March 16, 1999

Mr. Mark D. Braley, Executive Director
Legal Services Corporation of Virginia
700 East Main Street, Suite 1504
Richmond, VA. 23219-2620

Re: LSC Review of 1998 Virginia State Planning Report

Dear Mr. Braley:

          Thank you for the timely submission of the Virginia Legal Services State Plan Report for 1998 developed in response to LSC Program Letters 98-1 and 98-6. The staff of the Legal Services Corporation Office of Program Performance has thoroughly reviewed and discussed your plan in substantial detail. We believe the plan is a good beginning to the development of an integrated and comprehensive delivery system that meets the present and future needs of low-income persons within your state. However, we also believe that the state of Virginia should pursue additional activities in 1999 designed to explore how best to develop an effective and coordinated delivery system.

          As we note at the conclusion of this letter, we are aware of and sympathetic to the fact that the Virginia planners have pursued numerous planning activities over the last four years and that many people within the legal services community in Virginia, although committed to ongoing planning, are weary of planning. Accordingly, we are not asking you to go back to the drawing board and prepare yet another lengthy paper document. Instead, we recommend that you change your planning focus and, perhaps with the aid of outside individuals and/or entities familiar with the problems and issues facing legal services programs, begin a series of conversations, meetings and discussions surrounding the question "What can we do to create the optimal legal services delivery system in Virginia given the current social and cultural environment?" The issues identified by LSC in 98-1 and 98-6 could then be explored within the context of this broader question.

          In order to provide constructive assistance to your state's planners as you move forward with your planning process, we provide below several comments in regards to your current plan. However, we would like to specifically note that from our conversations with Virginia's state planners we understand that many of the issues discussed below were reviewed during Virginia's planning activities but were not included, primarily because of constraints imposed by the thirty-five page limit, in the written document presented to LSC. We have taken this fact into consideration in providing this feedback to your plan.

I.       General Comments

          In order to place our comments within a context, it is important to understand what we look for when we review a plan. First, a good plan provides for the statewide coordination of activities and services in the present while ensuring consideration of the needs of the future. In a valid plan, the efforts and activities of a state's legal service providers are coordinated with each other, with other providers of services to low-income persons and with funders to insure that: (a) no group or subgroup of low-income clients are excluded from securing and enforcing their rights within the civil equal justice delivery system; and (b) that all low income persons within the state are able to enjoy meaningful and appropriate access to the civil justice system. A good plan sets out how this coordination of activities is taking or will take place today and what changes the state delivery system will make in order to improve the future coordination of activities to meet future needs.

          It is clear throughout this plan that the Legal Services Corporation of Virginia (LSCV) and the Virginia Poverty Law Center (VPLC) play an important and effective role in coordinating the work of the legal services providers. However, we believe that the Virginia legal services programs need to work more closely with LSCV and VPLC and with each other to develop additional ways to work together in a coordinated and integrated manner today and in the future to develop better methods to deliver services to clients and a better product for clients.

          Additionally, although this plan provides information as to how the legal needs of special populations of clients including clients who may not currently be adequately served by legal services providers and disenfranchised or unpopular client groups are and will be addressed, the state's capacity in this area remains limited. We recommend that Virginia explore ways to acquire or earmark additional funds for those organizations, such as the VPLC, which are charged with this responsibility.

          Second, a viable plan presents the common goals, purposes, values, principles and norms that underlie and support it in order to ensure consistency of vision and purpose. It spells out as early on as possible what the planners are attempting to achieve through their plan. Some examples of common values and/or goals might include developing the capacity to respond to the most compelling needs of client throughout the state, maximizing opportunities for all clients to receive timely, effective and appropriate services and ensuring that all potential clients have similar access to high quality services.

          The Virginia plan does set out guiding values including the need to empower low-income people to define, promote and protect their legitimate interests through the civil legal justice system, the need for greater integration within and among programs such that clients will receive and staff will deliver higher quality legal services and the need for a continuing and enhanced role for the Legal Services Corporation of Virginia as the "locus" for future planning, evaluation and oversight within the state. These goals are consistent with LSC's Program Letters and we support your efforts to achieve them.

