Meeting Minutes - Transition Board
Transition Board of Directors - Legal Aid of North Carolina

April 2, 2001 Meeting (BOD Mtg #1)

The Legal Services Transition Board had its first meeting on April 2, 2001 at 10:00 am at the Wake Forest School of Law in Winston Salem, NC.

In attendance were Willis Williams, Frank Queen. Nellie Kearney, Pender McElroy, Leo Allison, Jack Holtzman, Tracy Barley, Linda Rollock, David Daggett, Dorothy McHugh, Glenn Barfield, Allen Johnson, Elizabeth Cox, Kellie Fleshman, Cal Adams, Kay House, Ted Fillette, Ken Schorr, Gina Reyman, Melissa Pershing, Evelyn Pursley, and Janet K. Ledbetter. Richard Fay and Valeria Kight were not able to attend.

The first order of business was electing the Chair of the Transition Board. David Daggett made a motion to nominate Pender McElroy. Nellie Kearney seconded that motion. The fourteen members present voted unanimously to elect Pender McElroy as the Chair of the Transition Board. It was decided that since this was a transition board, the only other officer required was the Vice-Chair. Willis Williams was elected unanimously as Vice-Chair.

The next order of business was whether to adopt the Proposed Agenda prepared by Gina Reyman. The Board adopted the Proposed Agenda and proceeded to review the issues presented.

Glenn Barfield suggested that the agenda item concerning Critical Deadlines should be moved up to the first item. Melissa Pershing was asked to educate the Board on the critical upcoming deadlines.

The first critical deadline is May 25, 2001, when the Notice of Intent to Compete must be filed with LSC in Washington, DC. This Notice of Intent to Compete may be filed by anyone. It is a simple form, which can be electronically submitted. It was decided that this form will be prepared by the next meeting.

The next critical deadline is the date to submit the Grant Application for the 2002 fiscal year. There are 2 tracks with different deadlines for submitting applications, the Early Track A on June 18, 2001 or the Later Track B on July 2, 2001. LSC will announce the service areas on April 16, 2001 when North Carolina will be informed which date will be its deadline.

The Grant Application is a lengthy document. It must include a description of the new entity, although it does not have to be actually formed yet. It also must include a timetable for meeting the March 1, 2002 deadline for creating and establishing the new governing board for the new entity. The Grant Application must also provide descriptions for the existing organizations in North Carolina.

There was a discussion concerning the need to design the structure of the new entity around the requirements of the Grant Application. Melissa Pershing said that she will have available an old Grant Application at the next Board meeting. She also said that the new Grant Application will have a Transition Section, which no one has yet.

LSC will issue a formal notification in December 2001 of the success of the grant. Sixty days after the award of the grant, the new governing board must be in place by March 1, 2002. Staff structure and everything else must be in place by that same date. LSC need to have a clear indication of what the LSC Transition Board will do, what it had done in the transition, what are the specific plans for the statewide organization, and an outline of the organization envisioned.

The Board reached the consensus that the new 501(c) 3 entity must be established and all the work of the Transition Board must be completed by October 31, 2001. Glen Barfield stated that in his opinion, the legal work is not the hard part. The hardest part will be getting the Grant Application completed by July 2, 2001.

Ken Schorr announced that communication to the line staff is essential. What this Board does is critically important to the current field staff. A big concern should be how to communicate with them and how they can communicate back. He said that the Board should communicate fully and often, especially about the status and how secure their jobs are. One way would be to set up a web page.

Melissa Pershing offered that LSNC will be willing to set up a webpage and the Board will have the say on what is posted there.

Pender McElroy, the Board Chair, said that we definitely need staff support. The Board will decide whom we want to use and whom we can call on.

Tracy Barley suggested that the Board designate a Communications Officer who can be the official spokesperson for the LSC Transition Board.

Melissa Pershing mentioned that LSNC is the communication point for the NC legislature.

Kay House made a passionate appeal to the Board that they should make a decision soon to let line staff know that they will have a job because people are brushing up on resumes and starting to conduct job searches. She said that the best people currently on staff will go first. The Board will want to keep 100% of the line staff. She suggested that the Board should issue some statement no later than the end of April 2001. She said that something should come out of today's meeting to the line staff that we do expect to hire you. By the end of April, tell them that by a certain date they will know something.

She indicated that we will need the same number of lawyers, paralegals, receptionists and secretaries. If the Board doesn't say something you won't be able to meet client needs through the end of this year.

