I’ve been going on and on over the course of this fall semester pointing out times when a social worker may need to find their client a lawyer. I’ve provided links and told you what courts your clients’ case should be heard in but what I’ve failed to mention  (probably because it pains me to do so) is just how incredibly difficult it can be to simply find your client representation. Lawyers are expensive. Unfortunately, most of the punchlines of those all too familiar lawyer jokes are rooted in truth. Its a rare occasion to have a client who can afford to pay a lawyer hundreds of dollars an hour because really who can? Its on account of this that the organizations that provide free legal aid are so over taxed. Their resources are limited and accessing them for our client can be a challenge. As someone who does intake for one such organization, I thought I might be in a position to give you some strategic tips to increase the chances that your client attain free attorney services::

• First, do the unthinkable and MAKE FRIENDS WITH A LAWYER. I’m kidding. You don’t have to be friends but honestly, make a connection, get familiar. The project that I work on has several social worker “friends” to whom we refer clients when they need help with applying for benefits  or if  they are in need of counseling. In turn, when the social workers have clients who need assistance with legal matters, they refer them to us and to the best of our ability, we make them a priority. We do this mostly because we expect the same from them. Its the kind of relationship that we wouldn’t want in our personal lives, one built entirely on tit-for-tat transactions but its mutually beneficial for all clients and that’s really all that matters.

• Advise your clients to be forthcoming with information during the intake procedure. I know, one has every right to be wary of a stranger asking very personal questions but, in this case, they have to open up. Warn them prior to their call that they will be asked for personal information. For example when I conduct an  intake, I have to get information like social security numbers, employment history, financial status, assets, abuse history, etc. Its a lot of information but I’m not asking to be voyeuristic. Its pertinent to the case or it has to be collected to retain our funding. Intake is the first time we encounter a potential client and impressions are important when resources are so limited. It just makes more sense to take five cases of people who are responsible and organized than to take one case where the client is not cooperative.

• If your client is already in court, help them to determine procedurally where the case is. Have them gather all their court documents (anything they have filed, been served with or been given by the judge). Make sure they offer to send these documents to the person doing the intake.  If the intake worker wants them, make sure the papers are sent in a timely manner. A lawyer can’t advise your client about their case without all the case information. If your client isn’t sure whats happening in the case, look it up with them on Ecourts using the index number or their name.

• Lastly and maybe most importantly, shop around. Your client should call all the legal aid organizations in their area. Go through the intake process with everyone, no matter how tedious. Call the hotline numbers over and over again until you get through. Don’t just leave arbitrary messages on random extensions, tell them to be sure to talk to someone in the appropriate unit of the organization.  Its all really comes down to timing. Maybe one organization will have a full caseload when your client reaches them, maybe the next one won’t. Don’t let your client put all their eggs in one basket.

Its a precarious game, for sure. Obtaining free legal services in the midst of extreme budget cuts from the government may not be easy, I won’t lie to you. Luckily for our clients though, they have us as teammates to develop strategic game plans with and, who knows. maybe our support and assistance will be the edge they need to successfully “win” representation.

In one of my classes this week, a classmate of mine was telling us about a challenging situation that had occurred during her field placement a day prior. What struck me most about her story was her incredibly empathetic response to her client.  In a time when many would have been angry at their supervisor for putting them in such a difficult situation, the student was thinking only of the client she was working with – a client who happened to be a drug addicted veteran. My classmate lamented about how much she wanted to help her client and how she wasn’t sure that her agency was capable of providing him all the help he needed and deserved…. “for goodness sake…. he’s a veteran” she ended.  The room fell silent. We were quiet because many of us shared her frustration. We’d seen our clients, our friends, our family members volunteer to fight in our country’s war only to return and struggle to process what that they had been through, struggle to reintegrate into a society of civilians, struggle to gain access to resources that could help them with all their other struggles.

According to Justice for Vets, its estimated that about 20% (about 460,000) of the 2.4 million post 9/11 troops suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and/or major depression. One in six of the post 9/11 troops will develop a substance abuse problem, many as a way to cope with the symptoms of their PTSD or depression. In some cases, on account of their substance abuse, veterans find themselves in trouble with the law.

