Good afternoon, and welcome.
I'm John Levi.
And I'm privileged to serve as the 10th Chair
of the Board of the Legal Services Corporation.
And thank you all for coming today
for this briefing on the importance of civil legal aid
to American business.
I especially want to thank the distinguished members
of our panel-- it's not on-- corporate counsel and officers
of some of our nation's leading companies.
They have traveled from across the country
to be with us today.
And they will shortly be introduced
by the panel's moderator, LSC's outstanding President,
Jim Sandman.
Today, we hear why civil legal aid matters to business.
But for a moment, I would like to discuss the converse--
why business matters to civil legal aid.
And I'm not talking about some of the more obvious reasons--
financial support, pro bono committees--
as important as they are.
American businesses can play a crucial role to civil legal aid
by just spreading a message about the crisis
in the civil justice system that exists
and help us get it out to the rest of the society.
You see, unfortunately, that message has not
been as understood as it ought to be.
Stakeholders in the legal aid world
convene conferences, where people in the
know talk to others in the know in front of yet others in the
know.
And the lack of knowledge about the crisis
became painfully apparent to me as I
have visited with leaders of some of the nation's largest
law firms.
And many of them have no idea who LSC is.
It was founded many years ago-- another time,
another generation.
Even though they're doing their own pro bono,
they haven't put it all together.
They don't fully appreciate the gravity of the challenge
confronting us.
So if the members of the legal community
aren't aware of the major crisis,
how can we expect people outside the profession to know?
In my view, we have to quickly expand
and greatly, so those who understand
speak about the threat this crisis
poses for our country's confidence
in the orderly functioning of our civil justice system
and the rule of law.
And having paid little attention to the gravity of these issues
for, now, a few generations-- those of us here now-- we
have an obligation to those that succeed us to speak
up and change the formula.
We just can't kick this can down the road
and put our democracy at risk.
With the help of the people here today on our panel,
we can help begin to have a larger and better
understanding.
Access to justice is a core American value.
And remaining true to those values
requires the engagement of everyone in our society.
And that engagement can only be won, in my view,
when the messengers are way beyond just the legal aid
community and the legal profession.
So help us take up the cause.
And that brings me to our host, Congresswoman, Susan Brooks.
Congressman, Joseph Kennedy.
Both of them-- one, a former US attorney.
The other, a district attorney.
Lawyers passionate about this issue,
thank you so much for being here.
Thank you for creating this important caucus
and helping us reach many more who
need to know about the crisis.
Which one of you is speaking first?
Whichever one has-- come on up, Joe.
Susan?
Thank you.
I won the coin toss.
Good.
Thank you.
Hello.
Hello, everyone.
Unfortunately, as you probably see us--
you see us walking in the halls, all the time,
reading our iPhones.
And we always are over scheduled.
And I apologize that this is one of those days
that I, too, am over scheduled.
But I want to thank all of you for taking time out
of your busy schedules to be here today.
It's wonderful to be with you.
I want to thank the panelists, who I just met.
Thank you so much for coming and speaking with staff
and with people who are very interested and concerned
about this topic.
I've been an attorney for 31 years.
That's a long time, as I think about it.
Not only in private practice for a number of years, but also
involved in my local Bar Association,
then as a US attorney, then as a general counsel
for my state's community college.
And every job I've had, I know of the importance
of legal representation for the indigent.
I've been in courtrooms where I have
watched litigants trying to litigate
their own case by themselves.
I've been in the situation where judges would so much rather
have a good lawyer as someone being across the aisle
from them or across the courtroom from them.
It is so important to our system of justice
to have the good lawyers representing people
and ensuring that people have an access
and have access to our democracy.
That's what it's about.
60 million Americans-- one in five, these days,
qualify for free civil legal aid.
One in five.
That's an amazing statistic.
And unfortunately, more than 50% of those seeking help
are turned away because of the limited resources available.
Civil legal aid helps them access those basic necessities,
such as health care.
I actually participated recently in a new and growing phenomenon
called medical legal partnerships discussions.
And Legal Services and other groups
are helping lead those discussions
about how we can assist people with medical needs with also
their legal needs at the time that they are working
in the health care system.
Housing issues, government benefits,
employment, education services.
Many of you may not realize that members of Congress
have constituent services-- caseworkers-- but we have
to remind these people, when they calm our constituents,
we're not their lawyers.