Tracy Barley said that the filing of the Grant Application will be an important announcement.

The Board was informed that North Carolina has 12 field programs and three independent programs. Some offices are too small to remain open.

Allen Johnson said "I understand you have to have someone mind the store, but how can we tell staff now, it will be like going out on a limb."

Board Chair Pender McElroy said "We are a transition board and there will be a new board. I am not a micromanager. It is too far down to manage as far as hiring lawyers. The new executive director will have something to say about hiring, but we do need to make sure that we don't lose attorneys."

Kay House said that there will be "a lot of malpractice cases if you don't say that the same number of lawyers and line staff will be needed. People have financial needs, especially people with children and the economy is going down. You can make a decision that you will not make any major changes in a year."

Glenn Barfield said that we need to discuss this issue as a Board.

Ted Fillette said, "there is anxiety out there. By August you will know the configuration of the new entity and how many field programs will remain. There is a fair amount of turnover anyway. Kay's concerns are right. You don't want anxiety to force people to leave. You need to make some broad reassuring statement that the federal money will be about the same and the state money will be about the same."

Board Chair Pender McElroy said, "It will be a disaster if we lose any lawyers and we don't want to cut anyone."

Allen Johnson said that the Bob Echols’ consultant report said that North Carolina was top heavy in management.

Ken Schorr said, "This is a big issue. Kay is not talking about managers. The consultant report says that offices will stay where the are. If they don't hear anything by this summer, people will move on."

The Board then discussed how it would proceed with its work. It was decided that committees would be needed.

Jack Holtzman said, "There are many tasks. We need subcommittees and work groups. The entire Board is needed to draft everything. The role of the Board will be adopting, affirming, modifying decisions and documents at Board meetings."

In reviewing John Tull's list of issues contained in the Board notebook, Board Chair Pender McElroy noted that it lends itself to committees.

Glen Barfield said that the Board needs at least three meetings before July 2, 2001. Kay House suggested that if you have a meeting at the end of the month you could have two meetings in April.

The LSC Transition Board set the following Board Meeting dates with the places to be determined later:

Friday, April 27, 2001
Thursday, May 23, 2001
Friday, June 15, 2001
Friday, July 27, 2001
Friday, August 17, 2001
Friday, September, 28, 2001
Friday, October 26, 2001

It was noted that the consultant's report focused on centralization and regionalization with a regional director and managing attorneys in the field.

After lunch, the LSC Transition Board went into Executive Session. Following the Executive Session, Board Chair Pender McElroy reported on the following:

    1. There will be 2 Committees
      1. Governance Committee
      2. Management Structure Committee
    1. Each Committee will have 8 people: 1 client and 1 attorney from each of the four program entities represented on the Board.
    2. George Hausen and Ted Fillette will staff the Governance Committee.
    3. Janet K. Ledbetter will assist with communications and logistics.
    4. Melissa Pershing and Gray Wilson will staff the Management Structure Committee which will focus on internal administration and delivery of legal services.
    5. Kay House, Ken Schorr and Gina Reyman were asked to prepare a Resource Report which will include an inventory of program resources, lawyers and staff, real estate and leases of offices. The report should be available by the next Board meeting.
    6. A description is needed for what the new entity will look like regarding structure staff and property. This is an important part of the Grant Application.
    7. Board Chair Pender McElroy will work with Mel Ditz at LSNC on the Grant Application.
    8. In response to Kay’s concerns, Board Chair Pender McElroy will prepare a written statement for this LSC Transition Board that it is not expected to reduce the number of staff positions, North Carolina is expected to receive the same revenue for 2002 and services are expected to remain at the same level. There can be no guarantees.
    9. All decisions of the Transition Board will require 12 votes of the 16 members. Absent Board members may give other Board members proxies for the absent members' votes.

Ted Fillette pointed out that an item on the Agenda that needed some discussion was the relationship between the LSC Transition Board and the Legal Services Planning Council. He explained that the Legal Services Planning Council was a clearinghouse organization for all providers of legal services in North Carolina, not just federally funded programs.

An important question is "What will be the future relationship between the new federally funded statewide program and the other programs? There are critical subsets of issues, which must be addressed by the Transition Board. Ted Fillette requested that two members from the Transition Board serve on a Joint Committee which proposes to the Transition Board the relationship that the new federally funded entity will have with other programs doing unrestricted work.

Ted Fillette noted that the non-federally funded legal services programs in North Carolina provide the same or similar services and the only difference is where the money comes from.

