Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/masc-A_defense_of_Michael_Moore-8.txt)
Sent 1: Animated history of the US.
Sent 2: Of course the cartoon is highly oversimplified, and most critics consider it one of the weakest parts of the film.
Sent 3: But it makes a valid claim which you ignore entirely: That the strategy to promote "gun rights" for white people and to outlaw gun possession by black people was a way to uphold racism without letting an openly terrorist organization like the KKK flourish.
Sent 4: Did the 19th century NRA in the southern states promote gun rights for black people?
Sent 5: I highly doubt it.
Sent 6: But if they didn't, one of their functions was to continue the racism of the KKK.
Sent 7: This is the key message of this part of the animation, which is again being ignored by its critics.
Sent 8: Buell shooting in Flint.
Sent 9: You write: "Fact: The little boy was the class thug, already suspended from school for stabbing another kid with a pencil, and had fought with Kayla the day before".
Sent 10: This characterization of a six-year-old as a pencil-stabbing thug is exactly the kind of hysteria that Moore's film warns against.
Sent 11: It is the typical right-wing reaction which looks for simple answers that do not contradict the Republican mindset.
Sent 12: The kid was a little bastard, and the parents were involved in drugs -- case closed.
Sent 13: But why do people deal with drugs?
Sent 14: Because it's so much fun to do so?
Sent 15: It is by now well documented that the CIA tolerated crack sales in US cities to fund the operation of South American "contras" It is equally well known that the so-called "war on drugs" begun under the Nixon administration is a failure which has cost hundreds of billions and made America the world leader in prison population (both in relative and absolute numbers).

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-Helping_Hands-1.txt)
Sent 1: Legal assistance for battered women is hard to come by.
Sent 2: But it just got a little easier to find in Tarrant County.
Sent 3: This month, the federal Violence Against Women Office awarded a two-year, $350,000 grant to the Women's Haven of Tarrant County.
Sent 4: The money will allow the shelter to add a second full-time attorney to its staff and contract with the law school clinic at Texas Wesleyan University for pro bono and student services.
Sent 5: Most important, the funds will help fill a frustrating gap.
Sent 6: The Women's Haven, which provides shelter and outreach to domestic-violence victims, already has a full-time attorney.
Sent 7: But that person is prohibited (by funding parameters) from representing women in matters of divorce or child custody.
Sent 8: That's not a problem for most of the shelter's indigent residents, who can access free legal aid locally from West Texas Legal Services.
Sent 9: But many of the clients served by the Women's Haven outreach programs are the working poor, who don't qualify for free legal services.
Sent 10: Divorces and custody battles are simply out of their financial reach.
Sent 11: "They can't begin to save up enough money for a divorce, so they're stuck," says Sonyia Hartwell, the Women's Haven's associate director.
Sent 12: "They're completely shut out of the civil-law system."
Sent 13: In Texas, unlike in some other states, women who aren't divorced can't gain full control over their portion of assets.
Sent 14: And they can't obtain child support.
Sent 15: The grant will also provide law students with valuable experience working these types of cases.
Sent 16: "They can't go to court, but they can interview clients and do all the initial intake work that needs to be done" as well as investigative work, says Hartwell.
Sent 17: And there's no shortage of abuse victims who need this kind of help.
Sent 18: "Within 60 days of hanging out her or his shingle," says Hartwell of the yet unhired new attorney, "we'll have an active caseload of 20 or more."

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/masc-A_defense_of_Michael_Moore-7.txt)
Sent 1: You write: "Having created the desired impression, Moore follows with his Heston interview."
Sent 2: No, he doesn't.
Sent 3: You accuse Moore so often of changing the chronology, yet you have no problems changing it yourself.
Sent 4: The Heston interview is at the very end of the movie.
Sent 5: After the Flint rally comes a brief TV interview with Heston, where he is asked about Kayla Rolland (again, clear evidence that the local media in Flint raised questions about the NRA's presence), then an inteview with country prosecutor Arthur Busch, entirely ignored by critics of the film, who also mentions Heston's presence as notable, and refers to the immediate reactions of "people from all over America", gun owners/groups who, according to him, reacted aggressively to warnings of having guns accessible to children, much like spanking advocates react aggressively when anti-spankers point to a case of a child being killed or severely injured by a beating.
Sent 6: These people do not feel the need to express sympathy, or to think about ways to avoid such incidents, but they feel the need to assert their "rights" and to look for quick, simple answers -- as Busch states, gun owners wanted to "hang [the child] from the highest tree".
Sent 7: This is all not mentioned by critics of Moore's movie, who claim to be objective.
Sent 8: Perhaps the best example of the paranoia surrounding Moore's film is your sub-essay "Is the end of the Heston interview itself faked?"
Sent 9: Moore answers a simple question -- how could the scene have been filmed -- with a simple answer: two cameras.
Sent 10: From this, you construct an obscure conspiracy of "re-enactment": "For all we can tell, Moore could have shouted 'Hey!'
Sent 11: to make Heston turn around and then remained silent as Heston left."
Sent 12: Even if your "re-enactment" theory is true (and I see no evidence that you have actually tried to ask the people involved in the filmmaking for their opinion), this itself is not unethical, and you have no evidence whatsoever that Moore has done anything unethical here, just like you have no evidence that Moore has unethically removed parts of the interview.
Sent 13: You use standard filmmaking technique as a basis to construct bizarre conspiracies which sound plausible to the gullible reader, without ever providing any evidence for the implicit or explicit claims of fraud and distortion.

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-Good_guys_reward-1.txt)
Sent 1: One look at Fred Rooney, and you just know he's the good guy.
Sent 2: A trace of childish innocence in his face gives the lanky Bethlehem lawyer a Jimmy Stewart-like quality of quiet trust.
Sent 3: In black jeans and button-down shirt, he's a kind of folk hero in the south Bethlehem melting pot where he's crafted a law practice catering to working-class families - mostly Latino - in the shadow of the hulkish remnants of Bethlehem Steel.
Sent 4: A two-hour drive away, at City University of New York Law School in Queens, Rooney spends several days a week helping upstart lawyers develop storefront practices that, like his, provide legal representation to folks who can't afford a $250-an-hour legal counselor.
Sent 5: Kristin Booth Glen, the law school's dean, took one look at Rooney and knew he was the right person to head the innovative Community Legal Resources Network.
Sent 6: ''Fred's so low-key, he's Midwestern in effect,'' says Glen, a former New York Supreme Court judge.
Sent 7: ''He captivates people, he inspires loyalty.''
Sent 8: For bringing legal representation to the poor and a host of other social causes, including finding medical care for seriously ill children in Latin America, the Moravian College Alumni Association has chosen Rooney for its prestigious Haupert Humanitarian Award.
Sent 9: The award, given to only a select few alumni, will be presented at 7:30 tonight at a reception on Moravian's Priscilla Payne Hurd campus.
Sent 10: Moravian, where he was an undergraduate in the early 1970s, inspired Rooney's deep sense of social justice.
Sent 11: The son of a Bethlehem Steel executive in New York, he came to the Bethlehem campus from an affluent upbringing on Long Island.
Sent 12: The young Rooney might have set his sights on Washington, D.C., like his uncle, former U.S. Rep. Fred Rooney of Bethlehem.
Sent 13: After all, politics run in the Rooney family.
Sent 14: His brother, state Rep. T.J. Rooney of Bethlehem, is a power in the state Legislature and the Democratic Party.
Sent 15: But on a trip to Colombia when he was a junior at Moravian, the child of privilege saw human suffering, malnutrition and poverty the likes of which he had never imagined.
Sent 16: ''I couldn't understand why we live this way and they live that way,'' Rooney recalled.
Sent 17: ''It's been the guiding light of my life ever since.''
Sent 18: After graduating in CUNY Law School's first class in 1986, he took a job with Lehigh Valley Legal Services.

