Drop in Volunteers Curtails Legal Aid for Needy : Justice: Model program has been forced to stop taking certain new cases because fewer lawyers are volunteering free services.

Donna, a 20-year-old Carlsbad woman, has a 7-month-old daughter and a broken marriage. She fears her husband. She desperately wants a divorce.

Donna has no job and gets by on welfare. With no extra money to hire a lawyer to file the divorce papers, she paid a visit earlier this summer to the San Diego Volunteer Lawyer Program, the agency that matches people in need of legal aid with lawyers willing to help for free. Two months have passed, going on three--and still, Donna doesn’t have an attorney.

“Things are getting desperate,” Donna said, asking that her last name not be used. “My husband, when he comes over once a week to see (the baby), he comes over when he’s been drinking and he makes comments about (the girl) sexually. It makes me really uncomfortable. I need a divorce, and I need it immediately.”

For the first time in years, the Volunteer Lawyer Program finds itself unable to help. Hit hard by the recession and abandoned by attorneys, the program has stopped taking certain new cases--a move that essentially denies legal help to poor people facing marital or child support problems, needing disability benefits or coping with AIDS or the HIV virus.

The number of people needing legal attention has so greatly outstripped the supply of lawyers willing to donate their time that the program shut its doors in mid-July, officials said. It still is not yet clear when business will return to normal, officials said.

“I feel so desperate to get these cases out,” said Carl R. Poirot, executive director of the program. “But we can’t do it.”

The move marks the first time the Volunteer Lawyer Program has had to close its doors for an extended period, an unexpected setback for an agency that has become well known for its remarkable success.

Poirot arrived in San Diego six years ago. Since then, the Volunteer Lawyer Program has earned a reputation as a model program, an always-ready provider of free legal services for the needy. “It is not only known statewide but nationally,” said John Seitman, a San Diego lawyer and current president of the State Bar of California. “It’s a wonderful program.”

All lawyers are supposed to volunteer their time, efforts lumped under the label pro bono, shorthand from the Latin phrase meaning “for the public good.” The private bar has a long and distinguished tradition of working for free--though it’s an ongoing sore spot with bar leaders that most lawyers don’t do pro bono work because they are motivated mainly by money.

For years, however, Poirot has been able to wheedle lawyers to help out, stressing the notion that doing good is its own reward. He also reminds newer attorneys that the program offers practical experience not available to most young lawyers, who rarely see the inside of a courtroom.

The program takes in about 10,000 cases a year, most of which require only a one-time visit with a lawyer, Poirot said.

About 8,000 lawyers practice in San Diego County, according to the State Bar of California. About 1,300 lawyers volunteer their time, 1,000 regularly, Poirot said.

About 500 paralegals, secretaries and law students also pitch in, he said.

This summer, however, the number of attorneys actually volunteering diminished sharply, Poirot said. It had become routine to average 30 to 35 phone calls just to place a case with a willing attorney, Poirot said.

“In some instances,” Poirot said in a memorandum that circulated last month among San Diego lawyers, “attorneys are even asking us to take back cases they have already agreed to handle.”

When the program’s backlog of pending cases grew to about 150, Poirot said, officials decided in mid-July to close the intake doors.

Still open is the program’s domestic violence prevention project, which accounts for some 70% of the workload. The service runs clinics at the Family Court in downtown San Diego and at county courthouses in El Cajon and Vista.

But, in July, the program stopped taking three categories of new cases.

Particularly “painful,” Poirot said, was the decision to turn away people infected with the HIV virus, with legal needs ranging from will-writing to insurance coverage disputes.

The HIV-related caseload this year had been running markedly higher than last year, Poirot said.

For instance, in April, 1992, the program served 101 clients, up 18 from April, 1991. In July, 1992, even though the doors were closed mid-month to new cases, the HIV-related caseload hit 112. That was a 34% hike over July, 1991, when the count was 83.

Beginning in July, the program also opted to begin turning away social security appeals for the disabled. It actually had to send 26 social security cases back to the county Department of Social Services, saying no lawyers could be found.

The program also stopped taking family law cases, meaning child support, paternity suits and divorces.

“These are compelling situations for people in dire need of legal assistance,” Poirot said in the memo. “If we do not help them, they have no other legal resources to turn to.”

He added in an interview: “Some of the (lawyer) volunteers on our register, we need to get out there and pump them up.”

Why the program has suddenly run into trouble remains unclear.

“We don’t know whether this is a function of vacation, the fact that it’s summertime or whether it’s something else going on, something that might be related to the recession,” Poirot said.

Bar leaders said the culprit is the recession.

“It’s a tough business climate,” said Anthony J. Battaglia, president of the San Diego County Bar Assn. “There are lawyers out of work. For those working, their offices have been impacted by the financial strain. Sometimes attention has to be devoted to making the overhead, meaning time for volunteer functions is less.”

It’s abundantly clear that the recession is the reason why the Volunteer Lawyer Program’s funding is down sharply.

The program relies, in large part, on federal and state funds to pay for staff and overhead, but federal funding this year is likely to be flat and the state is giving it less money.

In fiscal 1992, the federal government allocated the Volunteer Lawyer Program $209,845, its share of a huge pot doled out to legal aid groups around the nation. In fiscal 1993, though rent is up and the cost of malpractice insurance is up, the federal government is once again projecting a grant of $209,845, according to program documents.

State funds come via the State Bar of California, which allocates money to pro bono programs around the state from the interest-bearing client trust account each California lawyer is required to maintain.

Because of complicated revenue sharing formulas and because banks have lowered interest rates dramatically, the State Bar’s fiscal 1993 grant to the San Diego program is down 15% from 1992, from $261,716 to $224,128.

Other funding sources remain uncertain, and the San Diego program’s projected fiscal 1993 revenue total, $495,728, is down 12% from the 1992 total, $561,646, according to program figures.

To compensate, Poirot said he has made the rounds in recent weeks, seeking corporate and charitable help. The San Diego County Bar Foundation, the local bar association’s charitable arm, is due this month to consider a $20,000 or $30,000 grant, officials said.

Until more money comes through, Poirot said, the program will be unable to fill two staff positions. One is a paralegal slot. The other, an “intake and referral specialist,” works at the heart of the program, assigning clients needing help to volunteer attorneys.

The 12 people still on staff--11 plus Poirot--are eager for relief. “God, do we ever need help,” staffer Carol Rogers said.

So, said 20-year-old Donna, does she. And she’s not sure what to do.

“I’m just stuck all the way around,” Donna said. “But I think I’m in a lot of company. I think there are a lot of people in my situation and, probably, situations a lot worse than mine. Financially, we can not afford to pay a lawyer. I know I can’t. But believe it--we need the help.”