Mayor LANDRIEU. I think it is absolutely essential for the Supreme Court to draw up those guidelines, and I don't have any question about that. I think therein lies the responsibility-what brought about our minor and internal differences was simply that type of an approach. The lead attorney made the sole determination if he chose to take a $5 parking ticket to the Supreme Court, that that was the client-attorney relationship, and that that client was entitled to the best legal defense in the world and that they were going to bring it.

That type of approach, in my judgment, is an unreasonable approach and leads to loss of confidence in the program as a whole-a poverty institution spending $10,000 over a $5 parking ticket is hardly justifiable to the American taxpayer. What I fear is that an abuse of a program such as this will eventually cause a tremendous lack of confidence and will ruin the very thing we are trying to dothat is, give legitimate and badly needed services to the poor, that these will be eradicated altogether by virtue of abuse of the program. Where to draw the line to make that judgment as to where to end the services and the quality of the services, I cannot tell you, but I foresee some problems with that unlimited concept.

Mr. FORD. From where we sit, Mr. Mayor, the question is not how that kind of a guideline ought to be worded, but who ought to have that authority to make it.

Mayor LANDRIEU. Wholly and unequivocably, in my judgment, they know the area best, and I believe that it is there that the administrative remedies can best be achieved. I think that local boards, particularly those made up of a large percentage of lawyers, knowledgeable people, sociologists-that they understand our court situation, and they understand our docket problems, and I think they have to be flexible. If a local board appreciates a local situation, and understands and admits that everything in the world is being done they may recommend guidelines.

I, as mayor, would be satisfied to have local boards making determinations. If we ever came to loggerheads where we couldn't agree, then I think that both of us would have to have at one another as best we could, but I think there is a balance there that would bring the program into focus. I hasten to add that I am not saying we do everything right at city hall. We have many years of neglect to cure. There are many institutions which have not been as quick to change as I would like to see. There are many injustices that we have committed against the poor and against the black here in the city of New Orleans, I think for years and years, and I think we simply have got to cure them. I think we still have got many laws on the books that have to be repealed, but we are getting there. I merely say that to point out that every legal situation is going to be different, and I recommend that it be left in the hands of local boards.

Mr. FORD. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayer. We appreciate your appearing here, and we wish that we had more time to visit with you. and see your very beautiful city. It is my unhappiest experience to always hit and run when I come to New Orleans. I have never had a chance to really spend enough time here. Maybe it is a good thing. I would have to get a new wardrobe.

Mayor LANDRIEU. We are glad you enjoy yourself and glad you are coming back to something and not away from something?

Mr. FORD. We are going back to something in Washington. These days you never know what it might be.

Mayor LANDRIEU. Thank you, Mr. Congressman.

Mr. FORD. Mr. Kelly.

Mr. KELLY. Gentlemen, I yield to the gentleman on my left.

STATEMENT OF JOE MYER, DIRECTOR, LEGAL ASSISTANCE CORP., NEW ORLEANS, LA.

Mr. MYERS. Gentlemen, I am Joe Myer, director of the New Orleans Legal Assistance Corp., and I'm just going to say a few words. I don't want to say anything at length. Mr. Paul Miller from Kansas City, I thought expressed very well the problem that the director has, and it appears from his-I know Paul very well, and it appears that he has a very good opinion of his city. We are working toward a very good relationship in our city with our government-our local government and I think our program is probably a very progressive program, which means that sometimes its toes are stepped on. I would only make one comment, that in my view the Legal Services program represents an attitude. I have often half seriously thought of setting up a corporation called the "Poor, Inc.," so we could get across the idea that legal services, as the mayor indicated, is pretty much housecurrent for the poor. Somebody has to be there to take up the issues. General Motors attorneys do not wait until problems develop. They are being paid to identify problems. In judicare, you are not going to have that.

You are not going to have a man spotting problems, identifying problems for a corporate body. The poor are a corporate body. If I could get that across, I would be very much satisfied. I think this is the essential feeling of the legal services attorney, that he represents that corporate group of people called the poor, and that means he represents them as far as legislation, identifying good legislation, trying to draft legislation that is going to affect the clientele of the community that he feels he represents. That is why I am personally opposed to the restrictions in the bill H.R. 8163. I think it unnecessarily curtails the function of the legal services attorney, and an attorney, to be an attorney, has to represent his client fully, and he can only do that by being able to participate as an attorney in every aspect of that profession, and certainly representation before the legislature today is a very important function. That is all I have, gentlemen.

