August 2003
Letters
Nothing should ever be done for the first time
I’ve been reading more about this fire-storm of controversy about “new” sections in the Bar, triggered by publication of the article on WSBA’s animal rights section. (Editor’s note: The new section is the Animal Law Section.) It seems to be all grumbling from what I speculate are charter members of the “just-like-me” section of the Bar. They appear to be uncomfortable with anything that is different in any manner from the way they see things. Bless their hearts; they’re just advancing the so-called homo-sectional agenda.
David Hiscock
Seattle
A new copyright system is needed
J. Michael Keyes hit the nail on the head regarding the extension of copyright protection to the now absurd life plus 70 years (“Has the Duration of Copyright Turned Wrong?” June 2003). While the majority in Eldred v. Ashcroft found that Congress acted within its power in expanding copyright duration, it gave short shrift to the economic policy underlying intellectual property rights as laid out in the Constitution.
While most Americans intuitively understand the need to provide incentives (through copyright or patent protection) to create intellectual property works, few also recognize the equally important goal of maximizing distribution of those products to all consumers who would stand to benefit. The extension of copyright protection to the life of the author plus 70 years thereafter will not increase incentives to create copyrightable works in any meaningful way, but will keep works out of the public domain for a truly excessive amount of time.
Given this dilemma, the United States should consider the creation of a “government-run reward system” under which authors and innovators would be paid directly by the government for their intellectual property creations. In turn, their works would pass immediately into the public domain so that they are freely reproducible and distributable at their marginal cost of production (rather than the monopoly price which prevails under copyright and patent law today). In its ideal form, the reward system thereby allows for both: (1) socially optimal creation (because authors/inventors still receive financial inducement to create) and (2) optimal distribution of intellectual property works (because there is no longer any monopoly protection over the work keeping it out of the public domain). Taxes would need to be raised to fund these public “rewards,” but prices would correspondingly fall dramatically so that the net outlay from the consumer’s perspective would be close to the same. The only difference would be that many more Americans—especially poorer Americans—could have access to creations and innovations which they cannot afford today.
Steve P. Calandrillo
Assistant Professor, University of Washington School of Law
Seattle
I never realized life could be so simple
Thank you for publishing Roger Ley’s letter (Bar News, June 2003) about why the Columbia Legal Services program should be abolished and why IOLTA funds should not be used to fund it in any event. If I ever read a brief that would persuade me to rule in the other party’s favor without reading the other brief, it is Ley’s letter. Ley’s arguments are breathtaking.
He says that Columbia is bad because “Columbia discourages self-reliance.” That argument is so persuasive I request legislation immediately barring anyone from hiring a lawyer to help them in court. After all, isn’t allowing lawyers to help anyone discouraging self-reliance? I’m sure that’s what Ley really intends—because I’m sure he’s truthful and honest—so he must be refusing help to every prospective client who comes to him.
Ley then argues, “Columbia and courts are poor institutions for deciding entitlement claims. All they do is substitute the judgment of a legal services lawyer and a judge for the judgment of someone in the executive branch. There is no reason to assume that judgment is better (a pun here) and there is plenty of room to discredit it.”
Hooray for Roger, now we can completely eliminate the judicial systems of America and let President Bush make all the decisions! Think of the money we’ll save! What the hell was the matter with those who wrote such nonsense in our federal and state constitutions as creating constitutional rights and courts to check the powers of the executives and majority in our legislatures? And I’m especially happy to hear that Roger would never take a client of his to—forbid the thought—the courts.
Then Ley says, horrors—“Columbia lawyers are bound by their ideology and the need to please their benefactors.” Now when I worked at Bogle & Gates years ago, I was given the crazy idea that the only thing that mattered in the world was what their large clients wanted and how solvent they were. I am sure Roger and the rest of you lawyers aren’t that way, though. (By the way, I left that firm to go to work for King County Legal Services so I wouldn’t go to hell.)
Lastly, Ley says, “IOLTA raises issues of taking, freedom of speech, use of public money for private parties, taxation, and the authority of courts.” Talk about taking, I just know that Roger is going to demand that the Mariners and Seahawks give us taxpayers back the hundreds of millions of dollars they took in value from the stadiums we built for them.
Roger, where have you been when this country needed your wisdom?
Bert Metzger
Seattle
CLS takes up the Thompson challenge
In the April cover story, Bar News Editor Lindsay Thompson offered a challenge to some of his readers: find the answer to the unmet legal needs of the poor. Thompson’s story gives us a fresh look at a long-standing problem.
New Mexico attorney John Robb was a member of the ABA’s Legal Services Corporation (LSC) committee in 1967 and helped launch LSC in 1974. President Clinton recognized Robb’s efforts in the White House in 1999, and a few months ago the LSC board presented to Robb its Lifetime Achievement Award.
