Chicago
By CHARLES B. CLEVELAND
Chicago |
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A FEW YEARS ago a student teacher noticed that most of the pupils in his special class were Latino or Black. The class was one labeled "EMH" (educationally mentally handicapped).
That observation started a lengthy investigation which proved that more than half the Latino children were in such classes incorrectly; that they were not mentally handicapped. Their sole problem was an inability to communicate in English as well as they could in Spanish.
Testing techniques also appeared to discriminate against black children, particularly those from the rural South. In many cases the EMH classes were little more than play or handicraft classes, and the students fell further and further behind their counterparts in regular classes.
Today there is a start toward ending the problem thanks to a relatively obscure organization called the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago (LAF). They have prompted a full-scale investigation by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare and have filed a series of lawsuits in behalf of the children whose education has thus been limited.
These suits — involving a whole group of similarly affected people — are called "class action" suits. LAF currently has some 150 class action suits, including charges that electrical rates in the Chicago area penalize the poor, cases involving fraudulent sale and repossession of used cars, violations of truth in lending laws, mistreatment of juveniles in state institutions and defects in Federal Housing Administration programs.
What makes their actions somewhat unique is that their operations are financed by federal funds. There are some ground rules, but about the only major field they can't get into is school desegregation and this apparently is a holdover from some of the earlier busing disputes.
LAF is unique also in that it operates out of seven neighborhood offices (plus a downtown Chicago main office). It currently has 89 attorneys serving some 25,000 clients a year. There is a formula for who is — and who isn't — eligible for free legal help; in general, it helps those whose income is under$5,000 or$6,000.
LAF is not unique in handling the legal problems of the poor. There already is a public defender program for criminal cases, several neighborhood legal agencies and, perhaps best known, the legal aid program which has been in existence for years. (As a matter of fact, legal aid and LAF were merged briefly but split in 1973). What makes LAF distinctive in its legal program is its emphasis on legal reform; they want to make sure the legal system works.
LAF is confined to clients in Chicago; but has a counterpart organization in the suburbs. LAF has a potential clientele of one million Chicagoans. Many of the cases are more social than legal, and one defect in the system is lack of trained social workers. But there are legally trained assistants who help in screening cases. Divorce cases alone could swamp the agency, so ground rules restrict help to those families where the dispute involves children.
About half the cases are handled by advice and counseling; only about one in twenty goes the full legal route. Those cases tend to break down into three main categories: (1) housing (usually eviction cases or instances in which a landlord has locked out a tenant); (2) cases involving welfare problems, and (3) consumer problems.
The division dealing with consumer problems is headed by Jerrold Oppenheim. A one-time member of Ralph Nader's Raiders in Washington, he was
one of the attorneys involved from the start in the EMH controversy. He is typical of a group of young attorneys concerned with law reform — pro bono publico activities.
One of his concerns is making truth in lending legislation really work. In one case he's working on, Oppenheim is charging that a used car dealer deliberately sold cars at inflated prices so that the customer would have his car repossessed in a matter of months. He is basing his case on the fact that finance charges simply couldn't be met — like $25 a week charges for a car from a customer whose income was only $200 a month.
One criticism of agencies like LAF came up during the administration of Ronald Reagan as governor of California: that public funds were being used to stir up controversy with governmental agencies and that they were, in effect, troublemakers.
Not so, says Oppenheim; all they are doing is making the law work. The LAF lawyers didn't cause the problem; they simply represent people entitled to protection of the law who aren't getting it for lack of money to hire legal counsel.
In fact, LAF starts very few law battles; most of its legal work involves defending clients in court. It gets into class action suits only when they see — or think they see — a consistent pattern. For example, they have a legal quarrel with Commonwealth Edison over electric rates, claiming they favor the big users, who in turn, are creating the demands which require costly expansion. That case before the Illinois Commerce Commission has been pending, in varying forms, for four years and still isn't settled.
But time doesn't seem to bother LAF. They know they've got plenty more legal battles ahead and they'll never have time to solve them all.
30 / September 1976 / Illinois Issues