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-CommercialAppealMemphis2-0.txt)
Sent 1: Thelma James was a prime candidate for a real estate ripoff: She is 68, has precious little money and can't read or write.
Sent 2: "I won't lie to you.
Sent 3: I was so-o-o excited," the widow and former duplex dweller said of the purchase of her first home, a sagging frame structure on Snowden.
Sent 4: "I was glad to get me a house."
Sent 5: When James realized she had been swindled she turned to Memphis Area Legal Services, which represented her in a lawsuit.
Sent 6: Now, James's monthly house notes have dropped from $796 - more than twice her monthly income - to an affordable $247.
Sent 7: Some of the people who took advantage of her through a questionable loan program were sent to jail.
Sent 8: "I don't know what I would have done without Legal Services," said James.
Sent 9: "They solved a lot of my problems."
Sent 10: James is one of more than 3,000 clients served last year by MALS, which provides assistance for civil matters, such as domestic abuse and family-related problems, Social Security and Supplemental Security Income, veterans, housing and consumer fraud cases.
Sent 11: Like James, most clients are elderly or female.
Sent 12: Some are handicapped.
Sent 13: Some need medical care or veteran's benefits.
Sent 14: Some are trying to escape eviction or an abusive marriage.
Sent 15: And 87 percent live at or below poverty level.
Sent 16: Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton recently said Legal Services is important for those who, because of poverty or other struggles in life, think justice is an empty word.
Sent 17: "They must be given reason to believe that the law is for them too," said Wharton, a former executive director of MALS.
Sent 18: But MALS faces a funding crunch next year, brought on by a $200,000 shortfall from three revenue sources.

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-It_Pays_to_Know-2.txt)
Sent 1: When 74-year-old Penny Sweat was evicted from the HUD-subsidized Glendale Senior Housing in Salt Lake City last month, she moved to a nonsubsidized apartment at five times her previous rent because she was unaware of her rights.
Sent 2: It turns out the manager of the seniors complex, its attorneys and government overseers were unaware, too.
Sent 3: Lee Kemp, a hearing-impaired World War II disabled vet, also was evicted, but he contacted Utah Legal Services and was told to stay put.
Sent 4: Attorney Marty Blaustein then notified Utah Nonprofit Housing Corp., the building's owner, that Kemp's eviction was not legal and that he had a right to a hearing.
Sent 5: That didn't stop Utah Nonprofit Housing's attorneys from then sending Kemp a summons to show cause why he had not moved out.
Sent 6: Meanwhile, Sweat's granddaughter called Salt Lake City housing officials, federal housing officials, state officials and several agents of Utah Nonprofit Housing to find out about her grandmother's rights.
Sent 7: Nobody knew.
Sent 8: Blaustein then took Sweat's case along with Kemp's and demanded her ousting be rectified.
Sent 9: Utah Nonprofit Housing President Marion Willey returned from an out-of-town trip and learned HUD procedures were not followed.
Sent 10: The eviction was activated because of ongoing personality conflicts among seniors in the complex, he said, and the new building manager decided the problems were with Sweat and Kemp.
Sent 11: Several tenants blame other neighbors as perpetrators of the rift, however.
Sent 12: Willey said when his building manager called attorneys retained by the company, they erroneously told her she could go ahead and kick out the tenants.
Sent 13: When she called HUD to make sure, the inquiry got bogged down in bureaucracy and nobody called her back.
Sent 14: Willey says he has offered Sweat and Kemp apartments in another complex operated by his company at their old rates.
Sent 15: He also is retaining new attorneys.

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-Few_who_need-1.txt)
Sent 1: California lags far behind comparable states in funding legal services for the poor, a situation so dire that only 28 percent of the civil legal needs of the state's poor and lowerincome residents are being addressed.
Sent 2: That figures translates into 2 million people without the ability to access the justice system, according to a new study by the California Commission on Access to Justice, which also found that despite increased spending, the gap between need and services remains substantial.
Sent 3: "As a practical matter, in most cases there can be no access to justice without access to legal assistance," said Jack Londen, past commission chair and a partner with Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco.
Sent 4: "Whether we like it or not, sometimes landlords illegally evict tenants, children with disabilities are denied proper care, veterans don't get services guaranteed to them, and elderly people need legal assistance to escape the abuse of a caregiver."
Sent 5: California has the highest number of people in poverty in the nation - 6.4 million, including nearly one in five children.
Sent 6: Half the nation's increase in poverty in the 1990s, when the number of poor jumped 30 percent, occurred in California, and nearly 25 percent of the nation's poverty increase occurred in Los Angeles County alone.
Sent 7: Even those with jobs are suffering: 26 percent of California workers earn poverty level wages.
Sent 8: The commission's report, "The Path to Equal Justice: A Five-Year Status Report on Access to Justice in California," examined how the legal needs of the state's poor have changed in the last five years as well as both the shortcomings of the justice system and the improvements during that period.
Sent 9: Despite increases in state funding to meet the legal needs of the poor, low interest rates (which have reduced the IOLTA fund), high unemployment and the present economic downturn have threatened any gains.

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-Higher_Registration_Fees-2.txt)
Sent 1: Registration fees for Illinois lawyers could jump as much as $49 a year if lawmakers adopt two separate measures to bolster pro-bono services and support for lawyers with drug and alcohol problems.
Sent 2: The Illinois Supreme Court is pushing for legislation that would allow it to dedicate money raised through the fee hikes to legal services to the poor.
Sent 3: The justices are floating a $42 increase to shore up financing for pro-bono work, as the normal funding mechanism for legal services has fallen short in recent years.
Sent 4: Currently, support for non-profit legal aid groups comes from interest generated on the Lawyers' Trust Fund, which pools clients' money that attorneys hold for such matters as escrow funds.
Sent 5: But low interest rates and a sagging economy mean there is less money being generated.
Sent 6: After hours of discussion, the high court agreed that raising the registration fees would be the best way to address the declining revenues, Chief Justice Moses W. Harrison II said.
Sent 7: The judges were reluctant to raise those fees but eventually decided that supporting probono services was important enough "and lawyers had a responsibility to contribute" to the cause, Harrison said.
Sent 8: Last year, the high court raised the base fee for active attorneys to $180 from $140.
Sent 9: Lawyers in their first three years of practice or who are inactive pay $90, and retired lawyers pay nothing.
Sent 10: Legislation circulated by the high court's lobbyist specifies that the hike would apply to attorneys "paying full annual registration fees."
Sent 11: In 2001, there were 57,392 active attorneys in Illinois and 74,311 on the full roll, according to the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission.
Sent 12: The hike would raise roughly $2.4 million.
Sent 13: Last year, interest on the trust fund totaled $4.5 million, but service and handling fees consumed $538,000 of that amount.
Sent 14: This year's returns are projected to be anywhere between $700,000 and $1 million short of that mark, said Ruth Ann Schmitt, the executive director of Lawyers Trust Fund of Illinois.
Sent 15: Harrison said the fee hikes are designed only to counter the shortfall in interest income, not add to the total amount available.
Sent 16: "Our legal services are already stretched to the breaking point," Schmitt said.
Sent 17: "We have a tough time raising enough money to properly fund services that our clients need."
Sent 18: Neither the Illinois State Bar Association nor The Chicago Bar Association has taken a stance on the proposed hikes.

