08.22.01

Senator Maria Cantwell’s Remarks (as prepared) for The Legal Services Corporation Technology Grant News Conference

In the United States, we are blessed with a legal system admired the world over for its commitment to the rule of law, its effectiveness in handling disputes between our citizens, and its fair-handed application of justice.

Nevertheless, we’re still far from achieving perfection. While equality under the law is one of our nation’s most sacred principles - defended and upheld throughout our history - it takes more than good intentions to achieve equal justice. It takes good work, by organizations like the Legal Services Corporation, the Washington State Bar Association and the Northwest Justice Project.

One of the great unmet challenges faced by our legal system today is making sure that the doors of the courtroom aren’t closed to low-income citizens when they have a civil legal problem. For far too many in our state, justice is prohibitively expensive.

Our best estimates are that only 20 percent of Washingtonians living at or below 125 percent of the federal poverty guidelines currently have access to legal representation in times of legal crisis. In effect, four out of five poor people in our state arrive at the courthouse door every day to find they cannot afford the price of admission. This leaves a long list of victims with no legal recourse in times of trouble, such as:

Spouses enduring domestic violence Parents involved in child custody disputes Families wrongfully evicted from their homes Seniors dropped from Social Security disability insurance, or Consumers victimized by fraud Washington can, and must, strive to do better. For fiscal year 2001, Congress took a hard look at the need to expand legal services to serve more people and decided that more resources must be allocated. It’s always a fight in Washington D.C., to increase funding, no matter how worthy the cause. But I was proud to support legislation that appropriated $7 million for special Technology Initiative Grants for legal services, as a pragmatic way to apply scarce federal resources to maximize improvements in legal assistance. And, I have asked the appropriations committee for an overall increase in Legal Services Corporation funding to counter the 17.5 percent cut suffered by this important agency since 1995.

I am pleased to join the D.C.-based Legal Services Corporation here today to announce that the state of Washington has been awarded $674,000 in federal technology grants to help low-income residents get legal help with a simple phone call or a quick click of the mouse. The Northwest Justice Project based right here in Seattle, receiving a trio of two-year grants today on the strength of its technology proposals submitted to Legal Services Corporation.

The $674,000 represents the largest grant amount awarded to any state this fiscal year to expand access to justice. It is an affirmation of something most of us already knew about the Northwest Justice Project - that it is a cutting-edge, nationally respected leader in the quest to help more disadvantaged families with their legal troubles.

Led by Director Patrick McIntyre, the Northwest Justice Project will institute reforms that will benefit the entire state’s low-income population. One of the most exciting reforms will allow for the recruitment of scores of new pro bono attorneys and law students to volunteer their services to those in need.

The technology is known as "WE-CAN" - the Washington Expanded Client Access Network. It will allow for remote access to the Northwest Justice Project’s intake, advice, brief service and referral system - so that pro bono attorneys and students from the Seattle University Law School Clinic can help clients without leaving their homes or offices.

Now, any low-income person in Washington will be able to speak to an advocate simply by dialing a toll-free hotline number. And, if a domestic violence victim calls the hotline, she will not only be given legal advice, she also can be referred to a women’s shelter or to counseling services that offer other important kinds of help.

The pro bono attorneys and law students will be trained with the help of the latest technology. This grant will fund the implementation of online conferencing software that will allow advocates to be trained to do intake via the Internet while sitting at their own home computer.

Another major part of this grant is the development of pro se materials to help self-representing litigants help themselves in court when an attorney is unavailable. For those who call the toll-free hotline during off-hours or heavy traffic times, WE-CAN will provide up to 60 hours of recorded audio information in both English and Spanish to educate callers on a range of legal problems.

Pro se information also will be available via the Internet in an online resource center hosted at the state legal services Web site, www.nwjustice.org. The resource center will help clients and advocates, through a brief and pleading library, cross-state research, frequently asked questions, and a bulletin board where legal experts can share comments.

Finally, $250,000 of the total award will pay for national improvements to the legal services system. The Northwest Justice Project has received a nationwide grant to work with a company called Probono.net to facilitate the development of comparable Web technology for other states. By the end of the year, more than half of all states in America will feature statewide legal services Web sites, and our own Northwest Justice Project will play a pivotal leadership role in making this happen.

We’ve all seen the many ways that technology has made the world a more accessible and open place. This grant makes a powerful contribution to making the justice system in Washington will become more accessible to the poor and ensuring that everyone in our state can realize the promise of equal justice under law.

Thank you.