Taking It to the Rurals
by Hon. Stephen J. Dahl

The Nevada Supreme Court Access to Justice Commission has been up and running for a few years now. See SCR 15. So far, much of the work of the Commission has been behind the scenes, as we have worked to get all the necessary parties to the table and working together. As an original member of the Commission, I can tell you that great strides have been made in overcoming differences between various regions and agencies within the state, and in getting everyone working together towards a common goal. It has not always been painless, and can still be interesting on occasion, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. The Commission is working on taking the best from many ideas and approaches from people dedicated to the goal of improving the delivery of legal services to the less fortunate throughout Nevada, and developing a plan that will help to provide more and better legal services to those in need, no matter where they live in the state.

Recently, the efforts of the Commission have become more public. Justice Hardesty and others have worked to increase the interest rates paid on IOLTA accounts. Hopefully, this will greatly increase the funds available for legal services and related needs. Justice Douglas has been leading the effort to develop plans for improving the delivery of legal services throughout the state. The preface to that effort was the legal needs assessment commissioned by Access to Justice which, unfortunately, confirmed some of our worst fears. I will not go into detail regarding the results of that assessment, as those results will be more formally released in the near future, but I will quote the headline from a recent newspaper article which discussed preliminary results from the assessment: “Nevada Fails to Provide Equal Access to Justice.” While that sounds a little grim, I am confident that things will be improving in the coming months and years.

My particular assignment with the Commission is to work on improving the delivery of legal services to the rural areas of the state. Currently, we are circulating a fairly lengthy questionnaire to the rural limited jurisdiction courts which should help us better understand the resources currently available in those courts, and what needs to be done to make those courts more accessible to legal service providers and pro bono attorneys.

Providing legal services to the rural courts presents some interesting challenges. We have justice courts that are located more than 100 miles from the county seat, and, therefore are vital to the people living in those areas. Many of those courts serve small populations spread out over large areas. For example, we have two counties in the state with fewer than 1,500 people. One of those counties, Eureka County has two townships, one with the great name of Beowawe. Those two townships have populations of approximately 1,000 and 500 people respectively. However, Eureka County covers 4,176 square miles. Nye County, which has three townships serving around 41,000 people, covers 18,185 square miles. If you take out the population of Pahrump, that leaves a little over 7,000 people in the rest of the county. Clark County has three townships with populations under 2,000. Unfortunately, due to budget constraints and other reasons, some of the rural townships have been eliminated over the past few years, putting the citizens in those townships even farther away from access to the courts.

The challenge we must face, and attempt to deal with, is that the people in these sparsely-populated areas often have the same legal concerns and the same needs for legal assistance as the people in Clark and Washoe Counties. Unfortunately, we don’t have attorneys in those areas to provide such assistance, and, frankly, we probably never will. Therefore, we are trying to come up with some creative and technology-based solutions to providing legal services in those areas. We will be working with ideas such as video phones and video and teleconferencing. We will be working with the rural courts to encourage coordination of court schedules, and creating opportunities for appearance by fax or telephone by legal services and pro bono attorneys. We will be trying to increase computer access in the rural courts to increase the availability of forms and help sites to litigants. Some of these solutions may seem obvious to you, but it becomes a little more difficult when we have some “courthouses” in the state that consist of a mobile home with a small office, a courtroom consisting of an old table and a few chairs, and not much else. I’ve started receiving responses to the questionnaires I mentioned earlier in this article. Here are a few answers from one of them:

What is the approximate mileage from your court to the farthest point away in your jurisdiction? 75 miles. (There is a small community located at that point 75 miles away from the court.) Does your court have a website? No. (That also means no automated forms and no e-filing.) Does your court have an Internet connection? No. Have you ever had an attorney from a legal services provider appear in your court? Yes, once. (That particular judge has been sitting for many years.)

I know what you are thinking. “This is awful. We have to do something about this. HOW CAN I HELP?” The best way that you can help is to volunteer to do pro bono work wherever you are. If legal services are going to be provided to the rural areas, it is going to have to be with the assistance of the legal services providers in the urban areas of the state. That means we need more pro bono volunteers in those areas, so that we can free up some time for the legal services attorneys residing there to help people or at least direct the efforts of others. As we move this project along, you might also consider volunteering for such things as video phone Ask A Lawyer programs, or taking cases in the rural areas that can be handled through video conferencing. We will be trying to expand the ways legal services are delivered in the rural areas, and we will need lots of help. In the meantime, please help by making sure that your IOLTA accounts are with a bank paying a higher interest rate, so that there will be more funds available to take legal services to all parts of Nevada.

Judge Stephen Dahl has served as a justice of the peace in the North Las Vegas Township since 1995. Judge Dahl is a former president of the Clark County Bar Association and the immediate past president of the Clark County Law Foundation.