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-Federal_agency-2.txt)
Sent 1: With a budget of $329 million, LSC provides civil legal assistance to low-income people in every county in America, Kleiman said.
Sent 2: NLAP was created in 1968.
Sent 3: A decade later, the agency used a $50,000 LSC grant to buy a building at 438 King St. in Charleston and $33,000 to buy a building at 201 King St. in Georgetown, according to Erlenborn's letter to Kaynard.
Sent 4: In 1980, NLAP used $63,000 in LSC funds to buy property at 607 Main St. in Conway, the letter said.
Sent 5: On Nov. 14, 2001, NLAP transferred title of the King Street building in Charleston to the Charleston County Bar Association, according to county property records.
Sent 6: The local bar paid $5 for the building, which sits between a redeveloped office building and an antique shop.
Sent 7: The local bar said it would maintain the building for "legal services to indigent residents of Charleston County and coastal South Carolina," the records said.
Sent 8: The King Street building appears to be vacant.
Sent 9: Notices at the entrance direct visitors to the equal justice center on West Montague Avenue in North Charleston.
Sent 10: E. Douglas Pratt-Thomas, president of the local bar, was not available for comment.
Sent 11: Charleston County has not appraised the King Street property because it is tax-exempt.
Sent 12: But Randall Goldman, managing partner of Patrick Properties, which owns buildings from 440 to 456 King St., said he estimates 438 King St. would sell for between $700,000 and $900,000.
Sent 13: "That building, which was purchased solely with federal legal aid dollars, should be used to provide legal services for poor people in South Carolina," Kleiman said.
Sent 14: LSC wants the title to go to the equal justice center in Charleston or "we want 100 percent of the proceeds from the sale of the building to stay in Charleston.
Sent 15: We are not contemplating taking that money out of South Carolina," he said.
Sent 16: Kleiman said if the neighborhood legal program in Charleston "had honored their obligation, this would not be an issue."

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-Bridging_legal_aid_gap-1.txt)
Sent 1: Lash is associate dean at the University of Southern California Law School.
Sent 2: Johnson is a justice on California's Second District Court of Appeal.
Sent 3: Lash and Johnson are co-chairs of the California Commission on Access to Justice.
Sent 4: The full report can be viewed at (www.calbar.org).
Sent 5: In her year-long odyssey through the California justice system, Katherine, a 35-year-old single mother with three children, experienced failure at every turn.
Sent 6: Leaving her abusive husband, she moved into the only apartment she could afford, and soon discovered a broken toilet and non- working oven, rats and roaches, and a fourthfloor landing with no railing.
Sent 7: She began withholding rent pending repairs her landlord refused to make, but then her Medi-Cal benefits were cut off when she could not provide rent receipts.
Sent 8: She lost health care for her children and herself, although she is a borderline diabetic in need of medication and her children were suffering from rat bites.
Sent 9: Katherine tried to seek help through the courts.
Sent 10: Representing herself at an administrative hearing, she lost her appeal to restore Medi-Cal benefits because she did not have proper documentation of the rent account.
Sent 11: When she went to a courthouse to file a complaint against her landlord, she found the process so confusing that she gave up and went home.
Sent 12: According to "The Path to Justice: A Five-Year Status Report on Access to Justice in California," prepared by the California Commission on Access to Justice, Katherine is just one of 4.6 million poor Californians whose basic civil legal needs -- often involving such critical needs as housing, health care, education, employment, safety and transportation -- are not being addressed.
Sent 13: California has a critical dearth of legal services for the poor, and, as this report makes clear, it is imperative that the state join with the federal government and private funders to increase resources so that all Californians, regardless of income, have equal access to our justice system.
Sent 14: Our justice system is predicated on the assumption that both parties will be represented by lawyers who act as gatekeepers and guides through a complex legal system that would otherwise be inaccessible to many of us.
Sent 15: Unfortunately, the most vulnerable members of our society are the least able to afford legal services.
Sent 16: California does have a strong network of legal aid organizations that try to help meet the needs of the poor, but there's just one legal aid lawyer available per 10,000 poor people.
Sent 17: We may promise "justice for all," but for those who can't afford a lawyer, that promise is often a lie.
Sent 18: In its new report, the Commission on Access to Justice notes some significant steps toward providing equal access to justice for all Californians.

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-GreensburgDailyNews-1.txt)
Sent 1: Growing up on a farm near St. Paul, L. Mark Bailey didn't dream of becoming a judge.
Sent 2: Even when he graduated from North Decatur High School in 1975, sitting on the bench someday seemed more like a leisurely activity than a career.
Sent 3: Somewhere along the line, all of that changed.
Sent 4: Bailey received his bachelor's degree from the University of Indianapolis in 1978 and a jurisprudence doctorate from Indiana University-Indianapolis in 1982.
Sent 5: After several years of private practice from 1982-90, he became the judge of Decatur County Court for a year.
Sent 6: The Indiana legislature renamed that judgeship and Bailey was tabbed Decatur Superior Court judge from 1992-98, winning reelection twice.
Sent 7: From there, his career continued on the fast track and Bailey was appointed by Gov. Frank O'Bannon to sit on the Indiana Court of Appeals First District, where he works today.
Sent 8: Despite his quick climb up the legal ladder, Bailey has always found time to help out in causes he feels strongly about.
Sent 9: It was for his dedication to the law and the people that are affected by it that he was recently recognized.
Sent 10: The Indiana Pro Bono Commission hosted its annual celebration event, the Randall T. Shepard Dinner, at French Lick Springs Spa in October.
Sent 11: More than 100 judges, lawyers and dignitaries were present for the gathering.
Sent 12: One of the highlights of the event was the presentation of the first-ever Randall T. Shepard award for excellence in pro bono work.
Sent 13: Bailey received the award for his three years of volunteer work at Indiana Pro Bono Commission.
Sent 14: The award was named after the chief justice of the Indiana Supreme Court to honor his statewide vision on justice.
Sent 15: The qualifications for the award were based upon demonstrated dedication to the innovative development and delivery of legal services to the poor in one of the 14 pro bono districts of Indiana.
Sent 16: "This award came as a real surprise to me.
Sent 17: It is truly an honor.
Sent 18: Just being the first chair of the commission which began the implementation of the pro bono process was somewhat humbling.

