Legal Aid Classic Raises $20K

A Montgomery Bar Association fundraiser for the regional legal aid organization raised $20,000, including the bar association’s matching donation of $10,000 raised in the July 8 Legal Aid Classic.

Last year’s Legal Aid Classic raised $17,000, according to Jim Mathias, the bar association’s director of marketing, communications and public affairs.

Legal Aid of Southeastern Pennsylvania, which provides pro bono civil legal services to low-income residents of Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties, has a $460,000 cut in its budget this year because of the drop in grants derived from interest earned from attorney trust accounts. The shortfall makes up 11 percent of Legal Aid’s $4.5 million budget.

The Montgomery County portion of Legal Aid of Southeastern PA will lose close to $120,000 in IOLTA funding.

– Amaris Elliott-Engel, Staff Reporter

Gillison Speaks of Progress for Prison System

During a presentation to the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section last week, Philadelphia Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Everett Gillison said the city’s prison system wouldn’t dominate Mayor Michael Nutter’s criminal justice policy-making. But Gillison said that the administration aims to provide leadership for criminal justice stakeholders to evolve from bureaucratic infighting over systemic problems like prison overcrowding to tackling the problems head-on.

Gillison has written bylaws for a Criminal Justice Advisory Board, which is a model used to get criminal justice stakeholders into the same room in other Pennsylvania counties under the behest of the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, Gillison said.

“I think this is an exciting time. We are going to be able to go forward,” Gillison said.

Gillison said he has been talking to the First Judicial District and District Attorney Lynne Abraham about what criteria could be instituted to divert some inmates out of the city prison system more quickly and ease up on overcrowding.

Gillison noted that of the estimated 9,300 inmates, 60 percent are in jail on a pretrial basis.

Gillison also said that the executive branch has some leverage in its goals because of its budgetary power over the courts, since the state is not funding most court functions despite Pennsylvania Supreme Court decisions ruling otherwise.

For those inmates re-entering society after serving a local or a state prison term, Gillison said retooling the Mayor’s Office on Re-entry is important. The best anti-recidivism program for an ex-offender is a job, he said.

Programs that help people get out of jail on a diversionary basis need increased funding, he said. Gillison promised to track what programs work and close out programs that aren’t working.

Gillison hopes to roll out an initial global position system inmate-monitoring project by September.

He also said Philadelphia needs a waiver for former inmates convicted of nonviolent crimes to get welfare and other government support services.

He said the backlog of 38,000 outstanding misdemeanor warrants can be tackled with programs like the peaceful surrender program in which clergy will encourage members of their ministry wanted on charges to turn themselves in.

The mayor has also expressed a desire to have three more community courts instituted by the end of his first term, Gillison said.

Gillison said that the roll-out of 205 surveillance cameras by the end of the year – an initiative first started by the Mayor John Street administration — has been slowed in order to institute data collection from those cameras and figure out the best way to preserve camera footage for at least 30 days to be available to both prosecutors and defense counsel in criminal cases.

Gillison noted that there is a federal lawsuit pending regarding the fees paid by the Philadelphia government to private counsel taking court-appointed criminal cases. Gillison said that he couldn’t comment deeply on the matter because of the pending litigation, but he said that Troy Wilson, chair of the criminal justice section, has provided background information to him and that Nutter has instructed him to take a look at the issue.

Gillison, a former public defender, also said he is examining funding parity between the Public Defender and the District Attorney in Philadelphia.

Wilson said in an interview that he takes Gillison at his word that the administration wants to resolve the issue, despite the pending civil lawsuit.

“I think he and the mayor understand the importance and the necessity of quality of court-appointed counsel,” Wilson said.

- Amaris Elliott-Engel, Staff Reporter

 

First Women in the Profession Summit Kicks Off This Week

The first-ever Women in the Profession Summit in Philadelphia will be held this week under the aegis of the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Women in the Profession Committee.

The event will offer both substantive and ethics continuing legal education credits and the chance for women in the legal profession to erase the feeling that they’re isolated, said Maria A. Feeley, a partner with Pepper Hamilton and co-chair of the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Women in the Profession Committee.

