ORANGE COUNTY AND THE GULF WAR : Service Families Find Help With Legal Problems

The day after the war started, Linda Brantner was in a bind.

Another war wife needed a ride home to the Tustin Marine base from Los Angeles International Airport. But Brantner, still hobbling from foot surgery, had her 3-year-old son to worry about. The baby-sitter was gone, moved east with her Saudi Arabia-bound spouse, and Brantner’s own husband--usually there to help with such errands--was off fixing helicopters in the Gulf.

What to do? Brantner took son Cody to LAX, leaving him in the car for a few moments in the loading lane as she hurried inside for her friend. There on the windshield when she got back: a causticly worded citation for “child endangerment.”

“My heart sank,” the 30-year-old woman recalled. “I thought I was in some big serious trouble. I thought I was gonna be accused of being a bad mother or something.”

Under the pressures of wartime being felt by military families, such legal dilemmas are growing more frequent around Orange County and other places with heavy military populations. But a new Orange County Bar Assn. program now in its infancy is trying to help ease that pressure.

Some 50 lawyers have agreed to donate their free time for pro bono work on behalf of military personnel and their dependents. The work is often slow and tedious, but for two hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays they spend their evenings plodding through phone records, mortgages, divorce papers and other sources of a family’s grief in this already tense time.

The program at the AT&T; building in Irvine has drawn about 20 people a night, despite only word-of-mouth publicity at the start. Organizers expect more as publicity spreads through base newspapers.

Among the more than 100 who have sought help so far, few are conscientious objectors or reservists fired from their jobs, the kind of clients who grab headlines. Instead, this is a place for more mundane matters, such as car payments and child support and family medical plans. Some of the problems, such as drunk-driving arrests, don’t even relate directly to the war.

Regardless, the lawyers involved say these times warrant an extra hand for all military personnel, and the response so far appears overwhelmingly appreciative.

“This is a lifesaver--otherwise I’d end up declaring bankruptcy,” said Marine Cpl. Roland Cannard, 27, a mechanic at the Tustin Marine Corps Air Station who owes $30,000 in hospital bills because his wife was fired from her job and lost her medical insurance just before giving birth to an ill child.

Since the start of war last month, pro bono military programs such as this one are becoming more common in the legal communities of Orange County, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and elsewhere around the country, helping ease a growing load felt by in-house military lawyers.

At the law office at the Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro, for instance, the caseload has more than doubled since last year to about 500 walk-ins last month alone. Military lawyers say they simply wouldn’t be able to field all the problems without the local assistance.

At El Toro, base lawyers have continued to handle matters of wills and power of attorney, the grim business of preparing Marine families for the possible death of a loved one, but have referred most other civil and some criminal issues to the bar lawyers.

“It’s not only that they’ve taken a lot of the clients that we wouldn’t have time for otherwise,” said Capt. Anthony Verducci, officer in charge of legal assistance at El Toro, “but additionally these are top-notch lawyers who are assisting us here with our legal education.”

And he added: “Knowing you have a shoulder to lean on is a tremendous asset.”

In a profession more noted among the public for its fees than its generosity, lawyers in Orange County say they have been startled to see just how many of their peers have been willing to donate a few hours of their time a week to the program since it started at the end of January.

“I’ve never seen the members of the bar association come together as immediately for a cause as this one,” said Ernest Brown, an Irvine lawyer who is organizing the program.

Jeffrey Wertheimer, a Costa Mesa lawyer who put in his first few hours last Tuesday, explains his participation this way: “You live around here and you can’t help but appreciate the tremendous spot these (military) people are in. It sounds sappy, but we all do what we can to help out.”

Wertheimer handled the case of airport driver Linda Brantner last week and was able to prove of quick assistance.

Despite a written note on her citation about “child endangerment” and an oral chastisement from an officer at the scene, he was able to assure Brantner that she was only liable for a parking ticket--albeit an expensive one of about $100.

“If he weren’t there,” Brantner said of her new lawyer, “I would never have known what I was facing.”

Others, too, have emerged with smiles on their faces.

The Irvine wife of a Saudi Arabia-deployed Marine got the dreaded knock on the door--not to tell her of a death, but to serve her husband with papers for a lawsuit stemming from a traffic accident he was in before he left town.

She was frantic until a lawyer told her that she can get the case delayed under a 51-year-old federal statute that offers far-reaching protection for military families and is now being put to wide use around the country.

A Tustin woman, running into problems at school over the last names of her children, wanted their names changed to that of her husband, their stepfather. But he is in Saudi Arabia. She thought she had a problem until Mission Viejo lawyer Martin Bender pointed out the simplicity of the name-changing process, even for someone in her circumstances.

And a local Marine wanted to try to get his Puerto Rican custody decree changed before he left for war deployment, to ensure that he could see his daughter.

The pro bono program was originally intended to only last six to eight weeks. But Brown, the organizer, concedes that this may have been wishful thinking based in part on the hope for a short war, and he now says the program will probably extend as long as the war does.

“The war, the tension, it’s shaking a lot of people’s (legal) problems out of the trees now,” Brown said. “And even though I wish it didn’t have to be, I think we’re going to be here awhile.”

THE SOLDIERS’ AND SAILORS’ CIVIL RELIEF ACT

Adopted in 1940, this act offers broad legal protections for military personnel and their families. It is now getting its most active use in years, lawyers say, as military families seek to cope with the financial strains of Operation Desert Storm. Among the key provisions:

* Interest Rates. Service members can have their interest rates cut to 6% on mortgages, car payments and any other contracts entered into before their military activation.

* Leases. Service members can have leases or rental agreements cut short when activated. But again, the agreement must predate active service.

* Legal Problems. Service members deployed away from their bases--overseas in Operation Desert Storm, for instance--can generally get a court “stay,” or deferral, to delay any legal proceedings in which they are involved until their return.

* Taxes. Service members can defer for up to six months the payment of state and federal taxes falling due either before or during military service. The key factor here is whether the service member can show that his or her ability to pay was “materially impaired” by service.

Since the Gulf region was officially designated a “combat” area by the President on Jan. 21, enlisted personnel there will not have to pay federal taxes on any military income while serving there, and for officers the first $500 is free. All personnel in the region now also have an extra six months after they leave the Gulf to file their 1040s.

Source: Adapted from guidelines prepared by judge advocate general, U.S. Navy