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-highlight_Senior_Day-1.txt)
Sent 1: It's just this hard when I try to answer the question: Why do older Oklahomans need lawyers?
Sent 2: The answers are important enough that they will be a discussion topic of this year's Senior Day at 9 a.m.
Sent 3: March 25 in the House Chamber at the Capitol.
Sent 4: The following is a preview of some of the answers for review: We can all agree that older Oklahomans need medical care.
Sent 5: But even the best care is worthless if an older patient can't drive to the doctor for ongoing treatment because his or her car has been wrongfully seized in a debt dispute.
Sent 6: Therefore, lawyers are part of the prescription for regular medical care for many of the 600,000 Oklahomans age 60 and older.
Sent 7: Another example: if a doctor treats an elderly patient for a lung ailment, the doctor's treatment will be undone and he will see the patient again and again, if the patient is sent home to an unheated apartment.
Sent 8: Lawyers know how to make landlords heat apartments so the medical treatment can stick.
Sent 9: (By the way, a May 16, 2001, article in The New York Times reports on a program at Boston Medical Center providing a walk-in legal clinic in the hospital to help fight their patients' legal and administrative battles.) We also can agree that older Oklahomans - like all citizens - have rights to control their health care until they become incapacitated or these rights are transferred to another by legal document or process.
Sent 10: "Old" is not a legal classification that results in automatic loss of these rights.
Sent 11: Moreover, having an old parent does not automatically confer on children the right to make the parents' health care choices.
Sent 12: It follows that an important role lawyers provide for aging Oklahomans is not only to create rights - transferring documents such as durable powers of attorney and guardianship orders, but also to monitor their use.
Sent 13: In family situations, for example, lawyers must ensure that powers of attorney and guardianships are used to serve only the person transferring or losing rights.
Sent 14: They are not to be used to help a family "manage" their mother or help a doctor or nursing home get permission for a pill or procedure they feel is in the best interest of a patient.
Sent 15: Good news: Oklahoma now has a Public Guardianship Program, albeit unfunded, that will supply lawyers to perform this rights-monitoring process Oklahoma grandparents should be able to enjoy their grandchildren, not raise them.
Sent 16: But owing to the social problems of divorce and drug use, grandparents are increasingly being called on to raise their grandchildren because of missing parents.
Sent 17: Adding to the physical, emotional and financial burden they take on, grandparents face legal problems.
Sent 18: All the decisions parents made without a second thought now require evidence of legal authority when made by grandparents.

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-Barnes_new_job-1.txt)
Sent 1: On Monday, departing Gov. Roy Barnes will spend his first day as a private citizen by starting his new job as a full-time, pro-bono (unpaid) lawyer at the Atlanta Legal Aid Society.
Sent 2: The decision by Barnes, the most improbable casualty of Election Day 2002, to go to work for legal aid was almost as unexpected as his November defeat.
Sent 3: As a legal services attorney, Barnes will help women escape domestic violence, Mauricio Vivero is vice president seniors fight predatory lending scams and parents obtain child support for their kids.
Sent 4: of Legal In doing so, he will take his place on the front line of the U.S. legal community's Services Corporation, the uphill and underpublicized struggle to achieve equal access to justice for millions of Washington-Americans too poor to afford legal representation.
Sent 5: based nonprofit corporation chartered by The inaccessibility of the U.S. civil justice system is hardly a new development, but it Congress in took Barnes' decision to put the national media spotlight on our country's ongoing 1974 to promote equal access to access-to-justice crisis.
Sent 6: civil justice.
Sent 7: The 2000 U.S. census reports that more than 43 million Americans qualify for free federally funded legal assistance, yet fewer than 20 percent of eligible clients (annual income: $11,075 or less) are able to obtain legal help when they need it, according to the American Bar Association.
Sent 8: In Georgia, there is just one legal aid lawyer for every 10,500 eligible poor people.
Sent 9: Barnes understood this problem long before he became governor.
Sent 10: While in private practice, he handled many pro-bono cases and was a frequent volunteer in the Cobb County office of the federally funded Atlanta Legal Aid Society.
Sent 11: Most memorably, he secured a $115 million judgment in 1993 against Fleet Finance for victimizing 18,000 homeowners -- many of them senior citizens -- with its widespread predatory lending mortgage practices.
Sent 12: His long-standing commitment to the underserved is certainly admirable, but it should not be viewed as a rare and laudable act of civic virtue.
Sent 13: To be admitted to practice law, every attorney must take a professional oath to promote justice -- and every state's ethical rules include language indicating lawyers' responsibility to be guardians of fair play for those living in poverty.
Sent 14: In Georgia, many law firms, corporations and private attorneys are working pro bono to serve the neediest clients.
Sent 15: Yet only 23 percent of the state's 23,598 active lawyers reported meeting the Georgia State Bar's goal of 50 hours of pro-bono service in 2002.
Sent 16: The need for volunteers is most severe outside the five-county Atlanta metropolitan area, where 70 percent of the state's poor people are served by only 24 percent of the state's lawyers.
Sent 17: National pro-bono participation is even worse.
Sent 18: Only 23 percent of the roughly 1 million attorneys in America volunteer even one hour of pro-bono service annually, according to the ABA.

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-Campaign_Pays-0.txt)
Sent 1: Victims of domestic violence will have access to quality legal representation through a campaign undertaken by Idaho Supreme Court Chief Justice Linda Copple Trout and corporate leaders.
Sent 2: "Thousands of times a year, Idahoans are victims of domestic violence.
Sent 3: The victims are often women and their children and they frequently have few resources with which to pursue their legal rights," Trout said Tuesday.
Sent 4: "This campaign helps fill that gap in legal services for women who need the help at a time when they are in crisis."
Sent 5: The Idaho Partners for Justice Project has already secured pledges of more than $35,000 from law firms, attorneys, corporations and individuals.
Sent 6: The goal is $100,000.
Sent 7: The drive to pay for free legal services will continue for the next two months.
Sent 8: The money goes to Idaho Legal Aid Services and the Idaho Volunteer Lawyers Program.
Sent 9: Last year, more than 5,000 petitions were filed in Idaho for protection orders in domestic violence cases.
Sent 10: More than 12,000 victims contacted shelters or crisis hotlines.
Sent 11: Joining Trout in the announcement was Idaho Bar Association President Fred Hoopes of Idaho Falls and Ida-West Energy Co. Chief Executive Officer Randy Hill, members of the project's executive committee.
Sent 12: Also on hand were some women who were victims of such violence, but benefited from free legal services.
Sent 13: Last year's campaign generated enough money and resources to help more than 450 victims.
Sent 14: The help ranged from representation in protection order hearings to legal assistance in divorce, visitation and child support cases.
Sent 15: The donations are tax deductible.