We're there to make inquiries of the federal agencies they
might be battling with, but they so often need legal help.
And so we refer them to Legal Services
or to other organizations to try to help them because there's
only so much that we can do.
We know that a New York Task Force
study found that every $1 invested in civil legal aid
delivers $6 in return to the state's economy
because it's resolving problems.
So government actually will save money,
which means we, as taxpayers, save money,
if we can help people resolve these issues in court,
in the best means possible.
And that means having a lawyer.
And so closing this justice gap and securing necessary access
to civil legal assistance is so important.
I'm very proud to have co-founded this civil legal aid
caucus at the urgency, quite frankly,
of Congressman Joe Kennedy.
Congressman Kennedy and I came into Congress together.
We found that we had quite a few interests in common, both
come from manufacturing states.
Sadly, now we find that both of our states
are battling, in a significant way,
the opioid pandemic across the country.
And in fact, we're co-sponsoring a bill
that's being marked up yet this afternoon.
And so it does take bipartisan efforts like this
to get the attention of our colleagues.
We hope to get more of our colleagues
to join this important caucus.
I want to thank all of you for coming out today
to learn more about what role Congress
has to play in trying to make sure
that more and more litigants, more and more people have
access to legal services.
I'm very proud of the legal profession.
Who would guess that now it's easier
to say I'm a lawyer than say I'm a member of Congress
when I'm talking to people?
But I will tell you that I'm very
pleased that so many of you-- and I also want, for those
of you who are not lawyers-- who are young staffers, who
are here, and who might be contemplating--
and a lot of times young staffers have the notion,
should I go to law school?
Should I consider it at some point in my career?
And I will say, yes, because the fine work that you do here
can be expanded back home in your own communities,
helping the types of constituents and people
who need your services.
There are lots of incredible ways
to give back outside of Capitol Hill.
And becoming a lawyer-- so for those young staffers
who are contemplating it, I encourage
you to give it more thought.
So thank you all for your attention to this.
Thank you for being here.
And we look forward to expanding the caucus and its work.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
There are seats up here.
The front row is this for a reason.
People can sit.
There are seats over here, too.
And there are seats over here.
That means leaving the food.
That's the problem.
So a big shout out, first off, to LSC Governor Ferris folks,
and LSC that not only put together
an incredible panel of some of the top lawyers in the country,
but also knew that the best way to get a good turnout
on the Hill is to offer lunch.
So well done.
John, thank you.
Thank you for the leadership you've shown,
and leading the way on the Board of LSC.
Your family's deep respect for the law and what
that means for this country and for individuals, I think,
speaks very highly as to the mission, obviously,
of the Legal Services Corporation.
But it's truly about the promise and profession of the law,
ensuring that-- as somebody whose father
led the Justice Department understands--
the law is supposed to apply evenly
and equitably to everybody.
So really, I'm honored.
And thank you for all that you've
done over the course of the past couple of days, all
that you've done this past year.
Staff members in the room will appreciate-- you
guys are some of the most energetic, dedicated people
you can ever find.
I've got Eric Fins that I have tried to wear down
over the past three years.
He's still standing.
He's run ragged by John Levi over the last three days.
It has been amazing, John, so thank you.
To the panelists that have come, literally,
from all over the country-- I'm so honored
that you would be willing to be here on this.
I'm eager to hear your comments.
This has been an issue and a topic that's
been important to me for a while,
since I was running around as a legal aid volunteer in law
school and then as a prosecutor in our district courts.
And the hardest cases I tried weren't
against a really good attorney, they
were against a really bad one.
And in housing court in Boston, seeing the difference
in the outcome of a case just because somebody
was represented by counsel or not.
In Massachusetts, in the Boston Housing Court,
two thirds of the folks that are represented by counsel
keep their homes.
Two thirds of the folks that are not, lose it.
That's just because you got somebody that can navigate
their way through the system.
So I know why this is so important to me.
And I've seen it.
I think I've got an appreciation as to why
this is important for our country,
particularly coming out of the halls of Congress,
where we write and we fight about every little word,
in every little bill, and then give hardly any consideration
as to how those protections and rights are actually applied,
and whether they apply the same to you as they do to me,
and whether I can avail myself of those protections
the same way you can, or if they're, in fact, completely
disparately impacting various aspects of our country
and people in our communities.
What I am thrilled about though is that LSC and our panelists
here are willing to talk about why
this is important to business and what
this means for our business community,
particularly as we have pure global corporations that
operate also in every corner of our country.
