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John McKay
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Board of Directors
Douglas S. Eakeley
Roseland, NJ
Chairman

John N. Erlenborn
Issue, MD
Vice Chairman

Hulett H. Askew
Atlanta, GA

LaVeeda M. Battle
Birmingham, AL

John T. Broderick, Jr.
Manchester, NH

Edna Fairbanks-Williams
Fairhaven, VT

F. Wm. McCalpin
St. Louis, MO

Maria Luisa Mercado
Galveston, TX

Nancy H. Rogers
Columbus, OH

Thomas F. Smegal, Jr.
San Francisco, CA

Ernestine P. Watlington
Harrisburg, PA
  

March 30, 1999

Kevin B. McGrath, Executive Director
Legal Services Program of Northern Indiana
105 Jefferson Boulevard, Suite 600
South Bend, Indiana 46601-1915

Re: LSC Review March 1, 1999 Indiana State Planning Report

Dear Mr. McGrath:

           Thank you for the timely submission of the revised Indiana State Plan presented on March 1, 1999. We are pleased that the Indiana programs have begun to develop a plan to strengthen and expand services to clients, and we are especially pleased to see involvement of a much larger and representative group of people. However, as explained below, the plan is only a plan to plan, and we still have serious doubts as to whether the four LSC programs can effectively work together to develop a comprehensive and integrated delivery system. Despite the progress made in the past few months, it is apparent that Indiana programs do not have a strong history of collaboration. Significant commitment and effort will be required of all programs if Indiana is to develop a cohesive delivery system.

Background

           It may be useful to briefly recap how we arrived at this point. By letter dated December 3, 1998, we advised you that the first Indiana plan submitted on October 1, 1998 was "non-responsive to the issues identified in LSC program Letters 98-1 and 98-6 and in need of major work." Among the points we noted were:

"The Indiana plan provides for very little coordination among and between the LSC-funded programs and/or any other stakeholders such as the private bar, funders, other service providers, and clients. The plan is silent in terms of how the LSC-funded programs within Indiana will collaborate to ensure that all clients eligible for services have equal and meaningful access to the justice system."

           LSC recipients in Indiana were instructed to submit a revised plan to LSC by March 1, 1999 and were advised to "develop a collaborative, inclusive and values-driven plan and planning process that strengthens services to clients throughout the state."

           In early January 1999, the Corporation contacted the four LSC programs and learned that absolutely no work had been done to develop a revised plan. Following further discussions with Indiana programs and other interested stakeholders, it became obvious that it would be impossible for the Indiana programs to develop an effective planning process leading to a worthwhile plan by March 1, 1999. Given our interest in a meaningful plan, by letter dated January 20, 1999, we extended the plan due date until November 1, 1999 and asked the LSC recipients to submit a "plan to plan" on March 1,1999 detailing how the state would pursue planning activities leading to submission of the November plan. Given the little progress the programs had made up to that date, our letter provided lengthy and specific guidance on what we expected(1) . We also felt constrained to reiterate our concerns about the ability and willingness of the programs to work together to develop a comprehensive, integrated delivery system. We wrote:

"So that there is no confusion down the line, I want to repeat something that I stated in my December 3, 1998, letter and that I shared with you last week (during a telephone conference call) Based upon the content of your first plan and based upon my conversations with you, I have serious doubts as to whether the four legal services programs in Indiana can work together to develop a planning report that will lead to the development of a comprehensive and integrated delivery system absent service area reconfiguration. The planning document due on March 1, 1999 needs to assuage my doubts or I may have no choice but to recommend to LSC that it proceed to redraw the service area map in Indiana."

