These are some thoughts I’ve had about my book that was published in June 2020. Most people haven’t heard of or read this book, but a few have. And to those people with insatiable curiosity and - obviously - impeccably good taste, thank you. As James Carville once wrote, “A man never stands so tall as when he bends over to kiss a little ass.” With that as a standard, I must be a giant.
In about six weeks, my formal resignation from the Rhode Island Bar will take effect. In short, beginning August 1, I will be unable to practice law. Even though I resign of my own volition, a decision I’ve detailed elsewhere, on the first of August I have no idea how I’ll feel. I guess I’ll find out…
My book was an attempt to share my thoughts on a variety of issues of importance to the general public. The first issue was the extent of poverty in this the wealthiest of countries. One reader said that “everyone knows there’s poverty,” suggesting that I should spend fewer pages on the topic. My view was and remains that we don’t know very much about poverty, at least beyond a cursory understanding of its scope.
Every year the feds publish the annual Federal Poverty Level (FPL). Like the monthly unemployment rate, this is largely a political number. Lost in any discussion of these rates is an answer to how, for example, a family of three can live on and annual income of $23,030. The “safety net” to assist people is in tatters, a tattering process that began under Reagan. Name it and it’s been reduced: SNAP benefits reduced and capped; Section 8 housing limited and portable housing vouchers increasingly scarce; household incomes becoming increasingly insecure.
Something I tried to point out in my book was there was an alternative measure to FPL, the standard of need analysis. Standard of need looks at basic goods and services we all need: average housing and transportation costs, food costs, medical costs, and so on. These calculations can be tailored to a specific location to derive greater specificity relative to local needs. And how many and types of resources it might take to ensure meeting a documented standard of need.
For example, take an elderly couple with a mortgage on the family home (surprisingly more frequent than we might think) or living in a rented apartment, with the basic needs we might all have, living on an annual income of $30,000. The 2022 FPL is $18,310 per year, making them ineligible for most if not all benefit programs. However, because of inflationary pressures if nothing else, the annual standard of need is $42,396 per year. This elderly couple is left in a quandary: either they can increase their income by an amount equal to about 38% or they have to tighten their already tight belts (remember, these are basic needs without lavish spending) and sacrifice some of those now “superfluous” basic needs.
Standard of needs is a more precise analysis of poverty: if an individual or family has insufficient resources to meet their basic needs, then they’re poor. People who fall into this economic category are kids, the elderly, those with fixed incomes, and low wage employees. They have no extra money to spend on frivolities. Nor is there any money for a lawyer.
Which is another point I made in the book - too often the poor or near poor have legal issues, some that are brought to their doors, others they made for themselves - just like anyone else. But unlike many people with legal issues, the poor/near poor haven’t the funds to retain counsel. And that alone can prove lethal to their chances of obtaining a just outcome.
From various studies of legal issues as effecting the poor, especially as defined by the Feds, each low-income household averages two legal issues per year. 2010 Census revealed that 75,000 household had incomes at or less than $34,999. The average of two legal issues comes to 150,000 legal issues affecting the poor per year, every year.
Many issues resolve themselves. Others, for whatever reason, never ripen to contested status. But for those that do, the dearth of legal services for the poor is achingly obvious. Imagine if out of those 150,000 issues, 35,000 ripen to the degree where legal services are necessary to protect the rights of indigent parties.
Would there be sufficient resources for them? In 2008, the year my agency ramped up, the answer was “no.” In 2012 - 2013, when my agency was well established, when combined with other legal resources the answer was still “no.” Today, in 2022 the answer would be a resounding “no.”
In my book, I focus on two impediments to the necessary changes needed to remedy the lack of legal services - lack of money and protection of turf. For those who think there are too many lawyers, consider this; in the early 2010s there was one lawyer for every 40 Rhode Islanders compared to one attorney for every 10,000 low income Rhode Islanders. And that included the RICLAPP lawyers.
We encountered the resistance to change when in 2014 we submitted legislation that would’ve modestly increased court fees, with that increase directed to our agency. This was not a radical notion, such a scheme was already in place for Rhode Island’s LSC. And it was revenue neutral relative to the state budget.
Imagine the resistance to this scheme. If you can’t and think any such resistance was daft, then you have an idea how we felt. In hindsight I’ve come to an analysis of why there was opposition and I’ll let you read it in my book. Spoiler, the “scrappy insurgents” only win in the movies.
But the fight continues. I’ve written one book and am starting on another, I have this blog, and on August 1, 2022 I’ll have more time, as Mary Elizabeth Lease urged the farmers struggling against the banks, silo companies and the railroads, to “raise less corn and more hell.” And as someone who wants to advance ideas to effect change, I’m fresh out of “corn.”
The above is the first of a series of posts on the subject of legal/political change. Next, I’m going to go all medieval with The Bosworth Field Battler, King Henry VII! So fasten your breastplates, put on your helmets, and don your gauntlets and let’s get ready to raise some hell!
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