And they can talk about, I think, how the law applies
and what the rule of law means when
it is evenly applied in communities and when it is not.
And what this means for your employees,
as folks that you look out for.
And make sure that they have the ability to protect themselves,
to protect their families, and have access to the justice
system to seek redress, when, in fact, they've been harmed.
And to have the representation we have up here speaks volumes
about the institutions you represent
and the importance of this as an issue
that I think Congress needs to focus on.
And clearly, it has gotten a fantastic resonance
across Capitol Hill.
So I'm grateful that you're here.
Thank you for including me.
John and Jim, I'm honored to be your partner.
Let us know what I can do.
Thank you.
Thank you, Congressman Kennedy and Congresswoman Brooks.
I'm Jim Sandman.
I'm the President of the Legal Services Corporation.
I'll briefly introduce our panelists.
To my far right is Kate Adams, who
is Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Honeywell.
To my immediate right is judge Sven Holmes,
Vice Chairman and Chief Legal Officer of KPMG.
He served as a federal district judge for many years.
Bob Millen is to my left.
He's Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel of Pizza Hut.
And to his left is Laura Stein, Executive Vice President
and General Counsel of The Clorox Company.
I'd like to briefly set the stage before we begin
the discussion among our panel and tell you
something about what the Legal Services Corporation is,
what civil legal aid is, and what
the current state of access to civil justice for low income
people in the United States is.
The Legal Services Corporation was established
by an act of Congress in 1974.
It is, today, the country's single largest funder
of civil legal aid for low income people.
We provide funding to 134 independent legal aid programs,
serving every county in every state and the territories
as well.
No matter where you are in the United States,
there's an LSC-funded legal aid program,
providing legal assistance to low income people.
Civil legal aid provides legal assistance in the civil justice
system for people who cannot afford a lawyer.
Most Americans do not realize that you have no right
to a lawyer in a civil case.
You can lose your home.
You can have your children taken away from you.
You can be a victim of domestic violence in need
of a civil protection order and you have no right to a lawyer.
The constitutional right to counsel
applies only in criminal cases.
The need for assistance in civil legal cases is huge.
As Congresswoman Brooks mentioned,
20% of the American population is, today,
financially eligible for civil legal aid
at an LSC-funded program.
The standard is 125% of the federal poverty guideline.
What that means is that if you make more than $15,000
as an individual or more than $30,000 as a family of four,
you're not qualified.
But the number of people who are-- 60 million people,
20% of the American population.
The resources available aren't nearly
sufficient to meet the demand, so the state
of civil legal justice in the United States today
is desperate.
A recent study in Massachusetts by the Boston Bar Association
showed that of people who showed up, seeking help at a legal aid
organization in Massachusetts, 64% were turned away
with no help at all.
The result is that across courts in our country,
huge numbers of people show up without a lawyer.
It is common, in eviction cases, for 95% or more
of tenants to have no lawyer, even though 95% or more
of landlords do have a lawyer.
It's common for 95% of parents in child support cases
to have no lawyer.
And two thirds of homeowners in foreclosure cases
to have no lawyer.
Imagine that.
We have a legal system that was created, largely,
by lawyers, for lawyers.
Constructed at every turn on the assumption
that you have a lawyer.
Everything from the rules of civil procedure
to the rules of evidence were designed with lawyers in mind.
So just try to picture yourself in court,
at risk of losing your children, or needing
a protection order against an abuser,
and trying to go it alone.
That's what we're talking about.
I'd like to start by asking all of our panelists
the same question-- why are you here?
It would not strike most people as obvious
that the chief legal officers of name-brand American companies
would care about civil legal aid for low income people
and about the state of access to justice in the United States
today.
Why do you care?
And why does your business care?
Kate, do you want to start?
Yes.
Thank you very much for inviting me to participate.
I thank both Congresswoman Brooks and Congressman
Kennedy for posting this panel.
And Jim, for your remarks.
And I think it's a legitimate question--
why would I be here, as the General Counsel of Honeywell?
But when John Levi, my former law partner called and said,
would you participate on this panel?
My answer was an immediate yes.
By way of a little background, I did work
in the Bronx court system between college and law school.
And I saw, firsthand, the challenges of one
of the most difficult jurisdictions in the country.
And I was a Department of Justice
lawyer for a number of years before going
into private practice.
