University of Virginia Library

Law School Representatives
Oppose Regionalization Of OEO

By Fred Schulte

A petition campaign to oppose the
regionalization of the Office of Economic
Opportunity Legal Services has been
initiated by the University Law School,
representatives from the school
announced yesterday.

The campaign, being led by Don
Carroll, director of the Law School Legal
Assistance Society, and King Golden,
president of the Law School, is aimed at
enlisting the help of 100 law schools
throughout the country.

Conceived in 1965, Legal Services was
designed to provide qualified legal
assistance to those who could not afford to
retain a lawyer. Casework consumes most of
the program's time, but some individual cases
have gone before the Supreme Court.

OEO announced several months ago its plans
to regionalize the program, in which funding
authority and policy direction would be
granted to the ten OEO regional directors,
instead of to the National Legal Services
Director. The regional directors are all political
appointees, and only two are lawyers.

The move has prompted much criticism,
particularly from many of the Legal Services
lawyers, who contend that the action would
bring the services into the political arena and
force the agency to reduce its load of
controversial cases.

"This plan seriously compromises
professional standards," the statement from the
Law School said. "The Canons of Legal Ethics
require that 'no fear of judicial disfavor or
public unpopularity should restrain (an
attorney) from the discharge of his duties.'
Ethical standards also prohibit a non-lawyer
from interfering with or influencing a lawyer's
relationship with his client."

The 850 neighborhood Legal Services offices
since their inception have assumed an activist
role in the legal field, and have often sued local
and state governments on behalf of their
clients. In the last two years Legal Services had
managed to double the number of cases from
610,000 in 1969 to an expected 1,200,000 in
1971, and the agency hopes to reach twice the
percentage of the nation's poor who are in need
of legal services that it currently reaches.

The American Bar Association, the National
Bar Association and the National Legal Aid and
Defender Association have all voiced their
opposition to the regionalization plan.