News Articles

The Double Bottom Line

L Magazine, An American Lawyer Media Publication, January 2001, by Seth Oltman

If they're really going to help underserved communities, solos and small-firm lawyers know they also need to help themselves-by keeping their practices economically viable. Three law schools now offer alums help in fulfilling both objectives.

Judith Flamenbaum, a 1995 graduate of the City University of New York School of Law, was invited back to campus a couple of years ago to speak to the Family Law Practice Group of the school's Community Legal Resource Network. And Flamenbaum, who represents employed women who are victims of domestic violence, quickly realized that she shouldn't be a guest there-she should be part of the group. "I was a solo practitioner in need of exactly what they were providing," she recalls.

What they are providing at CUNY, and at Community Legal Resource Networks (CLRNs) at both Northeastern University School of Law and University of Maryland Law School, is support for community-based lawyers that helps them stay in business and develop as professionals. That support comes in many forms, including research assistance, technological and administrative guidance, and group purchasing of office supplies-replicating the benefits of a larger law firm or legal services office.

But perhaps its most significant aspect is the creation of a network of like-minded lawyers who can share ideas and advice and help each other through legal and business challenges. Through meetings and e-mail, these formerly isolated lawyers are forging a kinship that eases the challenge of doing public interest work in a private practice setting. "This was just a godsend," says Flamenbaum. "Now I have a law firm, I belong to a group, I have access to their minds."

Ultimately, those who benefit from that cameraderie, business acumen, and collective legal expertise are the clients: low- and moderate-income individuals and other underserved groups. "The less time you have to spend spinning your wheels and coming up to speed, the more efficient you are, and the more able you will be to offer low bono and pro bono work," says Christopher Fanning, a 1996 CUNY Law grad with a Queens, New York-based general solo practice.

CAMPUS CREATIONS
The three law schools started their Community Legal Resource Networks with funding from the Open Society Institute, a philanthropy led by financier George Soros. They have joined together as members of the Law School Consortium Project, which aims to study and promote ways in which law schools can expand their educational mission toward supporting the solo and small-firm lawyers serving unmet legal needs. Part of the role CLRNs can play is in "helping attorneys understand that a law practice is a business as well as a profession," says Deborah Howard, director of the Law School Consortium Project. "There are a lot of people who are doing good at their own expense, serving clients, but not collecting enough fees to meet their own business needs, and that doesn't make sense, because in the end, you're not going to serve your clients if you go out of business."

Each school has developed its own model. Northeastern has two CLRNs: one that helps those serving low income, inner-city neighborhoods provide economic development services to their clients; and a domestic violence-focused CLRN that joins senior family law practitioners and those who are less experienced with students who have a background in domestic violence advocacy. In addition to tackling family law issues and developing the skills of all involved, this CLRN gives students a link to a community they might join.

The Maryland project joins a CLRN with a demonstration law office, Civil Justice, Inc. The demonstration law office has two specialties-consumer/home equity defense and economic, housing, and community development-that were chosen based on a statewide legal-needs survey. It handles cases on a pro bono basis and models best practices for the solo and small firm members of the CLRN, to whom it also refers fee-generating cases it develops.

At CUNY, five groups serve over 50 alums: two General Practice Groups, a Family Law Group, an Immigration Practice Group, and a Employment Discrimination Group. In addition to bringing members up to speed with e-mail and Internet access-an online community lets members make connections, share questions and answers, and keep each other apprised of events-the CUNY project members use donated Palm handhelds, and are testing the effectiveness of Amicus Attorney and Dragon voice recognition software (see sidebar, p. 52).

EDUCATION EVOLVING
"As long as the profession and lawyers are supposed to have a social responsibility, I think law schools need to model that," Howard says. "And if you really believe in social justice, then it's important to support these practitioners." As the former director of career services at New York Law School, Howard says she recognized the limits of what a career services office could provide to students who expressed an interest in working in small firms or opening their own practices.

Howard also grew frustrated seeing, year after year, the large numbers of students-at her school and elsewhere-who arrive at law school wanting to do public interest work, yet leave without finding a position or a viable solution to the challenge of doing that work in a private practice setting. "The socialization process that takes place in law school doesn't support those aspirations," says Howard, who has recently conducted focus groups with CLRN members. "Some tell me explicitly, 'I'm really angry at what happened to me in law school that took me away from my original goals.'"

While the proponents of CLRN-type programs envision nothing short of a new movement in legal education, they also hope that it might be viewed as part of a natural evolution: on its Web site (www.lawschoolconsortium.net), the Law School Consortium Project points to how the creation of clinics at a handful of law schools spurred the adoption of clinical programs across the country.