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-Domestic_Violence_Ruling-0.txt)
Sent 1: The violent arena of domestic abuse litigation has grown a bit more volatile here, now that a judge has decided to hold two women in contempt of court for returning to men who had been ordered to stay away from them.
Sent 2: "You can't have it both ways," said Judge Megan Lake Thornton of Fayette County District Court in recently fining two women $100 and $200 respectively for obtaining protective orders forbidding their partners from contacting them, then relenting and contacting the men.
Sent 3: Ruling that the order was mutually binding, Judge Thornton also cited the men for contempt.
Sent 4: "It drives me nuts when people just decide to do whatever they want," said Judge Thornton, who is experienced in the state's thick domestic abuse docket, which produces close to 30,000 emergency protective orders a year.
Sent 5: Kentucky officials say there is a virtual epidemic of abusive relationships in the state.
Sent 6: Judge Thornton's ruling has alarmed advocates for battered women, who plan to appeal it.
Sent 7: The advocates say the finding goes beyond existing law and is unrealistic because some renewed contacts often prove unavoidable in domestic abuse cases, which involve economic and family dependency and other complications of daily living.
Sent 8: The state office on domestic violence has pointedly agreed, warning that the ruling could cause abused women to hesitate in bringing their plight before the courts for fear of being chastised for their trouble.
Sent 9: "The reality is it's easy to say they should never have contact," said Sherry Currens, executive director of the Kentucky Domestic Violence Association, an advocacy and legal protection group.
Sent 10: "But we're talking about people in long-term relationships.
Sent 11: They may have children in common.
Sent 12: It's pretty hard to say, `Never speak again.'
Sent 13: People have financial difficulties.
Sent 14: They may love the partner.
Sent 15: It's not an easy thing."
Sent 16: But Judge Thornton declared in court, "When these orders are entered, you don't just do whatever you damn well please and ignore them."
Sent 17: The ruling stunned Cindra Walker, the lawyer for the two women, who is with Central Kentucky Legal Services, which represents many of the thousands of indigent women caught in abusive relationships.
Sent 18: "For over five years, I've been in court practically every day on these abuse cases," Ms. Walker said, "and I've never before had a victim threatened with contempt."

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-City_Council_Budget-2.txt)
Sent 1: One of the most dramatic changes in priorities proposed by the City Council would shift $25.6 million from funding for court-appointed lawyers to the Legal Aid Society.
Sent 2: In a document released yesterday to justify its reordered priorities, the Council contended that Legal Aid can achieve greater economies of scale than lawyers appointed pursuant to Article 18-B of the County Law.
Sent 3: The Council document also noted that "inexplicably" 18-B lawyers are handling 50 percent of the indigent criminal cases in New York City, even though their mandate is to handle only multi-defendant cases where the Legal Aid Society had a conflict.
Sent 4: In past years, the City Council had consistently added $5.6 million to the $54.7 million proposed for the Legal Aid Society by former Mayor Giuliani, bringing the total to just a shade over $60 million.
Sent 5: But this year for the first time, the Council is proposing shifting more than $20 million in funds earmarked by the Mayor for 18-B lawyers to the Legal Aid Society, which would increase its total funding to $80.4 million.
Sent 6: That would reflect a jump in its current finding of about one-third.
Sent 7: Meantime, the City Council proposed slashing the Mayor's allocation of $62.8 million for 18-B lawyers by 66 percent, to $21.4 million.

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-defend_yourself-0.txt)
Sent 1: Representing yourself in court can be a tricky endeavor.
Sent 2: There are confusing legal terms to learn, strict procedures to follow and volumes of case law that often need to be understood to prepare a case.
Sent 3: Lake County officials and a private agency that assists indigent litigants in Illinois want to make the practice easier by creating a self-help center for people who choose to represent themselves in legal matters.
Sent 4: The center, which will be housed in the law library at the main courthouse in Waukegan, could open later this summer.
Sent 5: "I think it's going to be extremely helpful," Court Administrator Bob Zastany said.
Sent 6: "There is a population out there that will take advantage of this resource."
Sent 7: The self-help center will be the only one of its kind in the county.
Sent 8: Only a few operate nationwide, officials said.
Sent 9: The project is the work of Lake County circuit court officials and Prairie State Legal Services, a statewide agency with an office in Waukegan that provides information and legal assistance to poor and elderly Illinois residents.
Sent 10: The organization has received a $25,000 grant from the Illinois Equal Justice Foundation, a nonprofit group that funds programs designed to increase access to legal information and assistance, to help pay for the effort.
Sent 11: Prairie State will share the money with the county.
Sent 12: The county's law library is on the first floor of the governmental center at 18 N. County St. The new self-help center will be designed to help litigants find the information they need to properly represent themselves in court, an undertaking that can be complicated and confusing.
Sent 13: "Some people can do OK on their own, and some people can do OK with some help," said Linda Rothnagel, the managing attorney for Prairie State Legal Services.
Sent 14: "But other people can't do it.
Sent 15: It's not always easy."
Sent 16: Self-representation is a right affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Sent 17: The practice is far more common in civil matters than in criminal cases.
Sent 18: In fact, self-represented litigants - formally called "pro se" in Latin, or "for oneself" - in criminal defenses are so rare that statistics about the practice generally are not kept, legal experts say.

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-CommercialAppealMemphis2-1.txt)
Sent 1: MALS was formed here more than 30 years ago.
Sent 2: Today, 14 staff attorneys, 26 office workers and 21 University of Memphis third- year law students work out of rented offices in the old Claridge Hotel building at 109 N. Main.
Sent 3: Offices are spartan.
Sent 4: There are no lush rugs or stylish furniture.
Sent 5: The large table in the conference room is simple varnished wood.
Sent 6: Offices are small and mostly plain, except for the eclectic mix of pop art, African statuary and neon that adorns litigation director Webb Brewer's space.
Sent 7: Brewer, who has been at the agency 20 years, said there is a need for lawyers of all stripes to help with the problems of the poor.
Sent 8: "The private bar could meet more of the need through pro bono work, but there are still cases that involve the systemic problems for low-income people that we would need to do," said Brewer.
Sent 9: "The legal system marketplace just doesn't serve low-income people too well, except in fee-generat-ing type cases," Brewer said.
Sent 10: "If a poor person gets run over by a bus, an attorney might take that case because they might be able to recover part of the damage award as attorney fees.
Sent 11: But so many of the cases we handle have to do with basic rights and a decent life.
Sent 12: There is just no profit motive."
Sent 13: Larry Pivnick, law professor at the University of Memphis Law School and director of political programs at MALS, said Legal Services is a great learning laboratory for law students.
Sent 14: "There are thousands and thousands of people who have problems that never get an opportunity to appear in court," Pivnick said.
Sent 15: "Some people may not be particularly articulate.
Sent 16: Courts have rules that clients don't always understand."
Sent 17: Brewer said a major focus of the agency's work involves housing.
Sent 18: "Although a lot of our work is grant-driven, we find that the lack of safe and decent affordable housing and the prevalence of predatory lending are the biggest problems in our client population," Brewer said, referring to clients such as James.