But I'm actually here in my capacity
as a representative of a Fortune 100 global industrial company.
We have 130,000 employees all over the world.
We make everything that goes on an aircraft.
We make all kinds of diversified materials--
industrial controls, bulletproof materials for our soldiers,
and many, many other things in the industrial space.
And these issues are critical to the ongoing success
of our business enterprise.
One of the things that has made America
such a foundational location for successful global business
is its civil institutions.
And every day, we depend on those institutions
to support our company.
We can't count on the rule of law,
if we can't count on our government structures
to provide us with predictability,
with a fair system, and a system that the American population
can also support.
We run the risk of having our entire business
enterprise compromised.
And if you think about what's happening around the globe--
and we can all think of some countries.
Just recently, Brazil-- where we have a large presence--
is having significant social and political instability.
And then you can think about many other places
where many of us here do business.
Those stand in stark contrast to what America stands for
and to the institutions that we need to protect and cherish
to make sure that our civil society
and our economic environment continues to flourish
as it has in the past.
Fraying around the edges in this election,
you can feel the anxiety and the feeling
that many people-- particularly those
who are not economically as well off as others-- are not
able to participate as fully in many aspects of our society,
but, in particular, our court systems.
And I don't need to repeat the statistics,
but, clearly, if you have 60 million people who
are eligible for Legal Services funding, that's
a very large number of people who
are going to struggle to get appropriate representation.
And there's a lot of fall out from that,
in terms of how our court system operates
and how it affects companies.
We're a regular litigant.
In pretty much every state in the country,
at one time or another, we, as a litigator,
are in court, defending our rights
or pursuing affirmative opportunities.
And the state court systems are, pretty much, a mess.
It takes forever to get things resolved.
We wait and we get continuances.
A big part of the challenge is we
don't have the infrastructure and, in particular,
the legal support, the counsel support,
to move many of these cases through the system
in an appropriate and equitable way.
And so we directly feel that impact.
And we also feel the impact on our jury pool.
The jurors get frustrated.
And I can understand that.
And they react negatively to what
they perceive as an unhealthy, and inefficient,
and potentially unfair judicial system.
And that can result in a skewing of outcomes
to other players who are trying to achieve fair results in jury
cases.
Now I think, fundamentally, the court system
kind of represents the best of what America stands for.
But we're watching it get worse, not better.
And we don't want to see our cherished institutions,
our valued institutions become mocked, or not trusted,
or fundamentally have a large group of people feel like they
cannot have fair access to it because it undermines
confidence in the overall governmental institutions that
we all depend on to be able to do business effectively
and to employ people.
And one last point on this.
Most of the people who work at Honeywell can afford a lawyer,
but that doesn't mean they're not participants in this court
system.
And when they are on leave because they're
dealing with issues that are dragging on in court system,
they're not working.
And the ripple effect, which was mentioned earlier,
is very profound.
We see the effect of somebody not being
able to come to the office.
And then somebody else has to do that work or someone else
has work that line in the factory.
And it has a real economic impact.
The individual impact may be small,
but the cumulative impact is very significant.
So those are a few of our thoughts on this.
And I really commend you for bringing us together,
so that we can participate in this dialogue, Jim.
Thank you, Kate.
So business has a very important interest
in the stability of civil institutions
and particularly in the stability
of an institution as central to our society as the justice
system is.
Also, as you heard, when court systems are not
functioning efficiently because large numbers of people
are not represented and trying to navigate
this unfamiliar system alone, it clogs things up.
It slows cases down for people who would have counsel.
It's inefficient.
And that inefficiency is manifested
in any number of ways-- the slow pace at which cases move
through the court system puts the imposition on people
who have to appear in court, whether as litigants or jurors.
So thank you for a very clear explanation.
Sven, can you give us your perspective?
Sure.
I think there are a couple of things that really, to me, are
of vital importance.
First of all, I would like to thank Congresswoman Brooks
and also Congressman Kennedy for all their work in this regard.
And it's a real opportunity.
And I appreciate being asked by John
to participate in this panel, to talk
about this topic, which is a matter of very keen importance.
Before I was on the federal bench for 10 years,
I was also a partner here, in Washington D.C,
at Williams and Connolly.
And I've spent a lot of time dealing with these issues,
both in those areas as well as a member of the Equal Justice
Works' Board of Directors.