          Third, a meaningful plan is one that has been discussed with and/or reviewed by all individuals, organizations and institutions within the state that have a stake in the design and operation of the state's system for ensuring equal justice. This plan describes the involvement of other stakeholders as "low" and attributes this lack of interest to a number of factors including planning burnout. Although we are sensitive to the difficulty that planners often confront in meaningfully involving external stakeholders in the planning process, broad-based involvement by other stakeholders is usually a key element in developing a useful plan.

          Fourth, a good plan presents its goals both in terms of their measurability and in terms of who is responsible for ensuring their completion. Responsibility is either assumed or assigned. Perhaps more importantly, responsibility is shared between and among everyone who is covered by and included in the plan. To put it another way, in a high-quality planning document, all of the legal services providers would play important roles and perform essential tasks. Accordingly, in a state like Virginia where LSC has multiple grantees, LSC would expect to see all of its grantees identified as the responsible party for portions of the plan's implementation. However, in the plan submitted to LSC in response to 98-1 and 98-6, LSCV and/or the VPLC assume most, if not all, of the responsibility for implementing the plan. The reader is left with the decided perception that this plan is more appropriately understood as a work plan for LSCV as opposed to a statewide plan to integrate the work of the legal services programs in Virginia. We do understand, as a result of our conversations with Virginia's planners, that this perception may be erroneous, and that in actuality the fourteen legal services grantees may work very closely with LSCV and VPLC to develop policies and procedures to ensure that clients have access to a full range of legal services. If so, we hope that this high level of involvement and collective responsibility will continue.

          Fifth, in order for a plan to be considered effective, the plan must demonstrate that all of the legal services providers were willing to look beyond single issues or a single program to examine the big picture in terms of client needs and organizational capacities in order to develop the best possible methods and mechanisms to address the present and future needs of clients within the state. Accordingly, a good plan for the statewide coordination of legal services will present concrete information as to what the legal services providers believe to be the major issues confronting clients and the client communities served by the programs, indicate how the programs can work collaboratively to respond to these issues, and spell out what the legal services programs envision for their collective future and for the future of their delivery system.

          This plan lacks concrete information as to what the legal services providers believe to be the major issues confronting clients and the client communities in Virginia. Similarly, the organizational capacities--including strengths and weakness-- of the various legal services programs within the state are never discussed nor is there any discussion as to what organizational changes should or could be made to strengthen the entire legal services delivery system, such as regional intake, sharing staff--such as litigation experts--among and between programs, sharing pro bono staff between two or more programs, or other ways to coordinate and integrate services among programs short of merger.

          Sixth, a defensible plan will fully respond to all of the issues identified in LSC Program Letters 98-1 and 98-6. This plan does endeavor to respond to all of the issues identified in LSC Program Letters 98-1 and 98-6.

          The current intake situation is described as one in which "intake methods vary." The plan identifies numerous areas of "variation" including telephone systems, telephone versus in-person intake, differences in financial eligibility (three programs "still cut off" eligibility at 100% of poverty), differences in priorities and case acceptance criteria, differences in program response time after initial contact by a client, differences in availability of 800 numbers, and differences in methods of informing clients of acceptance or rejection. The delivery of legal services is also described as varying significantly in a large number of areas including but not limited to how brief services are delivered (and when); how pro bono services are delivered; how cases are defined; intake methods; and case acceptance policies.

          This section has six goals. Goal #1 is to "enhance the state-wide consistency, quality and timeliness of intake and advice and referral services through greater standardization among and within programs." The three identified strategies for goal #1 include ensuring standard definitions for managing and reporting case related activities, specifying reasonable expectations for all programs to meet in providing timely intake services, and addressing perceived inconsistencies in language and practice among programs regarding case acceptance and financial eligibility. Action items for goal #1 and its three strategies include adding staff at LSCV to support integration planning among programs, developing a standard model for case acceptance and financial eligibility, establishing benchmarks for the time taken by program staff to conduct intake, and developing standard definitions for case, case action, case closure and related terms.

          Goal #2 is to "ensure that on-going program operations measurably enhance system integration on behalf of clients." Strategies include involving programs in developing meaningful and achievable statewide standards, ensuring process steps to assess and document reasons for exceptions, and monitoring system wide compliance on a regular and objective basis.

