California Rural Legal Assistance Articles

NLADA Update, Volume 8, No. 17
October 27, 2006

OIG Issues CRLA Subpoena; OCE Rejects OIG Political Activity Charge

On October 17, California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA) received a subpoena from LSC's Office of Inspector General (OIG) in connection with the OIG’s ongoing investigation of allegations made by a confidential source against CRLA.

The subpoena seeks a broad range of documents and information, some of which dates as far back as January 1998. Among other things, the data requested includes detailed client information for all of CRLA’s cases that were open from January 1, 2003 through October 31, 2005, which CRLA estimates comprise more than 39,000 cases. In addition, the OIG seeks comprehensive information regarding numerous specific CRLA cases and activities, including work with group clients, task forces and conferences.

Much of the information included in the subpoena was previously sought by the OIG as part of a March 16, 2006 document and data request. CRLA had provided an enormous amount of data and numerous cartons full of documents in response to this earlier request, but had redacted some of the information and declined to provide some of the rest because it would violate the attorney-client privilege if it were disclosed to the OIG.

The subpoena requires Jose Padilla, CRLA’s executive director, to appear at the OIG’s office in Washington, DC on November 17, 2006, and to bring with him and produce originals or copies of all of the documents that are responsive to the information requests that are part of the subpoena. The OIG does not have authority to enforce the subpoena itself, but must seek the assistance of the U.S. Department of Justice to seek enforcement in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

On October 19, the LSC Office of Compliance and Enforcement (OCE) wrote to CRLA, informing it about some of the supporting evidence that the OIG had collected and shared with OCE in support of OIG’s conclusions regarding four areas of alleged non-compliance by CRLA. OCE asked CRLA to respond to three of the allegations dealing with solicitation of clients, work on a fee-generating case and filing a request or claim for attorneys’ fees.

The fourth allegation was that two members of CRLA management had intentionally identified CRLA with political activity by using their titles and CRLA affiliations on Web sites of political organizations, in violation of the LSC political activity rule. OCE concluded that the CRLA staff’s use of their titles and affiliations was for informational purposes only and was not intended to identify CRLA with their personal political activity. They cited a recently released internal Office of Legal Affairs opinion for the proposition that, as far back as 1981, it has been LSC’s consistent view that such use of title and affiliation did not constitute a violation of the political activities restriction and that the OIG had not applied the law correctly.

NLADA Update, Volume 9, No. 15
September 21, 2007

NLADA Files Amicus Brief in Support of CRLA

On Friday, September 21, NLADA filed an amicus brief in support of California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA) and several CRLA staff attorney-interveners in the subpoena enforcement action brought against CRLA by the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) Office of Inspector General (OIG) and the Department of Justice. The brief was written by Alan Houseman and Linda Perle at the Center for Law & Social Policy (CLASP) with assistance from the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU and attorneys from the law firm of Dechart, LLP.

The amicus brief focuses on several of the issues in the case that were addressed by CRLA and the interveners in their briefs in opposition to the subpoena action, but looks at the issues from a national perspective and speaks to the impact of the disclosure of the records sought by the OIG on LSC-funded programs generally. The brief discusses the potential for the disclosure of the information sought to harm applicants for services and clients and to deter them from seeking legal assistance. It also addresses the privacy rights of applicants and clients and notes that the disclosure is contrary to the purposes of the LSC Act.

The brief discusses the negative impact of disclosures of information from CRLA task forces and litigation planning efforts that the OIG has sought on the ability of programs to engage in strategic thinking and co-counseling or collaborative efforts with specialized support entities. It also concentrates on the enormous costs that would be involved in complying with the subpoena, and the impact that these expenditures would have on the ability of under-funded legal aid programs to serve the low-income client community.

Finally, the brief takes issue with the OIG's investigation of whether CRLA is focusing its resources on "impact work" and is disproportionately serving Latinos and farmworkers, which are major allegations in the anonymous complaint that forms the basis of the OIG's subpoena. The brief argues that there are no statutory or regulatory provisions that prohibit "impact work" or that require proportionate representation of groups within the client population. In fact, LSC has encouraged its grantees to engage in impact work and the representation of groups such as Latinos and farmworkers that have special access difficulties and limited English proficiency. The brief concludes that the OIG has no statutory authority to investigate these issues.