The event starts at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday and continues through lunch, the keynote by Charisse Lillie, vice president of human resources for Comcast Corporation and senior vice president of human resources for Comcast Cable, and includes four CLEs and a cocktail reception. The event is at the PBI CLE Conference Center in the Wanamaker Building.

Feeley, now her second-year as a committee co-chair, said she hopes the summit will chip away at the isolation she hears from women in the profession because they will see “there are many people, including leaders in the profession, that understand their situation” and are working to bridge the gap between men and women obtaining leadership roles in the legal world.

Lilly was chosen as the keynote, Feeley said, because “she’s inspiring in the levels of success she’s obtained, and if you survey the biggest companies in the country and the ones that have a big Philadelphia presence and you look at the leadership positions … there aren’t a lot of women in those positions.”

The CLE panels address the best practices for retaining and promoting women attorneys in the corporate counsel realm, the best practices for retaining and promoting women attorneys in the law firm realm and hot topics for women.

The “Women in the Courtroom – Communication Across the Gender Gap” was designed to appeal to both men and women, Feeley said.

The panel includes Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Marlene Lachman, Philadelphia Common Pleas President Judge Frederica A. Massiah-Jackson, U.S. District Judge Norma L. Shapiro, U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Dolores K. Sloviter, U.S. District Judge Petrese B. Tucker and Diane M. Welsh, a mediator with JAMS-The Resolution Experts and a retired judge.

“We thought that having judges talk about communication styles of men and women, what they have seen as effective, including inside and outside the courtroom … that people could learn a lot from these judges,” Feeley said.

 – Amaris Elliott-Engel, Staff Reporter

 

Supreme Court Accepts Lawyer’s Resignation From Pa. Bar

A criminal defense lawyer sentenced 25 to 50 years in prison for sex crimes with minors, including an estimated five incidents in the Criminal Justice Center, has voluntarily resigned from the Pennsylvania state bar.

Larry Charles’ Feb. 28 resignation from the bar was accepted by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Thursday.  Charles had agreed to an emergency suspension of his legal license after his arrest in January 2007 by sheriff’s deputies who discovered him with naked and with a 14-year-old girl in the CJC.

Charles was sentenced Dec. 20 by an out-of-county judge, Berks Common Pleas Senior Judge Albert A. Stallone, for sex crimes between 1999 and 2007 related to six girls authorities said Charles raped, molested or groped.

Charles, 50, is currently being held at State Correctional Institution Camp Hill in Cumberland County, the state’s diagnostic and classification center for men.

Charles pleaded no contest before Stallone to crimes including rape, indecent assault and corruption of minors.

Stallone sentenced Charles for consecutive sentences for the crimes related to each of the girls, including seven to 14 years for raping a 5-year-old girl.

Authorities said Charles sexually abused the girls in both of his offices in Center City and Southwest Philadelphia, in the deposit rooms of banks, in the Criminal Justice Center and in motels.

The criminal case against Charles broke open when sheriff’s deputies found him with a 14-year-old girl after engaging with sexual contact with her in a third-floor attorneys’ lounge at the CJC on Martin Luther King Day 2007.

Charles was ruled to a sexually violent predator and pedophile strongly attracted to both pre-pubescent and post-pubescent children during a Megan’s Law hearing held before his sentencing.

 – Amaris Elliott-Engel, staff reporter

PBA Backs Rate Increase for Defense Attorneys

A group of Philadelphia criminal defense attorneys for the indigent suing the city to increase their rates have gained the support of the Philadelphia Bar Association in their effort.

During the Board of Governors meeting held in April, the board endorsed increasing court appointed counsel fees because the fees remain “oppressively low,” according to the resolution.

The resolution authorized a special committee to study the issue of court appointed counsel fees and authorized Chancellor Mike Pratt to work on the issue with the committee and the bar association sections affected by the issue.

Troy H. Wilson, of Wilson & Wilson and chair of the bar association’s criminal justice section, said the unanimous passage of the resolution “made me feel good. The whole bar association understands the intricate nature” of the issue.

A group of defense attorneys who represent court-appointed clients too poor to afford their own attorneys have filed a federal lawsuit in Eastern District Court challenging the constitutionality of the fee regime as inadequate to prepare fair defenses of their clients.