Mr. FORD. Thank you. We have your board and we may want to ask some questions of them.

STATEMENT OF TIMOTHY E. KELLY, PRESIDENT, DALLAS BAR ASSOCIATION, DALLAS, TEX.

Mr. KELLY. My name is Tim Kelly, and I am from Dallas, and I am president of the Dallas Bar Association, but I am not here representing the Dallas Bar Association. I am here representing myself.

I was one of the first to become involved in legal services in Dallas. I was one of the incorporators of the Dallas Legal Services Foundation. I served on the board. I was fortunate enough in 1968 to be selected the most outstanding attorney board member in the United States, and I have served as president of the board, and I feel somewhat acquainted with it. First, I have to disagree with some of the previous witnesses in that I think the ideal legal aid situation would be one in which any person who wants a lawyer can go to any lawyer he wants, and the fee, if the person couldn't afford the fee, would be paid by the Government. That is exactly the way it works in England, and I think it would be very effective here.

Unfortunately, because we have so many poor people here, it would be inordinately expensive, so we have to take the next best thing. I think that is what we have in our present legal structure, and that is what is being talked about here. The disadvantages to the legal services structure that we have today are potential rather than actual. And I say potential because, as you can see by the administration's bill, there are always going to be attempts made one way or another to sway the true lawyer-client relationship. This can be done in many situations, and it is done sometimes in subtle ways. For example, most of you are aware that under most automobile liability insurance policies, the attorney fee for the defendant is paid by the insurance company, and the right to settle the case is reserved exclusively by the insurance company. I have had situations, and I am sure they occur everywhere, that when the insurance claims adjuster is overloaded with claims and harassed by claims, he will take 20 to 30 files and go over to one lawyer and take half a day and sit down and settle those claims.

The trouble with that, I think, is obvious. The lawyer representing the plaintiff says, "You give me 100 more for this case, and I will take 100 less for that case." And the same thing can happen elsewhere if the legal services lawyer is harassed by a lot of suits, as this gentleman from Corpus Christi is, against a particular entity such as the housing authority, or something like that. The temptation is going to have to come somewhere along the line "Let me take 50 of these and go over and talk to the manager and see if we can settle them. Maybe he will give a little on this one and I will give a little on that one." The second flaw, and I consider it again a potential rather than actual, is that sometimes lawyers, being human, can become vindictive in the legal services projects.

The FBI can afford to be as vindictive as it wants. If it wants to take off against some authority, it can literally harass it to death. Those are potentials and not actuals, but the ideal situation would be one in which each person desiring legal assistance could get it and the Government would foot the bill. I'm leading up to one thing that I consider extremely important, and that is that I would feel very badly if legal services were to get into the criminal field.

The responsibility for representing the indigent accused of crimes rests with the bar association, and the bar association for years has been doing this, I guess, inadequately. Under our present form of law, however, lawyers can represent indigents in the criminal field. They are not adequately paid, but at least they are a lot better paid than they used to be. If legal services were to get involved in the criminal

field, I fear two things, just as I fear the potential in the civil field. That is, it is very easy, if you are inadequately financed, as most of these programs are, and overworked, to pick up a phone and say, "If I plead this guy 2 years, can I get this guy off for 2?" In other words, it is simple for the public attorney or defender to get in bed with the prosecution. The potential is just as dangerous the other way. What do you do? I don't like plea bargaining, but it is a thing that is with us, and we have got to take the practical side as well, so I wish that legal services would stay out of the criminal field. If they want to help out in the criminal field, in my opinion, the proper way to do it would be by some sort of grant so that the State courts can start paying lawyers sufficiently when they are appointed so that they will be willing to do and will do it with wholeheartedness.