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-Domestic_violence_aid-1.txt)
Sent 1: The Domestic Violence Legal Assistance Program fills the gap of legal resources for domestic violence survivors who can't afford an attorney.
Sent 2: Domestic violence survivors in Jackson, Vicksburg, Hattiesburg, Oxford and Pascagoula can all get help.
Sent 3: Julia Crockett, deputy director of Central Southwest Mississippi Legal Services Corp., said the program expects to help nearly 1,000 domestic violence victims.
Sent 4: Crockett said legal help gives domestic abuse survivors a way to rebuild their lives.
Sent 5: "They have been made to feel by the abuser that no one is going to help them do anything, so when they come to us they are desperate," she said.
Sent 6: "Those who need legal help and don't get it feel totally lost.
Sent 7: Because then they feel like they are forced to stay in that situation."
Sent 8: Crockett said the program, funded by a $300,000 grant from the U.S. Justice Department, has no economic restrictions on who can get help.
Sent 9: Legal services typically helps the poor.
Sent 10: Gladys Bunzy, who said she was in an abusive relationship with a boyfriend for eight years, said such a program is long overdue and could be a lifeline for those escaping violent relationships.
Sent 11: "When I finally made up my mind to leave, I had a restraining order put against him and that was $50 but that was $50 well spent to me," said Bunzy, 40.
Sent 12: "For people who can't afford it, this will be a godsend ... If a woman knows she is going to get some help that will be a burden off her mind, if the law will help her keep that person away from her."
Sent 13: Gwen Bouie-Haynes, project director of the Domestic Violence Services Center for Catholic Charities Inc., said often domestic violence survivors do not have the money to seek legal representation.
Sent 14: "Legal assistance is a major issue for women fleeing a domestic violence situation," she said.
Sent 15: "Often times women are in need of immediate legal assistance services for the protection of the mother and the child.
Sent 16: To get a protective order you need to be represented by an attorney."
Sent 17: Crockett said the pilot program was launched in 1998 at the Haven House Family Shelter Inc., a domestic violence shelter for women and children in Vicksburg.
Sent 18: The program has helped victims in 90 court cases, and 150 legal counseling sessions have been held there.

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-Law_Schools-1.txt)
Sent 1: Life for the partners of Cates, Katalinic & Lund holds little of the glamour one might expect from a career in law.
Sent 2: Instead of lunches at Lut��ce, they caucus at the Palace Diner in Queens.
Sent 3: Wooing clients means passing out fliers on street corners, not securing box seats at Madison Square Garden.
Sent 4: To make ends meet, one partner stacks pipe and cleans the yard at a plumbing warehouse.
Sent 5: Another handles urine samples in a hospital lab.
Sent 6: A sign of failure, of a feeble economy, perhaps?
Sent 7: Hardly.
Sent 8: They are heeding the call of a growing pool of law schools, which are for the first time pointing graduates in a new direction and teaching them how to get there.
Sent 9: Forget the lure of large firms, the security of a government post.
Sent 10: Here is how to grapple "in the service of justice," as many of the schools put it, instead.
Sent 11: Convinced that corporate largess and government programs barely dent the nation's legal needs, the law schools are urging graduates to buck tradition, pass up big salaries and ignore mushrooming student debt to join tiny neighborhood practices or simply start their own, all with an eye toward charging no more than their clients can afford.
Sent 12: This is not pro bono legal work; it is "low bono," a term the schools coined to define the atypical kind of law career they are training students for.
Sent 13: While its practitioners do charge for their services, they are also dead set on turning no one away - or at least as few as possible.
Sent 14: "When you go into this kind of social justice law, it's really brutal and you're almost guaranteed to struggle for a couple of years before there's a light at the end of the tunnel," said Fred Rooney, director of the Community Legal Resource Network at City University of New York School of Law, from which the lawyers of the newly formed Cates, Katalinic & Lund graduated last May.
Sent 15: "But if our graduates don't do it, the millions of people who cannot access justice in this country will continue to soar."
Sent 16: The movement, primly called the consortium, started four years ago by CUNY, Northeastern University, the University of Maryland and St. Mary's Law School in Texas.
Sent 17: (St. Mary's later dropped out.) Since then, it has drawn seven additional law schools to its ranks: the University of Michigan, Rutgers and Syracuse Law Schools, New York Law School, University of New Mexico School of Law, Thomas M. Cooley Law School and Touro Law School.
Sent 18: It has elicited at least initial interest from 19 more.

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-Funding_May_Limit-0.txt)
Sent 1: Low-income domestic violence victims may find long-term legal help -- representation in divorces or child-custody disputes -- hard to come by, if two organizations now providing such help can't replace their lost funding.
Sent 2: The Legal Aid Society of Salt Lake and Utah Legal Services are already facing cutbacks after they were refused a federal grant of more than $450,000 in September.
Sent 3: The board overseeing the state Office of Crime Victim Reparations [CVR] has voted to deny a stopgap funding request from the two organizations.
Sent 4: While describing the request as a worthy cause, board members agreed Tuesday that funding divorces or custody disputes was outside their focus -- providing direct services for crime victims.
Sent 5: The $175,000 requested would have allowed the legal aid groups to maintain a skeleton staff to continue providing help beyond emergency protective orders for victims, completing existing cases and offering services in limited cases.
Sent 6: The groups also plan to enlist more pro bono attorneys through coordination with the Utah State Bar. "We don't have a lot more options," said Anne Milne, executive director of Utah Legal Services, after learning of the CVR refusal Wednesday.
Sent 7: The organization has already lost some staff through attrition and has turned away some cases, she said.
Sent 8: Milne said she may ask the board overseeing her organization to give her until November to seek funding from additional sources.
Sent 9: Without additional funding, the outlook for longer-term legal help is unclear.
Sent 10: For two years, the groups had received 18-month civil legal assistance grants from the U.S. Department of Justice and had used them to provide such assistance.
Sent 11: But last month, a third request was denied.
Sent 12: Funding used to help victims obtain emergency protective orders remains in place, said Milne and Stewart Ralphs, executive director of the Legal Aid Society of Salt Lake.
Sent 13: Although an order's requirements that an abuser stay away from a victim may remain in effect for years, protective orders only settle issues such as child custody, child support, custody and property arrangements for 150 days.
Sent 14: Many judges are reluctant to address those issues in emergency protective orders, since the decrees stay in effect for such a short time, Milne and Ralphs said.
Sent 15: "The likelihood a victim will return to her abuser increases if she cannot permanently sever the relationship and establish workable support, custody and property arrangements," the funding request to CVR said.
Sent 16: The Department of Justice said it denied the grant application, in part, because evaluators did not see enough collaboration between the organizations and victims' advocates, Ralphs and Milne told CVR board members.
Sent 17: While the two said they believe their organizations coordinate well, the organizations cannot appeal the grant denial.
Sent 18: Although CVR board members considered giving the money as a loan, not a grant, their vote on the funding request -- taken after Milne and Ralphs left the meeting -- was unanimous.

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-Kiosks_for_court_forms-0.txt)
Sent 1: Roberta Adams skipped the thick how-to guide on child-custody forms and sat down at a computer at the Lamoreaux Justice Center in Orange on Wednesday.
Sent 2: The Garden Grove woman answered a series of questions to create and print a form to file with the court.
Sent 3: "It's easy," said Adams, 25.
Sent 4: "I thought I'd have all kinds of questions and have to take the forms home."
Sent 5: A University of California, Irvine, study released Wednesday found an interactive computer system effectively helps people fill out paperwork for restraining orders, eviction defense, small-claims cases and requests for filing-fee waivers.
Sent 6: Not only does the system make life easier for people who can't afford a lawyer, but it also might improve efficiency in the courts because the forms, which are printed out when completed, are easy to read and are being filled out correctly, the study found.
Sent 7: Since the program started in 2000, more than 6,000 people have used the free system, located in public buildings throughout Orange County.
Sent 8: The system was developed by the Legal Aid Society of Orange County with about $800,000 in grants.
Sent 9: The program avoids legal jargon, offers a courthouse video tour and sticks to a fifth-grade vocabulary.
Sent 10: Users can choose English, Spanish or Vietnamese.
Sent 11: Kiosks are in courthouses in Fullerton and Orange, the district attorney's family-support office, the Legal Aid Society in Santa Ana, Irvine City Hall and the San Juan Capistrano Library.
Sent 12: The program is also available online.
Sent 13: Bob Cohen, executive director of Legal Aid, said the study should clear the way for expansion throughout California.
Sent 14: Locally, a program for divorce petitions will be added this summer.
Sent 15: Cohen said the system proves the benefit of technology tailored to those who aren't computer-savvy.
Sent 16: He said much of the technology now available requires Internet skills and access.
Sent 17: Low-income people, however, have less access to computers and less experience using them.
Sent 18: "Our clients have to catch up, and they have to become a part of the mainstream," Cohen said.

