that board in some manner structured so as to be responsive to the esteemed organizations such as the American Bar Association, the Association of American Law Schools, the International Legal Aid and Defender Societies, and others of national repute. They have witnessed those organizations giving them aid and assistance as this legal aid program has developed to this time, and they are probably more impressed than some of us with the effectiveness and the actual interest of the American Bar Association in their program. They would, as I suggest, be gratified in knowing that those organizations were, in some manner, involved in the structuring of the board and that the people that served on the board would feel some responsibility to those national organizations. After you settle the composition of the board, still a bigger question is what are the proposed changes in this program. Are their staff attorneys to be denied first-class citizenship, a point alluded to here earlier by Congressman Ford, that they should not participate in the political parties of their own choice. It is even said that they should not engage in such alleged multifarious activities as voter registration to get more people eligible to vote in our system. Their question is, How are those matters related to a bill providing for legal services? How is that related to the onduty activity of a legal aid attorney staff? They ask, is this political recrimination of a sort, totally unrelated to the performance of legal services. I say to you in my analysis that not only is that unfair to the individual staff attorneys, but it would strike a very devastating blow to our programs. If we preach that our courts are to be equally accessible to the rich and the poor, we should analyze what it is we are saying. I think we have to concede that we haven't really reached that true equality, nor do we really expect to. Very obviously, no legal aid staff is going to be able to afford the degree of experience and expertise that a rich man can go out and hire to represent him when he has a legal problem. What we have brought to these clients and to these people is a staff of lawyers who have a very specific interest in our problems. We have a high level of interest and energy in performing. Now, it is suggested that these people have to, in some manner, become what I may be excused for calling political eunuchs. This just cannot |