          Goal # 3 is to "improve client access to intake by increase sharing of resources and technology among programs." Strategies include developing methods to share pro bono resources, developing a consistent body of information to be provide electronically when offices are closed or telephone lines are busy, and providing basic electronic information through local programs with cooperation among individual programs. Action items relate only to the development of capacity. Goal #4 is to develop statewide standards of practice and quality control for cases including advice-only cases but presents no strategies or action items. Goal #5 speaks to encouraging programs to monitor the impact of restrictions on clients and develop ways to meet unmet need. Strategies include expanding pro bono services and buying services from unrestricted programs. Goal #6 asks programs to ensure service access to clients with special needs but presents no strategies or action items.

          This section of the plan does not set out measurable and definitive goals, strategies or action items for many of the deficiencies identified in this section of the plan itself (other than, in some instances, promulgation of a model) such as differences in intake, telephone systems, differences in financial eligibility, differences in priorities and case acceptance criteria, differences in pro bono services and differences in methods of informing clients of acceptance or rejection. Many of the strategies and action items are soft and rely on voluntary actions of programs. Perhaps most importantly and certainly of greater concern to LSC, this plan, even if implemented, leaves in place fourteen separate, independent and duplicative systems, some providing information, advice and referral, some simply serving an "intake" function. While LSC is not suggesting Virginia must or should develop a single, statewide information, advice and referral system, we do not believe Virginia is utilizing its resources well or maximizing services to clients, by maintaining fourteen autonomous systems. We believe state planners ought to revisit their goals in this area and proceed from the perspective of how collectively, Virginia can effectively and efficiently address client need for information, advice and access to representation.

          The planners note that their planning process has resulted in a "statewide technology enhancement plan" to be funded by LSCV. We understand LSCV has recently obtained a special legislative appropriation for technology enhancements, which is terrific. These funds will be used under the state plan to (1) employ a full-time computer and communications expert; (2) establish a statewide e-mail system; (3) upgrade computer hardware statewide; (4) establish uniform case management and timekeeping systems; (5) establish a substantive on-line bulletin board and document bank for some legal issues; (6) establish an automated document assembly system; (7) establish and standardize computerized research capability; (8) provide statewide computer training and support; (9) establish the capacity for automated and centralized intake "where feasible and appropriate;" (10) establish automated phone and voice mail messaging systems where appropriate and (11) ultimately lead to web-sites in all programs. The technology portion of this plan is impressive. As you proceed in this area, we hope future planning will also include expanded discussion as to the specific ways technology can and will be used to improve client services including, but not limited to, coordination of intake, client education, legal work supervision, and clients' ability to advocate for themselves.

          The plan identifies numerous barriers that stand between clients and their access to quality legal services and classifies the barriers in two categories: those that are created or exacerbated by social conditions and those that are specific to legal services programs. Solutions to the identified barriers include the creation of additional options to provide community education to clients, garnering uniform support from the bar and the judiciary, standardization of filing forms, increased funding, and better distribution of education materials to clients.

          Goal #1 is to involve community stakeholders to provide the "poverty population" with access to a full range of services. Strategies include removing restrictions at the national level, expanding the range of legal services options within each program, and expanding linkages with other providers to reach special populations. Action items include building linkages, documenting access issues, and working with LSC to remove restrictions. Goal #2 is to develop good pro se materials but not emphasize pro se to the detriment of other delivery systems. Strategies include working with the bar and members of the judiciary to identify and remove access barriers. However, the plan provides no information as to what materials the planning committee thinks should be developed and in what substantive areas. Goal #3 is to increase legal services programs' visibility. Strategies include developing supportive working relationships with the courts, linking with other organizations, and simplifying client access to programs. Goal #4 is to establish community legal education programs through schools and adult education programs. Goal #5 is to ensure that non-English speaking people receive high quality services. Goals #4 and 5 have no strategies or action items.

          This section of the plan presents little information as to what is happening currently in the areas of barrier reduction, pro se advocacy and community/client legal education so it is impossible to determine how this plan is an improvement over the status quo. Indeed, the plan never addresses the central question of how the programs will collaborate to produce community legal education and pro se materials and initiatives, in what areas of the law and for what purposes. The action items for goal #1 do not appear to immediately address the need to expand the range of legal services options. Throughout this section, language is soft, goals and strategies are not measurable and the dates of completion are routinely given as "on-going" or "to be determined." And again, LSCV and VPLC--rather than the LSC-funded legal services providers-- assume primary responsibility for implementing this section of the plan.