Board Chair Pender McElroy reflected that "this is a potentially sensitive issue because restricted programs will compete for money with the unrestricted programs."

There are questions, which must be answered by the LSC Transition Board like:

    1. Who will provide training;
    2. Who should apply for IOLTA money;
    3. What will the new federally funded statewide entity role be with the non-federal programs?

Evelyn Pursley said that "the Legal Services Planning Council was set up to look at legal services (little "l" and little "s") community statewide. The Planning Council can help the LSC Transition Board understand what the other non-federally funded programs are doing. LSC wants federally funded programs to work efficiently with other legal services."

Board Chair Pender McElroy said there should be discussions between the Transition Board and the Legal Services Planning Council.

Ted Fillette proposed choosing 2 people from the Transition Board to serve on the Joint Committee. There is also a question as to whether to incorporate the Legal Services Planning Council as the "United Nations of All Legal Services Providers" consisting of 13 members representing the Justice Center, Farm Workers' Legal Services, Prisoners' Legal Services, North Carolina Bar Association, Carolina Legal Assistance (Mental Disabilities), etc.

Ken Schorr proposed that both the Transition Board and the Legal Services Planning Council look at and decide what these new structures should look like, address funding issues, focus on funds for what functions. There is also a communication issue involved with the planning process in getting into the details of what functions are and where the money comes from.

Jack Holtzman stated, "There needs to be a coordinated way of ensuring funding from non-LSC funded programs like IOLTA, Z. Smith Reynolds, United Way, and there should be a coordination of the type of work programs will do."

Glenn Barfield noted that the LSC Transition Board "needs to do this now early on to have happy campers."

We will call it the Joint Committee for Unrestricted Services. The Legal Services Planning Council wants members of the Transition Board to come to the Legal Services Planning Council meetings. A motion was presented for the Transition Board to appoint 4 people to the joint committee. The motion was seconded and passed unanimously.

Jack Holtzman, Leo Allison and Cal Adams and someone from Charlotte to be later determined will serve on the Joint Committee. Chris Marks, Kay House, Gina Reyman and Ken Schorr will staff the joint committee.

The issues in John Tull's outline need to be addressed.

Melissa Pershing told the Board that the LSC Merger Training Manual which she got at the Merger Training Conference in San Diego, CA will be copied and mailed to the LSC Transition Board and the Legal Services Planning Council.

The Board addressed the issue on the Agenda concerning Client Empowerment Needs. Willis Williams pointed out Tab 2 in the Transition Board notebook that lists what client needs are. He said that "the best structure to ensure delivery of services is collaboration with people not yet in legal services and other partners to use what we are doing as leverage to reach deeper into poverty. I like the proverb ‘Teach a man to fish rather than just giving him a fish.’ In addition to regular legal services we should give people the tools to help themselves like community economic development, in landlord-tenant cases and help former tenants' associations. We should be looking at two steps, providing legal services and looking at systemic change. The state of poverty has not changed in North Carolina. The rich are getting richer. Forty percent of North Carolinians are in poverty. We should be helping clients to solve problems by helping themselves."

Board Chair Pender McElroy noted that "raising the minimum wage, housing and basic things people need for a decent standard of living should be done at the legislative level. Unrestricted programs need to look at this issue."

Willis Williams said it's about "leadership. If you have a paternal approach and ‘I know best’, priorities seem to be political. How do you get the power to minimize the power structure."

Jack Holtzman pointed out that there are "some things Legal Services can do like community education, assisting existing community groups that are fighting poverty with legal assistance. There is room within legal services funding to do some of these things."

Evelyn Pursley said, "This is something that the Legal Services Planning Council looks at - how to accomplish this priority, this goal, which parts of the priority fits where."

Melissa Pershing pointed out that "Legal Services can do impact work such as community economic development, group representation, appeals, develop class actions up to certification and conduct intake by asking particular questions to give information to other organizations." She also said, "the question of resources is appropriate to this Board. With limited resources, how to ‘get the bang for the buck.’ How much money do we want to put into things like Pro Se issues, community education, etc."

Board Chair Pender McElroy stated that he would appoint the members of the two committees and the chair of each committee.

The meeting concluded around 4:00 p.m.


Minutes Prepared by Janet K. Ledbetter

 

 

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Legal Aid of North Carolina is a statewide, nonprofit law firm that provides free legal services in civil matters to low-income people in order to ensure equal access to justice and to remove legal barriers to economic opportunity.

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