So a couple of perspectives on this, coming out of those
experiences-- I think, from a business standpoint,
it's important to step back and ask yourself,
what is it that are the predominant things
that the civil justice system is addressing on behalf of people?
The primary things, the most important things,
deal with bankruptcy, with benefits,
with domestic relations, and with housing.
When you think about a workforce that
is facing into a number of challenges in their home life--
they're trying to make sure that they
have adequate benefits, health benefits, benefits that
will be for their children, housing,
trying make sure that if they have domestic relations
issues, or bankruptcy, or financial issues--
you can see the disruption, the distraction, the problems
that it creates to be dealing with those issues.
And to be dealing with those issues without any support,
without any help, with all the time invested
in it, with the complexities invested in it,
then all of those things go directly
to a business concern, which should be
a concern that all of us share.
And that is that those disruptions are taken out
of the workplace, that those things are
being handled and dealt with.
And that these people are being able to address those home
problems without the kind of impact
that it has on their work day, on their lives,
on their ability to be strong and contributing members
of society and of the economy.
So business has a very real interest
in making sure that those issues are being addressed adequately.
The second thing coming out of my time
as a judicial officer really does
have to do with the fair administration of justice.
One of the things that's a most powerful reality of our system
is that good lawyers beat bad lawyers.
It really makes a difference-- the quality, the energy,
the insights, and experience that have as a lawyer.
Now multiply that by 100-fold.
Good lawyers or bad lawyers beating no lawyers at all.
We are a rule of law, but the rule of law
has with it sets of rules.
Those are the fundamental cornerstones
and guiding principles that make our system effective.
But people unable to navigate those rules,
unable to actually access the rule of law
because they don't have the capacity
to utilize the rules that would demonstrate what their case was
really about, and to reach the substantive concerns about that
case-- a failure of accessing rules,
in itself, is a failure to access the rule of law.
So the administration of justice and the fair administration
of justice is absolutely dependent upon the ability
to operate through the system, to make
it work, to make your case and the facts of your case known,
and then to permit it to be decided
on the facts of the case, not decided because of an inability
to actually navigate through the system.
So those are the two things I'd leave you all with.
Thank you, Sven.
Very useful to have the perspective
not only of a Corporate General Counsel,
but of a former Federal Trial Judge.
Bob, what's your perspective on these issues?
Well, first of all, thank you for having me
here, particularly John Levi, Jim, and Congresswoman Brooks,
and Congressman Kennedy.
It's an honor to be here with the panel
to talk about this important issue.
When I originally got sent a preview of the questions,
I have to say that it was a daunting task.
It was tie-in the effect of access
to justice to your business.
And I was thinking, OK, how can I tie-in access to justice
with the delivery of a hot, savory pizza
to your doorstep on time?
The more I thought about it-- and I
think that's what John wanted to me to do,
was to think about it a little more,
as a corporate representative-- the more that I
wanted to take the challenge.
And maybe I can even meet it in less than 30 minutes.
What I can tell you is, without delivering a civics lesson--
travelling all the way from Dallas to here,
to the Capitol Building, it's not exactly the appropriate
thing to do-- is that Pizza Hut does believe what you've heard,
consistently, from other representatives.
And that is that our business, like many businesses,
relies on a society that is predictable and that is stable.
And the promise to access to justice
plays an important part in that.
And to the extent that the promise of access to justice
is a growing far too greatly distant
from the actual provision of access to justice,
it creates problems.
Those problems show up in the headlines
and they show up in our business.
And they wear on the belief and the rule of law.
And they begin to tear up the fabric of society
in a way that disrupts what we rely on at Pizza Hut--
and that is predictability and stability.
That's as a general matter.
I can also talk about, personally, at Pizza Hut,
at our family, we're a big corporation.
We're a microcosm of society, in many ways.
Not to try to match numbers of employees here,
but we have 150,000.
We have 150,000 employees who are operating in the US
under the Pizza Hut brand.
Our sister brands, Taco Bell and KFC,
add another more than 350,000.
So the total is almost a half million individuals
that are operating under our brands in the US.
And it's an extremely robust group.
It's diverse.
And I can guarantee you that it is representative of a society.
And in that sense, the challenge that we have,
given that we have as our business
model-- it's no secret-- a very competitive cost structure,
is what can we do for our employees?
And particularly employees who are really the principal point
of contact with our customers.
And they are the salvation of our brand, transaction
by transaction.
And that is we can provide support for them,
we can respect them.