Judge Robert Russell noticed this trend as he presided over drug related cases in Buffalo, NY. He saw veterans coming before him in alarming numbers and decided to do something about it.  In January 2008, he established the first Veterans Treatment Court in the country. Now in 2013, there 104 veterans treatment courts following the Buffalo model (including here in New York City), with many others in development.  This model diverts eligible former serviceman to a specialized criminal court docket and provides a much deserved second chance to veterans who have run amiss of the law. The veterans are identified by the court once they enter the system through “evidence- based screening and assessment.” Though it varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, generally this means the veteran had no prior record before entering the service, is chemically dependent or mentally ill and demonstrates that they have the capacity to take advantage of the opportunity being presented to them. If they are deemed eligible, veterans must agree to participate in a judicially supervised treatment plan. This is not an easy road. The probation period in veterans court is actually much more strict than they would be subjected to in regular criminal court. It typically lasts two years with a regular court appearances (as often as every two weeks) to check on the veteran’s treatment status. They must submit to regular drug testing as well. Veterans are assigned peer mentors. There are mental health providers from the VA present in court with them to speak to the services they are receiving through the VA. The court is designed to promote recovery and stability by addressing the myriad of problems that led to the veteran’s arrest and linking them with the benefits and services they earned during their time in the military. In this way the court hopes to prevent any future arrests. They have been very successful in this regard.  Arguably, the reason these courts seem to be so effective for veterans is that it provides them again with the structure and accountability they lost when they were discharged from the services. In researching the veterans treatment court, I came across many testimonials from former service members attesting to the success of veterans-only dockets and crediting the court with saving their lives.

    The problem, of course, with veterans treatment court is that it is largely a reactive strategy; we wait until the veteran’s life has already fallen apart before we attempt to intervene. As social workers, we should be at the forefront of services for veterans, providing counseling and helping them to access benefits before they ever meet the criminal justice system. An organization called Give an Hour coordinates social service providers who donate their time for veterans all over the country, you can register at giveanhour.org.  This could serve to be a preventative measure for some veterans who might otherwise end up in the criminal justice system.  In the event that we do come across veterans who would be good candidates for veterans treatment court, we can advocate to have their cases transferred there by pointing them out to the court in our area or calling the lawyer from the district attorney’s office who is prosecuting their case. With a growing number of service men and women returning from war, our social work services will be needed more than ever. We should all join Judge Russell, the treatment courts and my classmates in saying “Thank you for service, now how can we better serve you?”

For more information about veterans treatment court, you can visit Justice for Vets’ website.

OR, check out this recording of the The Diane Rehm Show on NPR discussing Veterans Treatment Court.

Sometimes its our smallest decisions that end up shaping our futures. Three years ago, I was slinging landscaping stone in California feeling, to put it mildly, unfulfilled. Since, as it turns out, there isn’t a high demand for pebbles made of jade in Southern California, I found myself with a great deal of downtime. I filled this downtime in a variety of ways. I played online scrabble with my co-worker. I napped in the sun on our outdoor patio ( I never said I was a good employee).  I g-chatted with my friends back in my home state of Michigan. During one particularly rainy week, I found myself perusing the The Innocence Project website to pass time. For those of you not familiar with the project (and who are too lazy to click on the link), its a litigation organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals who are currently in prison. I spent hours reading the stories of people who had been bullied, failed by our criminal justice system and as a result had lost their freedom and, essentially, their life.  I was inspired by the work the Innocence Project undertook to correct current and prevent future injustice.  I wondered how I could get involved in such a pursuit.

Fast forwarding three years, that one small decision to click on a webpage led to a series of rather large decisions. I put an end to the beach and my landscaping pebble days, moved to New York City and completed a paralegal program through NYU’s School of Continuing and Professional Education.  I found a job as a paralegal on a project that provides free legal aid to domestic violence victims and enrolled in the Silver School’s MSW program. In short, I landed myself in a position to further the mission of the Innocence project, correcting and preventing injustice imposed on our country’s most vulnerable populations.

During a recent trip to the Kings County Supreme Court house in my capacity as a paralegal, I rode the elevator from the 10th floor down to 1st with some court employees. As we reached our destination ( I swear I could not even have scripted this if I wanted), one employee said to another who was pushing a file cart, “We really need to get a new wheel for that.”  I looked down to see that the file cart had only three wheels. “It fell off,” he replied. Boy, was he right; The wheel has, so to speak, fallen off of our court system.  Residents in the Bronx are being robbed of due process. The prison system is being used to house our country’s seriously mentally ill. Domestic violence victims have been evicted for calling the police “too many” times on their abuser. Just to name a few….

It is my goal, over the course of next year, to draw some attention to these issues, to the interaction of the populations we most commonly work with and the court system. I’m striving to create discussion around the role of social workers in this area. I want to use this blog to advocate for social justice in our justice system; in effect, propelling my small decision to click on the Innocence Project website years ago into a force for change. And, by doing this, who knows,  maybe, inspire  some others into making “small” decisions of their own.