Wilson hopes for a “quick and expeditious” resolution of the matter with the city. Addressing court appointed counsel fees is one of Wilson’s key goals for the criminal justice section this year.

He expects to meet with Mayor Michael Nutter in the next few weeks. “The mayor wants to address this issue, which is good to hear,” Wilson said.

Leaving the matter unaddressed can cost the city more in the long run, Wilson said, because attorneys unable to handle criminal defenses without adequate resources require the city to defend Post Conviction Relief Act matters further down the line.

The lawsuit in Stretton v. Jones contends that fees do not allow adequate representation of indigent clients because the reimbursement rates for experts are so low and because the reimbursement rates for the attorneys themselves don’t cover law practice overhead.

The lawsuit complaint also contends that the payment regime violates indigent defendants’ constitutional rights and counsel’s ethical obligations under the Rules of Professional Conduct.
The current court-appointed system pays:

• A $2,000 preparation fee for homicide, including capital, cases, as well as $400 per day for each day of trial after the first half-day.
• A $650 preparation fee for other felony cases, as well as $350 per day for each day of trial after the first half-day.
• A $350 flat rate for misdemeanor cases.
• $50 per hour in court and $40 per hour out of court for non-homicide appeals.
• $60 per hour in court and $50 per hour out of court for homicide, including capital, cases.
•  A $400 fee for felony juvenile cases and a $300 fee for non-felony juvenile cases.

The named plaintiffs in the lawsuit include attorneys Samuel C. Stretton, Mingo Stroeber, Leanne Litwin and Bruce Wolf, as well as five of Stretton’s court-appointed clients. Stretton is litigating the case.

– Amaris Elliott-Engel, Staff Reporter

Civil Gideon Movement Looks to Expand Right to Publicly Provided Legal Counsel

The Supreme Court’s 1963 decision in Gideon v. Wainwright guaranteeing low-income citizens the right to publicly funded defense lawyers in criminal cases had a momentous day in Philadelphia last week

On the same day, a group of private attorneys who take court-appointed cases representing indigent criminal defendants filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Philadelphia and its court system, claiming that the low rates of compensation for attorneys and other experts violate their clients’ constitutional rights. And the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Public Interest section and a similar group from the Pennsylvania Bar Association concluded a year’s worth of work by holding a plenary meeting about expanding the right for the indigents to have lawyers in civil cases.

The planning for the “Civil Gideon: A Right to Counsel in Civil Cases” gathering Thursday was kick-started following the American Bar Association’s passage of a resolution to expand the right for publicly-provided legal counsel in civil cases where low-income people’s basic needs would be adversely affected without having counsel.

Both the state and city bar associations passed similar resolutions to the ABA’s resolution. Karen L. Forman, pro bono counsel at Saul Ewing, and Marsha Levick, legal director at the Juvenile Law Center, have been chairing the 15-strong Philadelphia Bar Association group. Dveera Segal, an associate professor of law at Villanova Law School, chaired the 19-member Pennsylvania Bar Association task force.

“There’s a huge pro se population in our courts,” Forman said. “And it reaches epidemic proportions.”

Debra Gardner, legal director of the Public Justice Center in Baltimore and coordinator of the National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel, said the Civil Gideon movement started on a national level in 2003. In Maryland, the Civil Gideon movement started in 2000 with a project to seek the expansion through litigation of the indigent right to counsel on a broad basis in civil cases.

The movement is pursuing state-level efforts because of the conservative state of the U.S. Supreme Court and because of a lack of current desire to revisit a U.S. Supreme Court precedential decision with the current crop of justices, Gardner said. In the 1981 Lassiter v. Department of Social Services, the court ruled there is no 14th Amendment due process right in cases where the state seeks to terminate parental rights (the Supreme Court did hold a state court may appoint counsel), Gardner said.

“We’re urging people to think about what they can do in their states,” Gardner said. “I don’t think there’s a soul on this planet who thinks it would be wise to ask the current U.S. Supreme Court about civil rights to counsel.”

But given that the court has revisited issues about the legality of criminalizing sodomy and the execution of juveniles, Gardner thinks there will be a time to revisit Lassiter.