The March 1, 1999 Plan to Plan

           The staff of the Legal Services Corporation Office of Program Performance has reviewed and discussed your plan in substantial detail. We have determined that the planning document submitted on March 1, 1999, for the most part, does meet the criteria that we placed before you in our January 20, 1999 letter. Accordingly Indiana should proceed to implement its "plan to plan" and submit its state plan to LSC no later than October 1, 1999 (note the changed date). Please understand that although LSC does not anticipate making any changes in the configuration of the service areas for Indiana for the 2000 grant process, as indicated above, significant work remains necessary if the state of Indiana is going to be able to successfully create a statewide, comprehensive and integrated delivery system. We will look very closely at the progress you make in developing and implementing your plan when making FY 2000 funding and subsequent service area decisions.

           On its face, the "plan to plan" presents some very interesting and creative ideas and includes action steps that are concrete and measurable. Among the most important elements are:

Strengths

  • The articulation of preliminary guiding principles and common values.
  • A programmatic and financial commitment by all four LSC-funded programs to reinstitute and fund a state support organization/entity. Unfortunately, the plan is not clear in terms of what state support will do. There are many functions that a state support center could perform, but with such a limited budget, the priorities for this state support center will have to be very clear. Moreover, throughout the plan there are dozens of tasks (in many different sections) that are or will be assigned to a state support center. Given its limited funding, the center cannot do all of them. The plan provides no information as to how all these tasks will be accomplished. We recommend that you immediately create and adequately fund an interim state support entity to manage and coordinate your upcoming planning activities, that you hire an Interim Director for the state support entity who can help both with the creation of a viable state support capacity and with ongoing planning, that you appoint as the Interim Director someone who is very familiar with state planning in Indiana but who is not a Project Director, and that you give very serious thought to earmarking or otherwise raising additional funds to sustain state support.
  • The creation of a committee to explore reconfiguration and program merger. However, we believe that this committee is much too large to be effective and puts too much power and influence in the hands of the two largest legal services programs within the state. Moreover, little information is provided in terms who will take responsibility for these committees beginning to meet, who will ensure that the process moves along expeditiously, how the committees will prioritize the list of issues they will consider, and if clients will be represented on these committees. Finally, given the hostility and lack of trust demonstrated by several of the program directors towards one another, we have serious doubts as to whether this committee can accomplish its task absent a mandate from LSC. We recommend that you immediately reduce the size of this committee to twelve persons appointing to the committee a total of three individuals selected by each program. If the state of Indiana does create a state support entity in the near future, we recommend that one representative from state support be appointed to this committee. We also recommend that you hire an expert in program merger/consolidation to provide technical assistance and direction to the merger committees.
  • Clear involvement in the plan's development of a much larger and more representative group of people who served on various issue committees and put forth some truly interesting ideas.
  • A commitment to involve other identified external stakeholders in the planning process.
  • The development of a closer working relationship with the bar and a plan to involve the Indiana State Bar Association and the Project for the Future of Equal justice at NLADA/CLASP in sponsoring a day long seminar in May 1999 on the topic "Developing a Comprehensive Integrated Statewide Delivery System of Civil Legal Services to Poor People in Indiana." However, the plan lacks sufficient information as to when and how programs will proceed to improve their relationships with the Indiana State Bar Association and the Indiana Bar Foundation.
  • The development of a statewide needs assessment. However, we are at a loss to understand why this task will not take place for at least two years. A statewide assessment of needs would appear to us to be one of the most easy areas in which to undertake statewide collaboration especially given the fact that LSOI is in the process of developing a program-wide assessment of needs and has contracted with the Indiana University Public Opinion Lab to conduct a statistically-reliable survey of needs and to coordinate focus groups. We recommend that you move this project up on your agenda and develop, through the upcoming planning process, specific tasks and time lines to complete this assessment.

