Columnist Sandra Thompson: Swamped family law services need help

Sandra Thompson

Sunday, March 22, 1998 | 9:31 a.m.

SANDRA THOMPSON is vice president/associate editor of the Las Vegas SUN. She can be reached at 259-4025 or on the Internet at thompson@lasvegassun.com

LAST year, the four-member staff of the Clark County Pro Bono Project handled 12,000 calls. In just the first two months of this year, the office already has fielded 3,500 calls.

"We're swimming upstream and almost drowning," Dennis Hetherington, the project's executive director, says. "Even if I had 10 times the staff, I couldn't keep up with the demands."

Potential clients who call today may get an appointment in June. Hetherington says that with his present volume, he could probably book a whole year's worth of appointments.

The pro bono project relies on the services of volunteer attorneys to represent clients who can't afford an attorney. Hetherington estimates that at an average of $200 an hour, the value of attorneys' donated time last year was $1 million.

Although the project handles all types of legal matters, more than 90 percent of its cases are in family law, including domestic violence.

"We didn't set out to be in family law practice, but that's a reaction to the marketplace," he says. "We're the only show in town for family law."

But with family law, he has a shrinking pool of attorneys to draw from. Only an estimated 300 of the area's 2,500 attorneys practice family law.

"Nobody likes to do family law," Hetherington says. "There is so much emotion in it. Both sides walk out of court unhappy."

The pro bono project was created about 13 years ago by the Clark County Bar Association. It spun off from the bar in 1991 and became a nonprofit corporation.

The project receives less than $200,000 in funding from a variety of sources -- Nevada Law Foundation contributions; Community Development Block Grants from the city of Las Vegas, Clark County and North Las Vegas; a grant from the Violence Against Women's Act and fund-raisers.

It's not a stable funding base, so the pro bono project is always competing with other nonprofit agencies for a piece of the grants pie.

Hetherington had proposed in the last Legislature raising the marriage license fees by $5 each and allocating the money for legal services in family law in Washoe and Clark counties. The bill died in the Senate Finance Committee.

Although nearly all of its cases are family law, the project receives nothing from the filing fees in Family Court. Those fees are given to Clark County Legal Services, which also offers pro bono help but not in family law.

According to an opinion from the attorney general's office, the state law on how fees are allocated only applies to the legal aid services program in place at the time the statute was enacted and which received federal funding. Deputy Attorney General Robert Lauer said the Legislature has never addressed the division of fees between multiple legal aid programs within the same county.

Clark County Legal Services, which mainly handles landlord-tenant and SSI issues, and the Senior Law Project also offer pro bono services.

Another problem Hetherington's program faces is the clients themselves. About 25 percent of the people asked to come in for an interview are no-shows, Hetherington says. Close to 20 percent of cases are closed for "noncooperation." Some domestic violence victims also refuse to continue with the case.

Hetherington says people should understand that it's not an attorney's job to exact revenge on an ex-spouse. Some clients prolong their cases because of unrealistic demands. He cites the divorce case of two senior citizens, who fought like cats and dogs over a $2.98 stapler and a half-box of staples. The husband was awarded the car, but the wife wouldn't give him the keys -- even though she didn't drive.

The majority of cases, however, are serious, especially those involving domestic violence. Hetherington is hiring an attorney, who will replace a case supervisor, to appear with clients in extended protective order hearings.

He also hopes to establish a good relationship with the new UNLV law school. He says the dean supports instilling a strong pro-bono ethic in new attorneys.

Right now the project is located in two offices. However, Hetherington must move one of the offices because the law firm now donating space needs it for an expansion.

Hetherington is not a lawyer. His background includes covering the courts as a newspaper reporter and working in public relations for Southwest Gas. He says he was hired as executive director for his managerial and public relations skills. There are three staff members who do screening and intake, and a paralegal, on permanent loan from Nevada Legal Services.

The staff sets up appointments with volunteer attorneys. In addition to "cold calls," the project receives many referrals from the courts and social service agencies.

There has been a longstanding rule that once a person has an attorney, he cannot receive help from the pro bono project. Hetherington says it's difficult to recruit attorneys to handle cases started by other attorneys. There are exceptions. A judge may call on the project because of a particularly contentious case that needs an attorney.

Pro bono services are becoming more important as the number of people who can't afford attorneys and must represent themselves in court is increasing, not only in Clark County but across the country.

Chuck Short, administrator of the Eighth Judicial Court in Clark County, says of the 11,747 active domestic cases in Family Court, 5,199 involved a pro se litigant. That's 44.25 percent of the cases in which a person is not represented by an attorney.

Cost is the primary reason. A February survey of 312 participants in the Children Coping with Divorce program in Clark County found that 64 percent had a combined household income of less than $44,999.

The Legislature should consider allocating part of the Family Court filing fees to the project to provide a more stable funding base.

While Hetherington doesn't want to take away money from other services or domestic violence programs, his program's needs are mushrooming.

He says his office feels like the steerage passengers in the movie "Titanic" who were kept below the decks and away from the lifeboats.