In 1997 Robb was nearing the end of a distinguished career in his big Albuquerque firm, a career that included one notable cross-examination of Perry Mason (uh, that is, actor Raymond Burr). Instead of retiring to sailboats and golf courses, Robb went of counsel at his firm and threw his time and endless energy into building a new army of pro bono legal services providers working through community clinics.
Robb took his vision to the Christian Legal Society (CLS), a national association of Christian lawyers, judges, law professors and students founded in 1961. A past board member, Robb saw CLS as the perfect vehicle to inspire a new generation of legal clinics designed to address not merely the legal needs of the poor, but also their emotional, physical, educational, career and even spiritual needs.
Robb’s dream is driven by his passion for legal aid and his unshakeable belief in the power of Jesus Christ to give hope and change lives. Robb’s plan drew a warm welcome from CLS, and one of this nation’s most promising networks of legal aid providers was born.
In the fall of ’97 Robb kicked off his five-year plan at the CLS conference in Lexington, Kentucky, with a call to law students gathered from around the country. Among them was Bernard Veljacic, a 3L from Seattle University, who caught the bug. Upon his return Veljacic approached Herb Pfiffner, executive director of Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission, about establishing a legal clinic at the mission. Pfiffner agreed to hire the young student and put him to work serving the mission’s clients as soon as he graduated and passed the bar exam. Union Gospel Mission Legal Services opened its doors in Pioneer Square in the summer of 1999. It now helps about 20 new clients each month under the guidance of its current full-time director, Teresa Tippett, a former Perkins Coie associate with a heart for legal aid.
Nearly two dozen local attorneys and judges serve on an advisory committee for the mission’s clinic, including King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng. Maleng says, “Union Gospel Mission has served the poor in Seattle for 70 years. I’m so proud to partner with Teresa as she and others at the legal clinic offer direction and hope to the needy and disenfranchised in our community.”
Last year, with the help of nearly 40 volunteers, from solo practitioners to big-firm partners, first-year law students to experienced county prosecutors, more than 230 clients received legal advice at the mission’s clinic. That clinic, however, is just one of 35 CLS-affiliated legal aid clinics in the U.S. In 2002 this network of about 600 lawyer and law student volunteers and staff delivered 21,000 hours of legal aid to more than 4,000 hurting people.
These impressive numbers are not the measure of success. Nor is a win in court. The real victory is being there for just one person in a time of need. “What I enjoy most about my job,” says Tippett, “is working one-on-one with the clients, and partnering with them as they transition from homelessness to self-sufficiency.”
Three years ago James Noriega slept on the streets of Seattle’s Pioneer Square, unemployed, hooked on meth, alienated from everyone who cared for him. Noriega accepted an invitation to the mission. Soon afterwards, then-director Veljacic learned that Noriega’s ex-wife had filed to terminate his parental rights to their nine-year-old son and seven-year-old daughter.
Veljacic made arrangements for Noriega to meet with a volunteer attorney at the clinic. Kyle Netterfield, an associate at the Seattle firm of Ellis, Li & McKinstry, agreed to take the case pro bono. But before his case went to trial, the cops arrested Noriega on a warrant from a previous drug charge and took him directly to jail from a church service in Bremerton.
Unfortunately, Noriega lost his case and the right to see his children. Even so, he says of Netterfield, “He helped me when I was at the bottom. He started out as my attorney, but became my friend. Kyle visited me in jail. And he prayed with me,” recalls Noriega. “In fact, he had me over at his place last Christmas with his wife and kids. I really love that guy.”
Today Noriega is on staff at the mission as outreach coordinator, helping others get off the street. Netterfield may have lost in the courtroom, but he was and he continues to be there for Noriega. That is the measure of success.
CLS recently unveiled its second five-year plan. “We’re going from 35 to 150 clinics by the end of ’07,” exclaims Robb. That’s not as big as Robb’s other startup, Legal Services Corporation, but it’s an awfully good start to the challenge presented by Lindsay Thompson in April.
“We’re so proud of the job Teresa is doing in Seattle,” Robb adds. “And we’re excited to see God raise up similar legal clinics all over Washington state and around the country.”
If you want to know more about Christian Legal Society’s legal aid program or want to explore starting a clinic in your community, visit www.clsnet.org, or call John Robb at 505-765-5900.
Andrew J. Toles
Seattle
Readers are invited to submit letters of reasonable length to the editor via e-mail (comm@wsba.org), fax (206-727-8319) or mail. Due date is the 10th of the month for the second issue following — e.g., June 10 for publication in the August issue.
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