           Unfortunately, the plan also has serious problems. Among the most serious deficiencies (in addition to the deficiencies noted above) we include:

Weaknesses
  • It is clear upon reading this document that the different sections of the plan were put together by different committees and then "bundled together" --unedited--into a plan. The plan, although very ambitious, is unwieldy, unrealistic, and could not be implemented without a tremendous commitment of time, resources, and energy on the part of all four Indiana legal services programs. We have no evidence that this degree of commitment exists.
  • This plan provides very little information as to who is going to do the work that this plan calls for and perhaps more importantly who is going to pay for it.
  • In terms of the intake section, this section includes numerous statements suggesting that the current system is working well, responsive to local needs, and accessible to the disabled and non-English speaking clients, etc. Accordingly, although this section has numerous goals, for the most part they are goals that will change the local systems but will not integrate the systems among and between the four programs. For example, in Goal 3 how would the drafting and distribution of computer-generated advice letters (and by whom?) be useful if the programs have not committed to integrating their systems? The section on intake also discusses the need to study and evaluate intake systems in other programs. Given that the legal services community has already extensively studied the effectiveness of different intake systems, we do not understand why you would propose yet another study.
  • In the technology section no information is provided as to who will pay for the development and maintenance of the Website. The Website is a key element in this plan because may of the other sections of the plan (pro se, pro bono, training) depend upon it. We are also concerned that given that there are dramatic differences in technological capability among the four programs in terms of hardware, software and support, little information is provided as to how these differences will be made level.
  • In terms of community legal education, self-help and preventive education, we believe that the strengths of the current system are exaggerated. For example, the plan states that the fact that "materials are updated and reproduced as needed" should be seen as a strength of a decentralized community education system. In reality, we believe that the disparity in the amount and quality of the community education materials produced by individual programs in Indiana is a very serious problem. We also have concerns about who will pay for the production of the statewide community legal education materials and other items discussed in this plan.
  • The section on training is, in theory, very ambitious and impressive; however, it is heavily dependent on a support entity that does not yet exist and which appears to be inadequately funded to perform its numerous tasks.
  • While the section on private attorney involvement does talk about developing protocols and materials for use by all programs, it essentially focuses on how each program can improve its efforts to recruit and train pro bono lawyers. This section does not provide a cohesive, focused plan for how the programs can work together in this area. In reviewing this section of the plan, we immediately wondered why the state is not proposing to hire a statewide pro bono coordinator to work with the Judicial Districts and the Supreme Court to advance pro bono efforts.
  • The section on resource development is weak. First, there are no measurable goals. Second, given that the other portions of this plan require a large influx of dollars, the lack of a coordinated and coherent plan to increase funding for legal services in this state renders the rest of the plan meaningless.

  • The plan submitted on March 1, 1999 includes several deadlines that have now passed. We are concerned that the Indiana planners have taken no steps to implement their own plan since submitting it to LSC.

Next Steps

           Please proceed to implement the provisions and timetable of your "plan to plan". Your state plan should be submitted to LSC on or before October 1, 1999. You should also provide, on May 1, 1999, a revised and more realistic timetable for completion, and a clear delineation as to which individuals will take responsibility for the implementation of this plan to plan. A detailed status report on your planning activities should be submitted July 15, 1999. We also ask that you keep us informed of the scheduling of planning meetings so that we can attend these meetings as our schedules allow. We do plan to attend your May 1999 conference.

________________________

1 For example, the January 20 letter stated:

The planning document submitted on March 1, 1999, should also clearly describe the process that will be used to involve other stakeholders in the development of the plan and list the names and identifying organizations of all of the external and internal stakeholders who have committed to assist you in developing your plan.  It should make very clear what will be done in terms of each of the seven issues outlined in 98-1 and 98-6, when it will be done, and who will be responsible for doing the work.   It will be very important that this document clearly indicates that responsibility will be shared between and among everyone who is covered by and included in the plan.   If committees or study groups are going to be created, you will need to tell me what committees will be set up, what their tasks or "charge" will be, who will serve on these committees (in specific terms), who will chair them, when they will complete their work, and the role they will play in advancing the values, goals, and norms guiding the planning process.

 

                                      Sincerely,

                                      /s/

                                      Randi Youells
                                      State Planning Consultant

 

cc:    LSC Recipient Executive Directors
        LSC Recipient Board Chairs
        Karen Sarjeant, Vice President for Programs