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-Coup_Reshapes_Legal_Aid-1.txt)
Sent 1: A government-sponsored coup last year made Bruce Iwasaki and Neal Dudovitz the kings of Los Angeles County's federally funded legal aid community.
Sent 2: The two men emerged atop a changed landscape that resulted from a decade of begging for a share of shrinking public dollars doled out by an unsympathetic GOP-controlled Congress.
Sent 3: That era was capped in 1998, when the Legal Services Corp. forced 275 legal aid providers nationwide to combine into 179.
Sent 4: To comply with the orders from their main funding source, a new species of poverty lawyer emerged - a tech-savvy and button-down breed who swapped neighborhood walkin offices for toll-free phone lines, self-help kiosks and Internet access to legal advice.
Sent 5: While some organizations made the dramatic change look effortless, for others, it did not come easy.
Sent 6: And few programs provide more dramatic illustrations of the promise and pitfalls of government-funded legal services than Los Angeles County's two largest providers of federally funded services - Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles and Pacoima-based Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County.
Sent 7: From his offices in Koreatown, Iwasaki, a soft-spoken former O'Melveny & Myers attorney, quietly engineered a merger between a much smaller Legal Aid Society of Long Beach and his program, the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles.
Sent 8: The merger was completed peacefully within a year of the federal order.
Sent 9: Today, the programs operate seamlessly, offering new innovations - including toll-free multilingual phone advisers, expanded hours for domestic-violence clinics, and renewed immigration and consumer aid - built on the foundations of the old program.
Sent 10: The organization is Los Angeles' largest government-funded group, with a budget of $11 million leveraged into $40 million in legal services to the poor.

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-A_helping_hand-4.txt)
Sent 1: And William Martinez, 28, who cut his medical school studies short because he couldn't afford the $39,000 in loans after two years of graduate school and four years of college.
Sent 2: Martinez works two jobs as a physician's assistant and supports his elderly parents and 8-year-old son.
Sent 3: Uncommon Good has a 22-member board of doctors, lawyers and representatives of Christian groups and is recruiting mentors.
Sent 4: One goal is to get the state Legislature to pass a law to provide loan forgiveness to medical professionals and lawyers who work with the poor.
Sent 5: Mintie said she hopes her organization can be a national model for other professions.
Sent 6: She is trying to bring legal aid services to the Inland Valley -- the closest legal aid office is in El Monte and represents 700,000 poor people throughout the San Fernando, San Gabriel and Inland valleys.
Sent 7: "Unless the legal aid is in the community, you can't say you are serving the poor," Mintie said.
Sent 8: Neal Dudovitz is the executive director of Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County, the legal aid office in El Monte.
Sent 9: He sees attorneys new to poverty law leave all the time because they can't afford the salary with their law school debt.
Sent 10: "She's really opened a lot of eyes in terms of having people understand how the educational debt is limiting and reducing the services that are available to low-income communities," Dudovitz said.
Sent 11: "Nancy is light years ahead of the curve on this stuff.
Sent 12: Very little is being done practically to solve it."
Sent 13: Mintie, her colleagues say, could have made a lot of money in private practice.
Sent 14: "She's very kind and pleasant," said Julius Thompson, 45, an attorney at Inner City Law Center and an Uncommon Good recipient.
Sent 15: "But she's also a woman on a mission.
Sent 16: When she sets her sights on something, she's a formidable force."

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-Fire_Victims_Sue-2.txt)
Sent 1: Nine families displaced by a fire at Alamo Hills Apartments in March filed lawsuits Wednesday against the apartment complex.
Sent 2: They allege that the complex could have done more to protect belongings they were forced to abandon in the aftermath of the blaze.
Sent 3: Bernard Dempsey Jr., an attorney with Western Michigan Legal Services, the group that represents the tenants, said Alamo Hills gave the displaced families very limited opportunity to remove belongings.
Sent 4: "They were given three days to get their stuff out, and if they couldn't get moved out in three days, their stuff was discarded," Dempsey said.
Sent 5: "Alamo Hills just threw it out."
Sent 6: Others, he said, lost possessions to looters after the March 23 blaze, which left 78 people temporarily homeless.
Sent 7: According to the lawsuit, the tenants were prohibited from entering their apartments to retrieve possessions and were promised that the complex would provide security.
Sent 8: A spokesperson for PM One, the company that manages Alamo Hills, could not be reached for comment.
Sent 9: Nine separate suits were filed in 8th District Court, which handles civil claims of less than $25,000.
Sent 10: "We're asking for the reimbursement of the value of their property and a small amount for stress -- $3,000 on top of their out-of-pocket expenses for their lost stuff," Dempsey said.
Sent 11: "They're not looking to get rich off this.
Sent 12: A lot of this is simply because they were treated so badly."
Sent 13: Dempsey said most of the tenants who filed suits still live at the apartment complex, although many are trying to find homes elsewhere.
Sent 14: "The new apartments (they were provided) were not in very good shape.
Sent 15: That's actually one of the claims," he said.

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/masc-A_defense_of_Michael_Moore-6.txt)
Sent 1: Unfortunately, because the zooming is rather fast, it is easy to miss the rest of the sentence, so as you correctly note, some viewers got an incorrect impression.
Sent 2: It would have been fair for Moore to point out this possible misinterpretation on his website.
Sent 3: However, the claim of deliberate distortion is ludicrous for several reasons: a) Moore clearly states that "before he came to Flint", Heston gave an interview.
Sent 4: In the excerpt from said interview, we can see that it is from March.
Sent 5: If Moore wanted to deceive his viewers, why would he say this, and show the month the interview was published?
Sent 6: b) Why should Moore leave the words "Clinton is on the Today Show" visible in the text, which is necessary to correctly interpret the highlighted part?
Sent 7: I reviewed the sequence several times and it is perfectly possible to see this text without pausing.
Sent 8: c) Both the "soccer mom" interview and the sequences showing the NRA rally make no effort to distort the fact that this rally happened months after the fact.
Sent 9: The camera lingers on Bush/Cheney posters, and the protestor is quoted as saying that "we wanted to let the NRA know that we haven't forgotten about Kayla Rolland".
Sent 10: You make the hysterical claim that the interview "may be faked" (on the basis that no name is shown for the interviewee), but if Moore had faked it, why the hell should he put this sentence in the protestor's mouth, which directly contradicts the conclusion that the rally happened hours after Kayla's death?
Sent 11: Why did Moore, the masterful deveiver, not edit this sequence out?
Sent 12: This makes no sense.
Sent 13: Opinions may vary on how tasteless it was for Heston to hold a pro gun rally on the location of the nation's youngest school shooting months after the fact, but this sequence of "Bowling" is without doubt the most unfair to Heston.
Sent 14: The claims of deliberate distortion don't hold up when viewing the whole scene, though -- as "Hanlon's Razor" states, one should never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence.
Sent 15: The somewhat inept editing of the NRA press release has led some viewers to wrong conclusions, which is unfortunate, but Moore's critics have no interest in viewing the matter fairly.
Sent 16: Had they done so, Moore himself would probably have apologized for the gaffe.
Sent 17: In any case, at no point does Moore make a false statement, in contradiction to claims by critics that his documentary is "full of lies".