“We must have as the law of the land the rights to civil counsel in basic human needs cases,” Gardner said.

In the first test case of this effort in Maryland, Frase v. Barnhart, the court did not reach the issue of the right to counsel. But three judges in a concurrence said that they would recognize a constitutional right to counsel in some cases.

Gardner said her partners and she are looking for another “sympathetic contested custody case” where the court would have to address their constitutional civil Gideon arguments.

In other jurisdictions, Civil Gideon proponents will have to decide if they should start with an effort to enact legislation or if a court battle is the best tack, Gardner said.

In Maryland, the Civil Gideon’s legal arguments include:

* The Maryland Declaration of Rights is different from the federal constitution and has open courts and equal access provisions; the inability to afford counsel violates the right to access the courts.

* Under separation of powers, the judiciary is required to make sure the legal system of adversary justice works and that the indigent have access to counsel.

* That the Magna Carta and English common laws, which include the right to counsel for indigent civil plaintiffs with meritorious causes of action, apply to Marylanders because the constitutions’ framers intended that all English laws that existed on July 4, 1776, applied to Marylanders.

* The Maryland Declaration of Rights has a due process clause like the federal constitution, but that Maryland should reject the Lassiter decision.

Laura Abel, deputy director of the justice program at the New York legal think tank Brennan Center for Justice, said that an effort to expand the right to counsel in civil cases in New York started with the goal of finding “low-hanging fruit.” The goal, she said, was to find an area of law that wasn’t too controversial and in which a civil right to counsel could be established as a foundation for future efforts in other areas of law.

The New York low-hanging fruit: a bill has been introduced in the New York City Council to provide counsel for low-income, elderly New York City residents during eviction proceedings and foreclosure proceedings, Abel said.

Abel also noted that states have an uneven guarantee of counsel in civil cases, often limited to narrow situations (New York has a right to counsel in unemployment benefits case when the employer is appealing a decision in favor of the claimant.).

Pennsylvania already guarantees representation in some civil law situations, including counsel for people facing involuntary mental health commitments and counsel for children during involuntary termination proceedings of parental rights when one or both of the parents contest the proceedings.

But in housing matters and in child custody, Pennsylvania low-income citizens don’t have the right to lawyers and they can lose their rights if they are in a court case being litigated with a lawyer on the other side, Forman said.

State Rep. Kathy M. Manderino, D-Philadelphia, said that she hoped her remarks weren’t taken as a slam to the positive energy generated to the meeting. But she pointed out that any Civil Gideon effort in Pennsylvania must choose its tactics and targets carefully. A litigation approach might fail because prior court decisions ordering state funding for the court system have been ignored. “You can see where that got us,” Manderino said. “The Legislature basically ignores what the court says.”

– Amaris Elliott-Engel, Staff Reporter

PBA Closer to Directly Electing Leadership

The Philadelphia Bar Association moved one step closer to directly electing all of its leadership after the Board of Governors accepted a bylaw amendment during its meeting Thursday that will eliminate the nominating committee in favor of a completely member-and voter-directed process.

The proposed amendment must now be publicized and put to a vote by the membership during the next quarterly meeting. The quarterly meeting will likely be held in June, but an exact date and time have not yet been determined.

The new system will be in place by this year’s annual meeting for the selection of the next vice chancellor and other bar leaders if the membership approves the proposal.

The amendment to kill off the nominating committee was adopted out of the commonplace critique that an official body giving approval to some, but not all, leadership candidates discouraged some good-quality potential leaders from pursuing bar association leadership posts.

A. Michael Pratt, current chancellor of the bar association, created a nominating committee task force at the beginning of the year to evaluate the efficacy of the nominating committee. The task force, chaired by Bruce A. Franzel of Oxenburg & Franzel, recommended the elimination of the nominating committee and the creation of an elections committee.

Meanwhile, the current system will stay in place until the membership either approves or disapproves the system. The current setup allows the endorsement of one or more nominees for vice chancellor, secretary, treasurer, assistant secretary and assistant treasurer as well as three nominees for membership on the Board of Governors by a committee made up of the chancellor, chancellor-elect, vice chancellor, the two immediate past chancellors, three members of the Board of Governors picked by the board, one person designated by each section or division from among its executive committee members and four chairs of standing committees picked from four groupings of committees.