Now, if I may make a few points about the two bills-the first item I have here is "Get out of the criminal field." Under section 903 (b), there are a number of legal organizations-five or six, including the American Bar and American College of Trial Lawyers that have elected officers who either start the program or become part of the board of directors. My only suggestion is that you slighted the defense bar. The American Trial Lawyers Association is exclusively plaintiff. May I suggest to you that you might consider a more conservative group as a representative also, such as the American College of Trial Lawyers. That is not a big organization, but you have slighted the defense bar.

There is another suggestion I would like to make from experience, and this involves section 906 (b) (6), which says that the majority of lawyers should be on local bars. I would like to make that a twothirds majority for this reason: If you subscribe to the proposition that lawyers should form a majority and should, in effect, control the programs and I use that in quotes to say just a majority of lawyers should be on the board is simply not facing up to practicalities, because as a practical matter, there are two things your lawyers are not going to all be able to attend, and if the meetings are being held in the proper place, most of the poverty counsel will attend. Therefore, because of lawyers who are out of town or on business, there will never be an effective majority.

Second, in my experience, you can't get a group of lawyers to vote unanimously on anything. Lawyers are bound to take one side or another. My experience has been that poverty counsel will vote as a group along one line, and unless there is a two-thirds majority of lawyers, you do not have control. I think it is important to a program like this that lawyers do have control.

The next item I have has been mentioned already by the mayor of New Orleans that is, if there is some way-and I don't know that there is if there is some way that you can read into this program or write into the program that there should be some consultation with somebody experienced and with a lot of know-how before suits are filed, you accomplish two objectives: First, oftentimes an inexperienced lawyer-and most of the legal aid lawyers are inexperiencedwill file a suit when there are better ways to handle the problem, and he just doesn't know about them.

Second, as president of the Dallas bar, I have a quaking sensation every time the phone rings for fear somebody is going to have—

(inaudible)—and I don't know anything about it, and I cannot defend them if I don't know anything about it. If I know something, if I know the reason for it, I can defend them, because I am in favor of filing lawsuits, or I would not be a lawyer.

Those are all the suggestions that I have on H.R. 6360.

As far as H.R. 8163 is concerned, I have two pages of objections to it. Some of them have already been mentioned, and some have not been mentioned. Very briefly, I object to the way in which the board of directors is to be appointed. I think that the previous bill H.R. 6360 does a much better job. I object to section 904(b) (3), which says that the corporation will represent collective interests before Federal agencies to identify and resolve issues before litigation. That sounds to me like some court is going to say they haven't done this and therefore haven't followed proper lines and ought to go back and do it. I resent that sort of thing, because again it is interference with the attorneyclient relationship.

Section 905(b) (3), which I don't understand, says "Can't afford money for public interest law firms, which do 75 percent of the litigation in the broad interest of the public or collective interests of the poor, or both"-I thought that was what the law was all about. Mr. FORD. That is to keep Nader's Raiders out.

Mr. KELLY. This next section, I don't quite understand. It indicates perhaps that the board could not override the President when he has made or refused a grant, and section 905 (f) says before you can make a grant you have got to notify the Governor and a few other officials. I don't understand what good that would do, except to try to get the Governor to stop it some way.

Now, again, let me say this: I think the important

Mr. MEEDS. That is what is known as the Reagan section.

Mr. KELLY. We've got a man named Smith in Texas who feels the same way.

Mr. STEIGER. It could be the Smith section or the Williams section. Mr. FORD. Don't leave George Wallace out now. I will throw in a Democrat for you.

Mr. KELLY. I believe in a good strong legal services system. I hate to see something like H.R. 8163 become law. I do feel the Legal Services program should be as independent as possible; and if a corporate setup is impossible, at least get some legislation that will separate Legal Services from the Office of Economic Opportunity so that it will be completely independent. I think the poor need it. I think that in Dallas Legal Services has done a tremendous job. We have had a lot of conflicts, but our differences have been settled in the lawsuits and in the courts, and they haven't been settled on the street, so we are all for it.

Mr. FORD. I want to thank you very much for coming down here to give us this-it is "down" from Dallas

Mr. KELLY. Yes.

Mr. FORD. —to give us the benefit of your testimony. It is especially valuable; and I might say with regard to the last two points that you made, that we have a bit of a dilemma. The last bill you were addressing yourself to, we refer to as the administration bill, and it has been, on the Senate side, assigned to the Judiciary Committee, while .