The Bergen County Record
Legal aid unit fights for survival
Merger expected to replace criticized office
Douglass Crouse
Friday, November 8, 2002
For more than half a century, the Passaic County Legal Aid
Society has fought on behalf of the county's poor, in disputes
ranging from housing to child custody to public assistance.
But for the last several years it has often done that job
poorly, according to state and federal officials. And barring a
long-shot legal victory, as of Jan. 1 the autonomous county office
will be replaced by a new agency whose administrators will report
to a director based in Jersey City.
Federal legal aid officials drew up the new service area uniting
Bergen, Hudson, and Passaic counties in June, insisting the change
will trim administrative costs without compromising services.
The Passaic County office and its supporters see it differently.
They say top decision-makers will be too far from the individuals
and non-profit agencies that rely on the office for help. And in a
federal lawsuit, the agency's leadership argues that a merger would
jeopardize its educational programs and minority hiring efforts,
and that its imposition amounts to bureaucratic bullying by state
and federal officials.
Those same officials have repeatedly accused the Passaic County
office of mismanagement.
Reviews since 1995 have found evidence of shoddy accounting,
poor morale, excessive staff turnover, and double counting of cases
- and alleged that the office made limited efforts to rectify the
problems. At times in recent years, the office has received its
state and federal funding on a month-to-month basis, which one
federal official called "one step short of defunding."
Leaders of the county agency, which employs 14 attorneys, five
paralegals, and nine support staff at offices in Paterson and
Wanaque, say officials have "greatly exaggerated" the office's
problems, which they call mostly bureaucratic.
"Just let them argue that their [merger] plan makes sense,"
Maxim Thorne, the office's deputy director, said of the
higher-level legal aid officials. "They could never replicate our
services or equal the accumulated value of this office."
Over the summer, the office reapplied for a federal grant to
serve Passaic County in the coming year. But Legal Services Corp.
in Washington rejected the application, saying it failed to address
the service needs of the entire tri-county area - a requirement
under the new rules.
By mid-December, the federal body is expected to award Passaic
County's federal funding - about $385,000 this year - to Northeast
New Jersey Legal Services, the tri-county agency. State funds of
about $1.6 million could follow, although Thorne noted the state
appropriated $927,000 of that amount through June 2003.
The state Treasury Department's legal services representative
did not return repeated calls for comment.
Last week, a U.S. District Court judge refused to order an
extension of the existing office's federal funding as it fights the
merger plan. Thorne said he may appeal.
Timothy K. Madden, director of Hudson County Legal Services and
soon-to-be head of the tri-county agency, said he will open a
Paterson office by Jan. 1, giving priority in hiring to staff laid
off from the current office.
"I'm confident that Passaic County's low-income residents will
be served better than what they get now," Madden said, adding he
had not yet settled on a location.
Anna Navatta, who controls a $1.4 million budget as head of
Bergen County Legal Services, will become deputy director of the
tri- county office. She said the Bergen office will otherwise
remain intact.
"We actually hope to expand our services as a result of the
merger," she said.
By contrast, under the consolidation Executive Director John
Atlas and Thorne will likely lose their jobs, which last year
brought them $131,319 and $114,031, respectively.
"This is not about job security for me and Maxim," Atlas said.
"Our sole motivation is to save what I think is an essential
service and innovative program."
Passaic County Legal Aid works on behalf of about 4,000
individuals each year, and provides lowfee legal help for about 20
non-profit and faith-based groups. Its many supporters argue that
the office's expansion of community development work - including
helping non-profits incorporate or defend themselves in lawsuits -
sets it apart from other agencies.
Rep. William Pascrell Jr., D-Paterson, who has sought to mediate
the dispute, wrote of his concerns, "We are not aware of any
stakeholder who was consulted on this sudden proposal, no less any
that support it."
The agency also has a lauded history of activism. In response to
its lawsuit in 1999, a judge ordered the Paterson Housing Authority
to correct a defective relocation plan for residents at the
Christopher Columbus Housing Development and remove all squatters
and drug dealers.
Thorne also argued successfully before the state Supreme Court
that Head Start and similar preschool programs should receive full
state funding. The office continues to represent Head Start in
low-income districts.
Community leaders say they worry that the center's specialized
programs could be lost under a merger and that a new location will
create confusion for clients. Madden said his focus will be
individual cases, and that "any resources we can spare to do
community economic development, we will."
Congress created the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) in 1974 to
improve low-income residents' access to the nation's courts. In
1998, two years after Washington cut legal-aid funding by a third
or $122 million - state programs started facing more rigorous
requirements for grant renewals, including achieving "optimal
configuration of service areas."
Earlier this year, Legal Services of New Jersey proposed halving
the number of its state service areas to seven, with Passaic
County's program left intact. But the Legal Services Corp. in
Washington overruled that part of the plan.
In submitting the state plan, Melville D. Miller Jr., president
of Legal Services of New Jersey, argued that the Passaic County
office's alleged problems made it an undesirable merger
partner.
In a June letter to Atlas, LSC President John N. Erlenborn wrote
that his decision was based in part on "continuing problems" at the
Passaic County office.
A Legal Services Corp. audit in 1999 found 45 duplicate case
files in a random sample of 400 cases. Thorne acknowledged that his
staff's lack of familiarity with a new computer system led to
"some" duplicate files, but said database training and increased
oversight by supervisors addressed the problem.
Atlas said reviewers also overstated staff turnover, arguing
that many of the cited employees were short-term workers. Others
left, for instance, to join private practice or after failing to
pass the state bar, he said.
"We'll be the first to admit we make mistakes, but most of those
are bureaucratic. They don't involve delivery of services," Atlas
said. He said state and federal officials have failed to afford the
agency a proper hearing.
Legal Services Corp. spokesman Eric Kleiman contended that Atlas
and his board "have had ample opportunity to make their case to
us."
In its suit, the Passaic County office asserts that the federal
agency's executive vice president, Randi Youells, sought the merger
in large part because of her personal history with the office,
which refused to hire her as a consultant in 1997. Kleiman called
that charge "completely spurious."
