Wells Boosts Legal Corps
Just three days after the inauguration of President Barack Obama, ABA President H. Thomas Wells Jr. was meeting with new White House Counsel Greg Craig about some of the association’s key policy initiatives.
The economic crisis had already almost completely overtaken Wells’ term as president, so he was ready to suggest a way that lawyers could be of help: creation of a 1,000-lawyer Legal Corps to represent the needs of those without the means to hire private counsel.
The results of the meeting were promising, Wells said in an interview with the ABA Journal during a break in activity at the 2009 ABA Midyear Meeting in Boston.
“It’s fair to say we did not get any negative signals—not that they said they would support everything we’re calling for,” said Wells, a partner at Maynard Cooper & Gale in Birmingham, Ala.
“It’s a rare ABA president who doesn’t face an issue in their term that they didn’t anticipate,” he said. Clearly for Wells, that unanticipated issue has been the nation’s economic crisis and the ripple effect throughout the legal profession.
Wells, however, is optimistic that the Obama administration will be receptive to the ABA’s initiatives, especially the ones that address economic concerns in the legal profession and those segments of the population being battered by the economic slide.
“We have a lawyer in the White House—actually two,” said Wells, referring to Michelle Obama, who with her husband is a Harvard Law School graduate, “and a lawyer as vice president. So we have a different level of understanding about the issues.”
FACING FORECLOSURES
Legal Corps would direct more lawyers into efforts to represent a broad segment of working people in matters arising out of the economic crisis, such as foreclosures. Legal Corps lawyers would bolster services already being provided by lawyers in local offices supported by federal funding channeled through the Legal Services Corp. and lawyers working pro bono.
Wells cited statistics indicating that a homeowner represented by a lawyer is 50 percent more likely to keep his or her property rather than lose it to foreclosure.
The ABA’s initial proposal calls for federal funding to help support some 1,000 salaried lawyers providing services to clients meeting certain economic need criteria.
According to Wells, administration officials were “interested but noncommittal.” The ABA will continue to push for Legal Corps with the administration and on Capitol Hill, Wells told the Journal.
Wells, whose term will end at the ABA Annual Meeting in Chicago this August, also expressed concern that the economic crisis may make it more difficult to achieve salary adjustments for federal judges, which the association has lobbied hard for, and to maintain state and local courts at necessary levels.
“Trying to make a case for adequate funding for the third branch of government is particularly hard in these tough economic times,” said Wells.
Wells said the ABA is bolstering efforts to assist lawyers who have been affected by the economic downturn. One of those steps has been to create a “recession survival kit” or lawyer’s resource center that is available to members on the ABA website.
Nevertheless, Wells acknowledged that the current economic challenges are daunting. “One of the things we have the least control over,” he said, “is the economy.”