Reflections on Progress, Hope for the Future
by Kristina Marzec 

“Equal justice under law is not merely a caption on the facade of the Supreme Court building, it is perhaps the most inspiring ideal of our society. It is one of the ends for which our entire legal system exists. . .it is fundamental that justice should be the same, in substance and availability, without regard to economic status.”
-Lewis Powell, Jr., U.S. Supreme Court Justice

In these difficult days, there is a greater demand than perhaps ever before in our lifetimes for civil legal aid services. The holiday season of hope, giving, and community spirit provides the perfect backdrop to review the efforts of the Access to Justice Commission in 2008 and look forward to 2009.

The two core initiatives of 2008 were the finalization of the Civil Legal Needs Assessment and the IOLTA initiative. The first serves to document and critically analyze the continuum of care in our state and frame policy and solutions looking forward, and the second, to take the first steps in increasing badly-needed funding for that continuum of care.

2008 Civil Legal Needs Assessment
The sobering statistic culled from the needs assessment showed that if everyone who had a civil legal need that qualified under federal income guidelines was matched with a legal aid attorney, the average case load would be 4,526 cases per lawyer. The Civil Legal Needs Assessment was finalized by the Commission on October 23, 2008, and is available on the State Bar of Nevada website at www.nvbar.org on the Access to Justice Commission page. If you have any question in your mind that resources are desperately needed, the Assessment will erase any doubts.

Some well-intentioned folks have asked me over the year, aren’t there very capable organizations in Nevada that provide those services? The answer is absolutely—with human and financial resources to assist only 20 percent of those in need.

These organizations would love to have your time to supplement their efforts. There are many ways to provide pro bono assistance in the continuum of care, from taking a case to doing a clinic to sitting in for an Ask A Lawyer program. But if work can’t wait, donate. No donation is too small. Our legal aid providers are extremely proficient at utilizing those funds. The Assessment showed the combined legal aid services providers in Nevada assisted over 30,000 individuals with civil representation. Of those, over half had more than one legal issue. This statistic does not include the thousands of people who are helped with less than full representation, such as clinic classes, brief services and information programs, and self-help resources.

The needs assessment provided data to support what those with boots on the ground know to be true. Domestic violence continues to keep Nevada in the top percentages around the country for violent crimes against women. Once people have one problem that goes unresolved, it frequently unravels a family as that problem leads to many. Of the 207 persons that identified a housing problem, 74 percent of this group also reported financial problems, 50 percent reported a domestic problem, and 46 percent reported a benefit problem.

IOLTA
As you have been reading and hearing about all year (hopefully), the Access to Justice Commission spearheaded an energetic negotiating campaign with Nevada’s banks to raise IOLTA interest in Nevada. Those moneys are a major source of funding for legal aid programs, and an interest rate increase is a relatively easy way to raise funding without impacting our practicing lawyers. It’s all about where you put your trust account.

The Access to Justice Commission has established a benchmark of a two percent APY for this program, committed for one year with no associated fees. In the alternative, there are a few index-based formulas the Commission has approved tied to the LIBOR and the Fed Fund Target Rate. When you take average interest rates in the past year hovering at less than one percent , and in our big three banks holding 70 percent of IOLTA going as low as .001 percent, you can do the math and start to see the impact. Unfortunately, in this economy, this may only make us hopeful that we might break even. Not all banks are on board, and we continue to push forward.

Special thanks are extended to each of the leadership teams of these fine banking institutions for responding to the Commission’s efforts to raise IOLTA interest. The Commission encourages all attorneys who hold IOLTA funds to investigate the interest rate paid on their trust accounts and consider the opportunities presented by these fine banks. Additional information on the campaign can be found on the State Bar’s website.

Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program
Some good news for 2009—the FDIC granted IOLTA coverage under its Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program. This is part of the FDIC’s emergency measures, which offers coverage with no deposit limits on certain accounts, now including IOLTA, through December 2009. The bank does have to opt in and pay a fee for this insurance, so be sure to discuss with your banker if you have any questions about this coverage.

Hope for the future
In 2009, the Commission’s core focus will be on rural service delivery and technology in the courts, marketing and fundraising using the plethora of information provided in the legal needs assessment, and continued vigilant efforts to raise IOLTA interest and encourage lawyers to put trust moneys in preferred interest banks.

As lawyers and legal professionals, we know firsthand the value of legal services and how that help can transform and save lives. By donating a day or a dollar, you may help your secretary keep her child, protect a colleague from domestic violence, keep your elderly neighbor from losing savings to fraud, or save a fellow church member from losing his home. The faces in need are familiar, and we can help.

Kristina Marzec is the Director of the Access to Justice Commission. If you are interested in more information about any Access to Justice Commission initiatives, Kristina may be reached at the State Bar of Nevada. This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it (702) 317-1404.