Paralegals & Legal Secretaries

13 Paralegals Facing Layoffs from RI Legal Services

By Jeannie Sapp Johnston

Rhode Island Legal Services, the nonprofit law firm that works on civil matters for low-income people and is itself in financial straits, announced the layoff of 13 paralegals effective at the end of business Monday.

But a few hours later, in a hurry-up meeting Monday afternoon, the board of directors voted to postpone the layoffs until Feb. 15 in hopes of negotiating an alternative solution with the paralegals? labor union.

The initial decision to make the layoffs came after several years of decreased financial resources and increased operational costs, Robert M. Barge, executive director, said in a statement. The firm already had reduced staff wages and hours, trimmed support staff and taken other cost-saving measures.

?These are difficult and challenging times,? Barge said. ?Once again, we face the daunting task of surviving as an organization without the resources necessary to meet the legal needs of the client community.? Rhode Island Legal Services has had financial emergencies in the past, when Congress threatened one of its major sources of funding, the independent nonprofit Legal Services Corporation.

The paralegals are represented by Service Employees International Union, District 1199NE, which announced a demonstration Tuesday outside the firm?s downtown offices at 56 Pine St. to protest the layoffs. The SEIU said the entire paralegal department ? some paralegals have been employees for decades ? would be wiped out.

The union and management faulted one another for a lack of appropriate responsiveness to a crisis that has been building for months. Lia Stuhlsatz, a Legal Services lawyer and union member, said that with the layoffs being postponed, she is ?guardedly optimistic? that a deal can be struck to save the paralegals. The demonstration was canceled.

The firm has a staff of 43, of which 33 are in the unit represented by the union, counting the paralegals. Sending the paralegals away would be ?a real loss,? Barge acknowledged.

The Rhode Island Bar Foundation, the charitable arm of the Rhode Island Bar Association, has been giving Rhode Island Legal Services its largest annual grant. But from 2008 through 2011, that grant had diminished by 54 percent, from $975,680 to $449,731, according to Barge. And Monday afternoon, he said, the firm received belated notice that the $449,731 would be halved.

The foundation, by rule of the Rhode Island court system, gets the money from interest earned on client trust accounts, much of which is generated from sums held in escrow from real estate closings. The collapse of the housing market has depressed those transactions and caused a sharp decline in the interest collected, Barge explained.

Besides the trust account money and aid from the Legal Services Corporation, Rhode Island Legal Services gets revenue from a variety of sources, including case-filing fees in the state District, Family and Superior courts, the state Department of Elderly Affairs and the U.S. Administration on Aging. It had revenue of $4.1 million in 2010.

In its 41 years, Rhode Island Legal Services has helped more than 150,000 individuals and families, and despite its financial woes, Barge said, the organization is confident that it will continue to provide high-quality legal advice and extended representation to the thousands of clients it serves annually.

Rhode Island Legal Services works with clients on domestic matters ? divorce, separation, child custody, visitation, child support and violence ? as well as housing matters and disputes with the Internal Revenue Service.

Source: projo.com

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Full post as published by ParalegalGateway Blawg on February 14, 2011 (boomark / email).