Substantive Practice Standards

Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services, Inc. - 040001

Abstract Number: 040001

April 2004

Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services (SMRLS) developed substantive law and Attorney/Client Practice Standards to help ensure the consistent delivery of high quality legal services to low-income people in SMRLS' priority areas. SMRLS developed these standards in response to feedback elicited during a peer review visit by the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) in 1995. The peer review indicated that SMRLS could improve in a number of areas including, staff accountability, sharing of best practices across the program, and greater uniformity in the quality of services delivered in rural, urban, and migrant areas.

Upon receiving this constructive criticism, SMRLS senior leadership involved their Board and convened their senior lawyers from each substantive law team and began to draft program practice standards for family law, education law, housing law, immigration law, public benefits, farm law, senior law, and for identifying and addressing discriminatory practices. Drawing upon the LSC Performance Criteria and the ABA Practice Standards, as well as the Northwest Justice Projects' practice standards, SMRLS sought to lay out a philosophical and organizational roadmap for their program. In addition, SMRLS Board also encouraged the inclusion of "civility standards" to outline SMRLS' expectations for the treatment of opposing attorneys and others.

Once they completed the standards, SMRLS retooled their evaluation system and used the standards as the evaluation criteria for program staff. In addition to the annual performance evaluation, SMRLS has now instituted a comprehensive evaluation process for attorneys after four and eight years of practice with SMRLS. In this comprehensive process, an attorney's supervisor speaks with the clients, opposing attorneys, judges, and other staff members to determine how well they performed in light of SMRLS' Practice Standards. At the conclusion of these performance-based evaluations, SMRLS attorneys may be given a significant salary increase, undergo a second review process, or be let go, depending on their performance.

SMRLS found that incorporating the Practice Standards into employee evaluations is an excellent way to integrate the standards into daily program operations. In addition, SMRLS also uses the standards when hiring new staff and has found that new employees appreciate established expectations for their work and caseloads. To learn more about SMRLS' Substantive Practice Standards below, access them as PDF documents.

Contact Information:

Bruce A. Beneke
Executive Director
Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services, Inc.
46 East 4th Street, Suite 700
St. Paul, MN 55101
Phone:(651) 228-9823
Fax:(651) 228-9450
bruce.beneke@smrls.org

Additional information:

• Substantive Practice Standards, Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services, Copyright 1997. ( 1.7mb)

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