          The Virginia Poverty Law Center is funded primarily with non-LSC dollars from LSCV to support the programs through training, case assistance, and dissemination of information. To their credit, LSCV and the Virginia providers recognized the importance of these functions, and despite sharp cuts in provider funding, in 1996 agreed to completely replace lost LSC state support dollars with funds from LSCV. This action, and the continuing financial support provided VPLC by LSCV, also demonstrates the high regard in which VPLC is held.

          The plan has six goals: maintain the capacity of the VPLC to provide services; enhance participation and use of the "Poverty Law review"Ca VPLC publication; expand training opportunities on a regional basis; increase field involvement in assessing training needs and delivery options; support restoration of national training centers; and restore interstate training capacity. The fifth and sixth goals have no accompanying strategies or action items.

          In terms of training activities (which this section of the plan emphasizes), little information is provided as to how many training events are held annually and how many people participate so it is difficult to understand and quantify the proposed improvements.

          In terms of coordination of legal work, information and expert assistance, the plan relies on the continued existence of the VPLC and supports continued funding for VPLC. While we believe that VPLC performs high quality work, the plan is silent as to how VPLC currently coordinates the programs' legal work and what VPLC will do to coordinate legal work in the future. Strategies and action items are "soft"--for example, the plan discusses the need to increase submissions from the field for the "Poverty Law review" but never quantifies the current situation or the future goals. Other "soft" words such as "encourage", "promote" and "support" are never expanded upon nor defined. How will the planners and/or VPLC encourage legal services program staff to more directly express their training and development needs?

          The plan would have been stronger if it addressed how the programs will work together to assure that advocates throughout the state have access to the information, training and expertise they need to provide high quality legal assistance. For example, we are curious as to how Virginia will make sure that all of the legal services programs are doing an equal and optimal job of sharing information, coordinating advocacy strategies, obtaining outside expertise when needed, and ensuring that all clients have access to a full range of legal services

          The plan refers to highly successful and organized pro bono initiatives that are supported by the organized bar. LSCV has worked with the Virginia Bar Association to establish successful pro bono hotlines in 7 of Virginia's programs. The Virginia State Bar, at the urging of LSCV, established a full-time pro bono coordinator position. This individual staffs the bar's access to legal services committee. She works closely with every program's pro bono coordinator to enhance the state's efforts from a statewide perspective. All pro bono coordinators in the state meet regularly and work together on issues such as recruitment, training etc. The plan proposes to involve programs in the increased coordination of pro bono activities including expanding the "sharing" of resources between programs and coordinating recruitment.

          The plan discusses the possible implementation of a pilot program where one program "can refer pre-screened clients to receive assistance from attorneys with another program." This section has four goals: maintain and improve the Neighborhood Assistance Tax Credit Act; explore ways to share pro bono resources among programs; strengthen ways to increase legal and other pro bono participation at the local level; and implement a technology plan to increase pro bono participation. Goals #1 and #4 have no strategies or action items. Goal # 2, which addresses the need to "explore ways to share pro bono resources among programs," has weak strategies and action items that do not appear to clearly address the need for enhanced coordination among the many pro bono providers within the state. For example, the first strategy under this goal is to encourage areas with high pro bono resources to support areas with fewer pro bono resources but the "who" and "how" parts of the equation are never addressed except for a reference to establishing a pilot program if the VBA funds a grant for this purpose.

          The goals, strategies and actions items in this section of the plan are not measurable. The term "on-going" is used for almost all dates of completion. The responsibility for meeting goals # 3 and #4 rests with the individual legal services programs but the plan does not indicate who will be responsible for ensuring that the programs do what they are assigned to do and/or who will coordinate these activities

          The plan notes and is deservedly proud of the fact that Virginia has replaced all LSC funds lost in the last several years and is one of only three states in which the legal services providers receive both filing fee funding and a general revenue appropriation. Local government funding is described as a model for other states. The authors believe that their successes in fundraising are primarily due to their many local contacts, which, they claim, is "the most compelling reason to not substantially alter the current configuration of legal services programs in Virginia." This section has four goals: increase the amount of local funding and the overall capacity of the programs to raise money; reinvigorate support from the private bar for legal services funding; explore the potential of the Community Reinvestment Act as a source of revenue; and maintain and enhance legislative support.