We can respect them in ways that go beyond just simply words,
but in the deeds.
And that really is the link, in my mind,
between what we try to do, day in and day out,
as we're looking, as managers of the business,
for what we can do to support our employees, our team
members, out on the front lines of the restaurants.
And that is we can look at those things
and support them, both at the workplace and in their lives.
And one of those is, of course, the Legal Services Corporation.
And it's an essential item, particularly
for a group like ours, as you know,
that doesn't occupy the highest levels
of the economic, social strata.
And they need help.
There are situations where, virtually on a daily basis,
if we have a team member who is running into a situation
where access to justice is either denied, or is not
available, or is delayed, it's disruptive.
It's disruptive in obvious ways.
That is, to the individual.
It's also disruptive to the other team
members in the restaurant.
It's disruptive to the other culture
that we work very hard to try to maintain at the company
and that is, we're there for you.
But we're not there for you in a lot
of circumstances that fall under this issue of access
to justice.
We have to be honest with ourselves.
It's a gap and it's a growing gap.
It's one that we need to address.
I'm happy that John has brought it into sharp focus for me
and for our company.
We like to believe that we're doing an awful lot,
but we, Legal Services Corporation and others,
need to work even harder at narrowing
the gap between the promise and the reality.
And I'm happy to be here to talk about that.
Thank you, Bob.
I'm hearing some themes emerge from all of the comments here--
business cares about the stability
of civil institutions.
They care about public confidence
in civil institutions.
And they care about the effect on their employees
when the justice system is not well functioning, efficient,
and accessible to people.
Laura?
Thanks, Jim.
And thanks so much to Congresswoman Brooks,
and Congressman Kennedy, and to John, and Jim, and all of you
for inviting us to be here.
The work that is being done by Legal Services Corporation
to help address the desperate need by so many less advantaged
members of our society, economically,
to meet their daily needs-- it's just tremendous,
the work that you do.
It's much appreciated.
The question about either why business
or why I, personally care so much about access to justice
being equal access and equal justice
has some parts that are very rational.
And then it has some parts that just
speak from the heart as the right thing
to do, as a caring member of our society.
So from a rational standpoint, you
talked about some of the reasons why businesses
care that we have social cohesion and greater
social stability.
It's because with that, comes greater economic well-being
for everyone.
There's a correlation-- when there's
social justice and social stability,
the economy does better.
And then when companies and businesses
are involved in access to justice issues,
it's part of our corporate responsibility programs
and it can help build trust.
Generally, because when we're out there,
in the community, as a citizen, doing good work,
hopefully that instills trust in our businesses.
And then we can influence others.
So we can influence others to provide civil legal way because
of the nature of what we do.
We can encourage other businesses
to get involved because the need is so great.
And we can encourage law firms and others to do more.
And other reasons that make sense for us
to do civil legal aid is from large legal departments,
like we have.
It builds the capabilities of leadership of our lawyers.
Doing work, especially in areas that
might not be their typical practice,
they become better lawyers.
There are so many reasons why, from a business case
standpoint, it makes sense to support
equal access to equal justice.
But from a personal standpoint also-- both
personally and looking at my legal team, so many of us
went to law school because of the higher calling of the work
we can do to make our society better, more fair, more
transparent, and make a difference,
and impact individual lives that might need a little help, now
and again.
And then from all of our employees,
when they get involved in the community,
it makes it a more engaging, better place to work.
I think Bob talked about the culture of this [INAUDIBLE].
It just feels better.
And so I started out with a law firm that's very committed
to civil legal aid and it's just been part of how I was raised.
There's an obligation to give back.
Personally, I've done a lot in the domestic violence area.
For many years, I was the Chair of The American Bar Association
commission on domestic violence.
And one of the parts of our pro bono program at Clorox
involves having Clorox lawyers be in court,
providing assistance to survivors of domestic violence,
stalking, and other violence.
And the needs is so great.
We've heard the statistics, that it is 30% of the Legal Services
Corporation's cases now.
It's filling our courts and it's in just about every family
in the US.
And so when you work, individually,
with domestic violence survivors, or tenants
who need to keep a place to live,
or folks who are to re-enter and clean up
their criminal records-- all of those personal, individual
interactions making a difference in individuals' lives just
feels good.
And it reminds all of us who do that work,
and all of us in our companies who do that work,
and our own community of why it's so important that we all
need to contribute and give back.