Stephanie Resnick, chair of the Board of Governors, said during Thursday’s meeting that the until the system is changed, the nominating committee needed to be formed by the end of this month and the Board of Governors still needed to select its trio of nominators.

The Board of Governors selected board members Karen L. Detamore, Jeffrey S. Gross and Jacqueline S. Segal.

Under the proposed system, the elections committee would be chaired by the immediate past chancellor and made up of 10 others appointed by the current chancellor and approved by the board. The elections committee would hold candidate forums during which candidates would present their qualifications and their interest in the positions they’re running for. The candidate forums also would be available via podcast on the association’s Web site.

Candidates for a board membership post would be required to collect 25 signatures and submit their nominating petitions to the secretary of the association. Thirty-five signatures would be required for line officers, and 100 signatures would be required for the vice chancellor.

– Amaris Elliott-Engel, Staff Reporter

Rendell Sounds Off on Merit Selection, Pa. Primary, etc.

Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell told a sold-out crowd of young lawyers mingling in the lounge setting of G that the fresh push for the appointment of appellate judges is needed because the state’s elected system of judges is a terrible system for diversity.

“Look at Darnell Jones,” Rendell said, referring to Philadelphia Common Pleas President Judge C. Darnell Jones II’s unsuccessful shot last year at the state Supreme Court during the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Young Lawyers Division annual meeting Tuesday at the bar and mingling space below Davio’s on S. 17th Street.

An appointed system is also needed, Rendell said, because judicial candidates shouldn’t have to raise money from lawyers or potential litigants like the Chamber of Commerce or the AFL-CIO. Legislation was introduced this week in the General Assembly to abolish the election of appellate judges in favor of nominations by a citizen commission, appointments by the governor and confirmations by the Senate.

Rendell said that the merit selection proposal might not get far in Harrisburg’s political climes. But this proposal has one political survival skill: it’s key that voter enfranchisement would not being taken away regarding common pleas and other local judges because in the commonwealth’s rural counties — unlike in Philadelphia — candidates for that level of judge are well-known to voters and voters are invested in selecting judges, Rendell said.

Rendell took questions from the audience in lieu of giving a speech as the keynote speaker.

In response to one presidential race question, Rendell, an outspoken backer of U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential nominee race, said that Clinton would win the Pennsylvania primary, but the “only question is what the margin will be.”

He said he believes U.S.  Sen. Barack Obama, Clinton’s opponent, will be damaged if Clinton wins Pennsylvania by 14-17 points, but won’t be too damaged if Clinton only wins by 10 points or less.

He said that no matter who wins the Democratic Party nominee contest, that after three debates with Republican presidential nominee U.S. Sen. John McCain, “Senator Obama is going to be president or Senator Clinton is going to be president.”

Once Rendell leaves the governor’s mansion, he said in one answer, he would increase his teaching load, do foundation work, join a law firm as of counsel to advise clients on whom to go see in the government for their particular issues and write a book.

He said he thought he might title the book: “Life in Politics: You Can’t Make This Shit Up.”

Tuesday night’s event sold-out with 250 tickets, event organizers said.

Scott P. Sigman, an associate at Bochetto & Lentz, received the leadership gavel from outgoing chair Alan Nochumson. Sigman said his goals for the YLD this year echoes Mayor Michael Nutter’s goals of improving the city’s crime rates and public education system.

Earlier in the meeting, the YLD gave out three awards.

DaQuana L. Carter, an associate at Pepper Hamilton, received the Craig M. Perry Service Award, which is given to a young lawyer who has devoted substantial time and energy to community-oriented activities. Carter, the president-elect for the Barristers’ Association of Philadelphia and a graduate of Villanova University, mentors a Villanova minority law school student each year, serves as secretary of the Villanova Alumni Minority Society Board and is an active member of her firm’s pro bono committee.