          We applaud Virginia's success in obtaining and maintaining state funding and specifically congratulate LSCV for its leadership. We hope LSCV's continued leadership and the continued involvement of a broad range of stakeholders will lead to even greater success, both in the General Assembly and in other initiatives to expand the resources available for legal services in Virginia.

          The planners state that throughout all of their planning activitiesCthis cycle as well as earlier cyclesCVirginia planners have examined other models of system configuration and have concluded that the need for program reconfiguration in Virginia has never been proven. The planners concede that the current system has some problems in terms of coordinating services and resources and put forth three goals to address the need for better coordination and collaboration: (1) to achieve greater integration among programs; (2) to strive to provide a full range of services throughout the state; and (3) to support sharing of resources. We applaud these goals and encourage the state planners to move forward to make these goals a reality. However, we must note that strategies and action items for the three goals delineated in this section are soft using such language as "encourage", "support" and "explore" and "strive." For example, in goal #1, the planners state that they will "encourage inter-program collaboration to enhance client services and resources" but the plan never sets out what specific steps will be taken to make inter-program collaboration a reality.

          It is important to keep in mind for purposes of any discussion of configuration (or for that matter of state planning in general) that 98-1 and 98-6 did not spring up out of a vacuum. In 1995, when LSC first called upon its recipients to begin state planning, many leaders in the legal services community, both within and without LSC, recognized that legal services programs were going to have to change to remain viable and relevant to the communities they serve. Sharp cuts in LSC funding, elimination of federal funding for support centers, and the imposition of restrictions upon LSC-funded services all required development of new approaches to meet the full legal needs of the poor. Moreover, experts who study organizational transformation have long predicted that emerging societal trends would mandate organizational change.

          Program Letters 98-1 and 98-6 were developed to stimulate principled and thoughtful discussion and planning on the part of legal services providers as to what societal trends were impacting upon legal services programs and how programs needed to change to address these trends. The call for state planning (with its indicators/factors/criteria) was a call for legal services programs to explore their institutional relevancy in an environment that has changed dramatically from the environment in which legal services organizations initially came into existence. Additionally, the call for state planning was a challenge to state planners to make the changes necessary to insure that legal services providers remain in touch with and responsive to their external environment and are able to quickly adapt and constructively change as new circumstance emerge.

          In Virginia, it appears upon reading the plan that the planning group never addressed the question as to what would be the optimal structural configuration for Virginia legal services programs if they looked at the big picture in terms of statewide client needs and the efficient and effective delivery of quality legal services throughout the state. However, we have been told that the state of Virginia is committed to moving ahead with a planning process that addresses current issues impacting upon client services--such as differences in intake policies--and makes the changes necessary to ensure that clients have access to and can realize full-range access to high quality legal services regardless of where in Virginia these clients reside. As part of these future planning activities, the state must also give serious thought as to whether the services provided by the smaller programs within the state would be stronger and the effectiveness of the entire system strengthened if smaller programs were combined or merged with larger legal services programs.

          Although LSC does not anticipate making any changes in the configuration of the service areas for Virginia for the 2000 grant process, significant work remains necessary if the state of Virginia is going to be able to successfully create a statewide, comprehensive and integrated delivery system. We understand that the planners are weary of planning and we are not asking you to go back to the drawing board and prepare yet another lengthy paper document. Instead, we recommend that you change your planning focus--perhaps making "planning" more relevant and enjoyable than you have found it to be to-date--and begin a series of conversations and discussions surrounding the question "What can we do to create the optimal legal services delivery system in Virginia given the current social and cultural environment?" These discussions could be dovetailed with the results of the LSCV evaluations that we understand will begin this year and with the plans you have already put in place to take a hard look at certain issues within the state such as intake practices, case acceptance criteria and priorities. An important component of these discussions must be a careful and principled analysis of the need to make systemic/structural changes in the way that programs perform their duties in order to coordinate and integrate services statewide, and of the need for program merger.

          We recommend that you give serious thought to obtaining expert assistance--perhaps from someone who understands how to diagnose an organization or system's need for change--as you pursue these discussions. LSC will consider the progress state planners have made, as well as the strength of individual grant applications, when making funding decisions, including the grant term, in the late fall of 1999.