Thank you, Laura, for emphasizing the importance
of pro bono work.
That makes a point I would like to follow up on.
The Legal Services Corporation is a great example
of a public project partnership.
It's hardly as if the legal aid programs that we fund
are entirely dependent on the ongoing appropriation
we get form Congress.
Last year, on average, the legal aid organizations
that we support got only about 38% of their funding
from the Legal Services Corporation.
They leverage the federal dollar with private contributions
and with the pro bono work of the private bar.
Not only those in law firms, but those
in corporate legal departments are putting their time
where their convictions are.
That's a powerful standpoint that they really mean
and what you're hearing the leaders
of these corporate legal departments say here, today.
Kate, can you tell us something about the pro bono work
that you and your colleagues do at Honeywell?
Yes.
That's fine.
But first of all, I want to recognize
Laura's incredible leadership and contribution
on the domestic violence issues.
She's been a leader in this area for a long time.
And it's very much appreciated and admired.
We have a significant pro bono set
of activities and commitments.
And we have an ethical obligation,
as members of the bar, to participate in pro bono.
And our lawyers love doing it.
It's something they're very passionate about.
The whole legal department is about 1,000 people.
The lawyers and many of the paralegals
actively do different kinds of pro bono.
Some examples-- what we try to do
is work in areas where we actually
have the capabilities to do the work most effectively.
So we're part of the Pro Bono Partnership.
That work is typically for non-profit organizations
that need help with their corporate paperwork,
their taxes, and that sort of thing.
We have a large defence business and we work with the William
and Mary Veterans Clinic to support veterans seeking
benefits, health care, and the like.
And that's been a wonderful partnership,
with William and Mary, and we're very proud of that.
And we also have a significant commitment
to diversity in the bar.
And we've partnered with a number of organizations-- LCLD,
Leadership Council for Legal Diversity
in one of our primary partners.
Let me make a point and provide some support for LSC
in this context.
We do what we can, as a corporate institution,
but we are not the government.
We are a business and we don't have the infrastructure to do,
for the population that needs legal support, everything
that they need.
We are truly a tiny drop in the bucket of need.
We don't have litigation capabilities,
so we can't go into court and litigate
unless we partner with a law.
There are a lot of constraints to what we're
capable of doing for this population.
And that's why it's so important that everybody here
recognize that we still need the federal government
and the state governments to take the lead here.
We're your partners.
We want to do we can, but there's just an enormous amount
of capability required that I think is just not, literally,
impossible for American business to provide.
And we can't do it as well as the people that are
trained to do this properly.
So I just make the pitch-- we're here,
but we still need your support to make sure
that LSC and its sister organizations
continue to be able to provide these services.
Thank you for plug, Kate.
It's important to recognize that pro bono lawyers are
volunteers.
And any of you who have ever volunteered
know how hard it can be to manage volunteers.
You may have volunteered with an organization that
doesn't do a good job of managing its volunteers
and you feel as if your commitment is being wasted.
So pro bono volunteers need the support
of well-funded, full time, pro bono legal services
organizations to be able to put their efforts to good use,
to find the cases for them, to train them, to mentor them,
and to follow up that.
Both elements are important.
You can hardly do all-- you would never
be able to do it all with volunteers.
Bob, can you talk about pro bono activities at Pizza Hut?
Sure.
Excuse me.
I'd be glad to.
I think I won the employee battle at 500,000,
but I lost the number of attorneys battle
rather decisively.
I'm envious.
But I would repeat an important point.
And that is our heart is in the right place and we're trying,
but our primary business is not the provision
of legal services.
So we do what we can.
And I like to believe that we attract, and we hire, and we
train, and retain individuals who
have a commitment to pro bono work, obviously,
in the legal department.
And we have also partnerships with local organizations
that need pro bono services to accomplish their missions.
One example in Dallas is a very good organization
called The Family Place.
It provides refuge-- a place to live for abused spouses
and their children.
We provide funding, we provide direct service
by way of membership on the board,
and we also provide council for how
women in need of access to justice can attain that.
And that's an important part of our mission
at the corporate headquarters-- a relationship like that.
We also work with the homeless societies
and provided similar services.
And some other organizations.
I think, on the personal side, is
what I mentioned-- the type of individuals that we'd
like to be able to attract or those what we call, smart
and with heart.
It's an expression that we use.
And we mean that.