Maria A. Feeley, a partner at Pepper Hamilton, received the F. Sean Peretta Service Award, which is given to a member of the legal community for exceptional community service. Last year, Feeley co-chaired the Women in the Profession committee of the bar association, which established a new call to action and best practices to increase the retention and promotion of women in the legal field. Feeley is a new member of the Board of Governors.

Law firm Dechert received the YLD Vision Award, which is given to an organization that has provided support to the YLD in fulfillment of its mission. Dechert sponsored the YLD holiday party in 2006 and 2007.

 – Amaris Elliott-Engel, staff reporter 

Alva Wants to Represent Small Firms as Bar Leader

When Daniel-Paul “Danny” Alva’s wife received a clean bill of health from her lymphoma cancer last year, Alva began gearing up for a bid to become the Philadelphia Bar Association’s chancellor in 2011, chancellor-elect in 2010 and vice-chancellor in 2009.

The interest of Alva, a trial lawyer specializing in blue collar and white collar criminal law at three-member firm Alva & Azzarano, in becoming the bar’s leader will make this year’s race a contested one. Rudy Garcia, a shareholder at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, has already declared his candidacy.

Alva argues that his background of working in small firms would provide an important change in leadership at the bar association. Small firms, which make up one-third of Philadelphia’s legal community, have never been represented at the bar association’s top, Alva said. He said that small firms are “a silent majority” which often don’t vote for chancellor and don’t think the trade association has much to offer them. Alva wants to change that by running as the small-firm chancellor candidate.

“There are some goals and programs that hopefully every chancellor wants to continue with,” Alva said. “What’s really important is the perspective you bring to those goals. I’m the first small-firm candidate who hopes to become chancellor.”

The bar association can help attorneys with the business end of their practices, Alva said. Alva learned from his own experience about the benefits of the association. When his malpractice insurance was canceled, the bar association was able to go to bat for him, and Alva’s insurer came back to him with a cheaper rate.

“I’ve got to mobilize the one-third, to use an unfortunate analogy, the silent majority,” Alva said. “There’s lots of people who never voted before. It’s my job to convince them. It’s important as a trade association. With everything we do, we have a lot to offer our members that they don’t partake of.”

Alva, echoing a call by current Chancellor A. Michael Pratt to hire a Philadelphia city lobbyist, also believes that a permanent liaison should be sent up between the bar association and the city government.

The functioning of this “city, for all intents and purposes, as a manufacturing center is gone. Like most big cities we deal with services, and attorneys in this city form an essential part of the service sector,” Alva said. “All of the tax amendments [Mayor Nutter] wants to put through will contribute to it, hopefully not only to attorneys, but to other people in this city. We want to ensure that climate continues.”

Alva, like many other past chancellor candidates, has been active in the bar association for many years. In 16 years, Alva chaired the association’s Board of Governors in 2006, represented the criminal justice section on the board after chairing the section, served on the Commission on Judicial Selection and Retention, and is currently serving on Pratt’s taskforce on judicial selection reform, among other activities.

Alva said that he has a dynamic, outspoken reputation, but he understands that if elected to become chancellor that he will need to be the tempered voice of the bar association, rather than the aggressive advocate. Alva said he has already taken on an even-tempered leadership role with the bar association, despite his personality, when he was chair of the Board of Governors.

- Amaris Elliott-Engel, Staff Reporter

Garcia Running for Chancellor

Rudy Garcia, a shareholder at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, is throwing his hat in the ring for this year’s election for chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association in 2011, chancellor-elect in 2010 and vice-chancellor in 2009.

Garcia has been active in the bar association for several years, including serving three terms on the Board of Governors. Garcia is co-chair of the Charter & Bylaws committee this year.

“I can do this effectively. I feel like I have the responsibility to do it. The association has been good to me for a long time,” Garcia said in an interview Wednesday.

Garcia said his active involvement in the bar association, including serving as a bar association delegate to the America Bar Association House of Delegates, prepares him to lead the association on judicial independence, legal profession issues like the “unfair taxation of lawyers” and promoting the public good.

Garcia, who practices in complex business litigation, said he wouldn’t take the trade association advocacy role of the bar association lightly. “Somebody needs to speak up for the lawyers. That’s one of the important roles of the bar association,” Garcia said.

– Amaris Elliott-Engel, Staff Reporter