Those who urge law schools to consider initiating their own programs have no illusions about the obstacles that discourage law schools from doing so. There is, of course, the traditional and powerful paradigm that emphasizes legal theory and analysis over practical aspects of legal practice. But there is also the role that "reputation"-as measured by U.S. News-type rankings-plays in the decision-making process. School officials making determinations about resource allocation know that U.S. News takes into account starting salary of a school's graduates-largely a function of how many are able to secure spots at big firms. Schools seeking to improve their ranking, as a way to attract more applicants, might not want to put the effort and expense into establishing and maintaining a framework to support non-big-firm grads, even if they sympathize with their dilemmas.

"I think it would be important to rate law schools on how they support students in their aspirations to work in social justice areas," says Howard, who adds that students need to let their schools know how important such support is to them. In addition to current students, alumni interested in CLRN clones can exert influence-as can future students, Howard suggests. "From an admissions standpoint, to be able to tell pre-law students who are interested in doing public service work, 'We will support you in law school, and then we will support you in developing these practices after law school'-to me, that's a wonderful, efficient asset," she says.

STUDENT SUPPORT
At CUNY, current students have been able both to benefit from the existence of CLRNs and to play a role in their success. Fred Rooney, project director-and a community-based practitioner himself, with a Bethlehem, Pennsylvania-based small firm he works at two days a week-visits 1L seminars on research and writing to introduce the CLRN concept to students. Those who get involved can sit in on meetings, find mentors, and help members with research and other work.

"We don't have walls in CLRN," says 2L Kimberly Linyard, describing how students learn from member meetings and e-mail exchanges. "It's not just about law: with CLRN, it's about lawyering," she adds, describing discussions that range from balancing work and life to specific, urgent needs. "You see the e-mail that says, 'A client just walked in; I have no clue about this type of law; the client's not wanting to go somewhere else-somebody e-mail me everything about this subject.'" For Linyard, it's the kind of personal, practical stuff "that is exactly what keeps me in classes. Most of us have had careers before this, and so it's very difficult being a student, having one little pinky in the real world."

Last summer, three CUNY students received grants to work with community-based practitioners. 2L Ian Sack worked with a family law specialist who "pretty much held my hand and was great in showing me the ropes as much as she could." Sack recently assisted a network member with research on an immigration matter-helping the lawyer save time, and also learning about the issue himself. "Every question, every answer opens up a wealth of knowledge," he says. "You can never be exposed to this stuff just sitting in the classroom, and CLRN opens the doors and facilitates this learning."

Rooney is quick to emphasize that every time the students do something for network members, "it's ultimately helping a person who may not have had access to justice because they couldn't afford it." But the student effort dovetails nicely with the project mission, he adds. "Given the fact that we know that the bulk of pro bono and sliding scale work is being handled by solo practitioners and small firms," Rooney explains, "we have a tremendous need to prepare people like Kimberly and Ian to eventually get into private practice in that capacity because we know that the large firms are not doing it, and we know that public service programs have been decimated by federal funding cutbacks."

Rooney hopes to be able to share what his project has learned with other interested schools. "We're looking at ways to decrease the cost that it actually imposes on the institutions," he says. "We know that we can reduce the rate so that other law schools that want to buy into this concept don't feel like they have to make a tremendous financial commitment to do that."

The CUNY alums who have enjoyed the practical and personal benefits of the network hope to see other law schools adopt similar models. "It makes it easier for people to do public service work and to make money while they're doing it," says Judith Flamenbaum, who believes she might otherwise have had to close her practice down. "I could not have continued with how I was running it."

"This is kind of like Part Two," Christopher Fanning says. "That's something a law school should offer-it's the complete package."

Seth Oltman is senior editor of L and of American Lawyer Media's custom publishing division.

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COMPUTER COMFORTS
Increasing the technological proficiency of network members has become one of the hallmarks of the CLRN programs. Those making the initial leap into the e-mail era have an easy way to communicate with others. Training in office and legal software programs has helped members manage their practices more efficiently, they say.

At CUNY, Marcus Succes, CLRN office administrator and technology consultant, provides members with one-on-one training in legal applications. "I want to convince them to invest the time in learning so they don't have to reinvent the wheel every time," says Succes.

He has also constructed a CUNY CLRN Web community, organizing a bulletin board and folders for specific issues. "It's a better way to serve the members," he says. "The difficulty remains in getting the members to go and review this stuff. But the members who are interested, who advocated for this, do go on a regular basis and check it out."

PalmPilots, Amicus Attorney practice management software, and Dragon voice recognition programs have been donated, so that members can test their effectiveness and feed that information back to the companies. In the process, interested students will learn along with their mentors.

"The experimentation we're doing with the practitioners will ultimately have an impact on the students," says project director Fred Rooney. "They're going to come out of law school with the knowledge of how to use a program that most lawyers don't."

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