And the hear part, as Laura was explaining,
is, are you doing the right thing?
And are we supporting you doing the right thing?
And the answer to that is a couple of examples.
One of our lawyers is handling a very important matter
for The Human Rights Organization
that has to do with a person who has
been subject to horrible abuse.
And she's invested, literally, weeks in that matter.
And we applaud her work in that and we support it.
We have other lawyers who are working on other matters that
are, I guess, what I would called more garden variety,
civil matters.
And we support that also.
Probably, the most important thing we can do for impact
is we hire a lot of legal services,
meaning we have relationships with firms,
like Sidley Austin and others.
And their primary business is the provision
of legal services.
We expect them to do great work for us.
We paid for that.
But we also ask what work they do on a pro bono basis.
And it matters.
We bring it up and we let them know that it matters.
And that's an important augment to, I think,
what we need out there.
And that is not just Legal Services Corporation,
but those who are in the best position
to provide the help that is needed do so
and maintain that commitment.
And that last one is a very important point.
Corporate legal departments, throughout the United States,
have been very effective in making it known to the law
firms that their hire that they expect
them to do pro bono work.
And it's increasingly something that they
inquire about and measure.
It's a measure of the law firm's good citizenship
that they do pro bono work.
And there are many partnerships between corporate legal
departments and the law firms that they work with, together,
to do pro bono work.
Sven, I wanted to follow up on something you said earlier.
From your perspective as a former federal judge,
you talked about how good lawyers
beat bad lawyers and lawyers beat
people who don't have lawyers.
Can you say a little more about what
it's like to be on the bench in a trial court
and have someone who doesn't have
a lawyer appear before you?
Well, as I said, the bigger problem
with people that don't have lawyers
is their ability to navigate through the system at all.
So how much of that depends on the judicial officer,
to the extent possible, to see if you can get to the point
where the substance of the case can actually be presented?
And without having any legal guidance to manage your way
through the set of rules, your ability
to actually get to that point of presenting
the substance of your case is enormously impeded.
So I think that's a very serious interference with the ability
to actually put on a case.
I did want to mention one thing that came up
with Congressman Brooks when she was
talking to constituent service.
Having been on the staff up here,
on Capitol Hill, some years back,
I know how important constituent services can be.
I know how you all, in this room, focus on that
and make sure that you communicate between people's
needs and the government.
And I think one way to think about that
is, how many times have you been frustrated,
in dealing with constituent services,
to recognize that programs that the members of Congress
and the executive branch have agreed
are absolutely necessary for the welfare
and benefit of citizens, that those benefits are actually
not being delivered?
And this is something that the Legal Services Corporation task
force on pro bono spent a lot of time focusing on.
But the very idea is that Congress
spent a great deal of time identifying need,
identifying the people who needed the services-- and yet,
the very idea that one of the biggest areas that
is in need of legal representation
is legal representation to actually get
the benefits that Congress intended for you to have,
as part of what they thought would be
an ordered and better society.
And so I think that that connection
that Congresswoman Brooks made is an important point.
It connects the constituent services with the legal aid.
And as long as it's required to have legal representation
to get those very benefits, then it
is absolutely incumbent upon all of us who believe that that was
good policy, that that was better for society as policy--
and yet, at the same time, if we don't do all
that we can to make sure that, at the end of the day,
those services and benefits are delivered,
I think that's a critical aspect of this.
Thank you, Sven.
Thank you, particularly for emphasizing
the constituent service aspect of legal aid.
Every congressional district has an LSC-funded legal aid
program, serving constituents.
And I hope you get the word out to your district offices
that there's help available at a legal aid office,
when they get calls that involve legal issues that they may not
be capable of dealing with.
We try to encourage our grantees to establish good relationships
with local district offices, so that the district office knows
that they're available and what their capabilities are.
All of our panelists today have spoken, in one way or another,
about values.
They may not have used that word,
but that's what they're talking about.
They're talking about fundamental American values--
who we are as a country, and what
we hold ourselves out to the world
to be, and about the importance of fairness and confidence
in our justice system.
So although you might have been surprised, initially,
to hear these representatives of corporate America come here
to talk about these issues, the lesson I take
is that they're Americans first and business people second.
And they care about the same things
that every other American cares about.
This is non-partisan issue, it's a bi-partisan issue,
and it's important to maintain the most fundamental American
values.
Please, join me in welcoming our terrific panelists for spending
the time with us today.
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