Meeting Minutes - LANC Board of Directors
September 12, 2008
Site/Location:
Durham
Marriott, Durham, NC
Call to Order and
Welcome
Chairman Glenn Barfield called the meeting to order at 10:05 a.m.
and welcomed all in attendance.
Members Present
|
Glenn Barfield
|
Samuel Johnson
|
Kris Shepard
|
|
Thomas Berkau
|
Shirley Jones
|
Paul Shepard
|
|
Susan Perry Cole
|
Nellie Kearney
|
Ellen Sheppard
|
|
Helen Cook
|
Phillip Leigh
|
Jim Talley
|
|
Lee Crouch
|
Greg McDougal
|
Mary Ann Tally
|
|
Mary Flowers
|
Lisa Morgan
|
Diana Williams-Cotton
|
|
Sharon Greig
|
Dellarene Myers
|
Kyle Woosley
|
|
Celeste Harris
|
Ray Owens
|
|
Members Absent With Prior Notification
|
Reid C. Adams
|
Alice Tejada
|
John Wester
|
Approval of Minutes
Chairman Barfield directed the Board’s attention to the general
business meeting minutes of June 20, 2008.
Following review and discussion of the minutes, a motion was
made, duly seconded, and the minutes were
UNANIMOUSLY APPROVED, as
written.
Chairman’s Report
Chairman Barfield recognized consultants, Mary Beth Loucks-Sorrell
and Mike Crum, who will work with Board members to enhance Board
communication and performance as well as develop criteria for
strategic planning.
Chairman Barfield reported that the committee assigned to
explore the possible hiring of a development director has prepared a
job description for the position and is exploring the advertisement
of the position as the next step.
President’s Report
George Hausen, Executive Director of LANC, reported that LANC is a
lead partner, along with the
NC Justice
Center and other legal
services providers in a foreclosure project funded with a $250,000
grant from the
Z Smith Reynolds Foundation. There
are approximately 300 housing counselors, a core group of consumer,
bankruptcy, and foreclosure experts working closely to provide
counseling and assistance to our LANC attorneys handling that
casework. The partners are asking the NC Legislature to provide
additional funds to support foreclosure work.
If additional funding is secured, training will be provided
to volunteer attorneys to help with the sizeable caseload.
Also, North Carolina Central University School of Law has
initiated a foreclosure clinic in order for students to gain
expertise in foreclosure cases.
Hausen notified the Board that LANC is currently in a hiring
freeze as a result of static funding.
The collection of amounts pledged through the Access to
Justice Campaign is behind the targeted goal.
The three-year campaign is
now in its second year.
The number of pledges continues to be high and the campaign is a
success. There are ongoing discussions to institutionalize the
campaign statewide. A
meeting is being planned to discuss the pledges and collections.
To date, LANC has provided services to 25,000 clients this year and
has done so in a high quality manner.
The LANC intake hotline has reached 17, o00 clients.
LANC has seen more requests for services from seniors,
veterans, the disabled, those suffering from AIDS and former
prisoners seeking assistance with employment and housing. LANC has
applied for funding to provide more services to veterans and persons
with AIDS.
Committee Reports
Operation Committee Report
Chairman Barfield recognized Lisa Morgan, Chair of the
Operations/Personnel Committee, who reported that the committee has
continued to meet to review and discuss LANC priorities and is
expected to complete that process over the next couple of months.
The committee will make its recommendations for 2009 priorities at
the December Board meeting.
Also, the committee reviewed the 2008 Annual Equal Employment
Opportunity Report. A copy
of that report is in the Board notebook.
LANC continues to employ a
diverse staff and has made efforts to improve its diversity within
the past year by increasing the hiring of Black and Hispanic
attorneys and paralegals by 9%. LANC
staff continues to be predominately female (80%) although during the
past year, LANC has increased its male staff by 2%.
LANC continues its efforts to be accessible to non-English
speakers, by hiring bilingual staff and using Language Line, a
national interpretation and translation service for hundreds of
languages. Furthermore, LANC
staff along with the NC Justice Center staff and UNC-Charlotte students
translated the Small Claims booklet into Spanish, and that version
should be available for distribution by the end of the year.
Grievance Committee
Chairman Barfield recognized Gregg McDougal, Chair of the Client
Grievance Committee, who reported that the committee has received
two grievances since the last board meeting.
The committee has resolved one grievance by affirming the
executive director’s response and taking no further action. The
committee will meet after the Board meeting to discuss the one
pending grievance.
McDougal explained that the grievances in both cases resulted in a
misunderstanding over the legal services to be provided.
Since its inception in 2002,
the LANC Board has addressed three grievances out of 180,000 plus
cases handled by staff.
Local offices successfully resolve almost all of the client
grievances presented and they rarely reach the Board level.
Client Affairs
Chairman
Glenn Barfield recognized Mary Flowers, Chair of the Client Affairs Committee,
who reported that the Clients Council is in the process of creating
a procedural manual.
IOLTA
Chairman Barfield asked Evelyn Pursley,
IOLTA Executive Director, to report on the status of the IOLTA
program. She
reported that the IOLTA program is doing well and that mandatory
participation requirements have produced a large number of new
accounts. These new accounts
have lead to an increase in funds that can be used for grants to
provide civil legal services to indigent clients.
Pursley stated that LANC
receives approximately $2 million dollars in IOLTA funding.
NCBA
Chairman Barfield recognized Michelle Cofield
to report on the NCBA.
She reported that the 4All program is forever.
Legal Aid staff members are assigned to the four assignment
groups and are actively participating.
Adjournment
Pending no further business, Chairman Barfield adjourned the meeting
at 11:35 a.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Phillip Leigh
Secretary
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