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-families_saved-0.txt)
Sent 1: After more than a year of effort, attorneys with Northwest Justice Project earlier this week told 25 families in a mobile home park here that they can keep their homes and no longer need to fear eviction.
Sent 2: The East Wenatchee City Council has entered into an Interlocal Agreement with the Wenatchee Housing Authority authorizing the Authority to purchase and maintain the Mobile Park Plaza mobile home park.
Sent 3: Located just north of the Wenatchee Valley Mall, the park had been threatened with closure for more than a year.
Sent 4: "We cannot say enough about how relieved we are that this is over," said Manuel Luna, one of the residents of Mobile Park Plaza.
Sent 5: "We were afraid that no solution would be found, and that our families would have no place to go.
Sent 6: We are very grateful for the help of our attorneys.
Sent 7: Without them, we would not have saved our homes.
Sent 8: We are also thankful for the help of the Housing Authority, the City Council and Mayor Steve Lacy."
Sent 9: Formerly owned by local businessman Dan Jennings, Mobile Park Plaza had been home to 45 low-income families, many of them Latino farm workers.
Sent 10: In October 2000 Jennings gave the park residents notice of his intent to close the park effective November 30, 2001.
Sent 11: While some park residents decided to move, others, including 25 families, organized an informal association to relocate or save their homes.
Sent 12: Unable to afford private legal counsel, the families asked for help from legal services attorneys at the Northwest Justice Project and Columbia Legal Services.
Sent 13: In the succeeding months, these attorneys worked with representatives of the Greater Wenatchee Housing Authority, the state Office of Community Development, Chelan County, the City of East Wenatchee, state legislators, Jennings and others to secure funding and find a solution.
Sent 14: "There seemed to be a never-ending set of obstacles," said Patrick Pleas, an attorney with Northwest Justice Project.
Sent 15: "Mr. Jennings had financial considerations, the City had growth and economic development considerations, and the State and Housing Authority had their own concerns.
Sent 16: Thankfully, hard work and good will from all parties allowed us to find a solution that works for everyone."
Sent 17: Northwest Justice Project and Columbia Legal Services are non-profit organizations that provide civil legal assistance to low-income individuals and families throughout Washington state.
Sent 18: Members of the state's Access to Justice Network, these organizations work with thousands of volunteer attorneys to ensure that justice is available to those who face critical legal problems and can't afford private legal counsel.

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-Coup_Reshapes_Legal_Aid-2.txt)
Sent 1: Iwasaki's careful respect for the Long Beach program and its lawyers earned him the political capital he needed to complete his takeover in a matter of weeks.
Sent 2: "The Long Beach program had strong support in the community so in a situation like that, one has to recognize that it's not like a takeover where I have all the answers and I know best," Iwasaki said.
Sent 3: "The people in the community who are working there have the contacts and the knowledge that will allow service to continue."
Sent 4: Things have gone less smoothly across town.
Sent 5: There, Dudovitz, a longtime poverty lawyer and executive director of the San Fernando Valley's 36-year-old legal aid program, continues to struggle with his hostile takeover of the neighboring San Gabriel-Pomona Valleys service area one year after it was accomplished.
Sent 6: On the bright side, Dudovitz has extended his respected program to clients in the San Gabriel-Pomona Valley, and he now operates on a much larger budget, $6.5 million last year.
Sent 7: However, his clash with the old San Gabriel program resulted in litigation, bitter feelings and a mission that some say is not clearly focused on serving poor people.
Sent 8: "It was a difficult situation that was probably mishandled by everyone," a longtime observer of the public interest community said of the San Fernando Valley-San Gabriel-Pomona Valley merger.
Sent 9: "There are very few people who come out as the heroes.
Sent 10: Personalities got involved when they shouldn't have.
Sent 11: Things were said that caused bad feelings and couldn't be unsaid."
Sent 12: Iwasaki's merger with the smaller, 48-year-old Long Beach program was friendly and fast, and no one - not even Long Beach board members - lost a job.
Sent 13: When it was over, Iwasaki had $1 million more in federal dollars and two new offices.
Sent 14: Long Beach clients regained services they had lost years ago when federal budget cuts and dwindling grants reduced the staff of 15 lawyers to five and cut immigration and consumer law programs.
Sent 15: Iwasaki said, "[I judged the transition] better than I could have hoped for."

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-Entities_Merge-1.txt)
Sent 1: The letterhead on correspondence still bears the Bexar County Legal Aid name, even though the organization is no longer.
Sent 2: Texas Rural Legal Aid - known for its fearless and sometimes controversial advocacy of the poorest of the poor - last week took over four other corporations serving the legal needs of the indigent in Southwest Texas, including the one in Bexar County.
Sent 3: The new 68-county legal aid organization has yet to be named and stretches from El Paso to Corpus Christi, Harlingen to Austin.
Sent 4: The leader for the super-sized law firm has big plans.
Sent 5: "I'm more interested in looking at what we as advocates can do to address the serious problems of poverty than the number of cases we close," said David Hall, the TRLA executive director.
Sent 6: In the Rio Grande Valley, Hall's attorneys set up separate groups to assist small-business owners and residents with low-interest loans and legal representation.
Sent 7: They also operate a legal arm that assists migrant workers from Texas to Kentucky.
Sent 8: Now, Hall said, he wants to make services to the poor more efficient by working with law students who will handle less complicated legal matters, allowing licensed attorneys to take more "high impact" cases to court.
Sent 9: "What we need to do is handle cases as efficiently as we can, leveraging the amount of time of the lawyer that goes in there and maximizing the number of people that they can help at one time," Hall said.
Sent 10: His plan is to place the 110 attorneys on staff in teams working on specialized legal issues.
Sent 11: He wants to expand the law clinic it already has with St. Mary's University Law School to involve students at the University of Texas Law School.
Sent 12: The law students at St. Mary's interview potential clients, assist them with filling out legal documents and answer the telephones for the legal hotline, freeing up TRLA lawyers to handle the complicated cases, Hall said.
Sent 13: By the end of September, Hall said all the attorneys working with the poor in the 68county area will be placed on the same computer network so they can pass cases to the best available attorneys.
Sent 14: Last year, board members on the former Legal Aid of Central Texas and Bexar County Legal Aid resisted the merger, saying that the mergers were done illegally and without the input of board members.
Sent 15: They also argued that Hall's litigious style hampered their ability to garner funds from Congress.
Sent 16: TRLA generated controversy in 1996, when its attorneys challenged the rights of 800 military personnel to vote in Val Verde County elections by absentee ballot after a former Ku Klux Klan member won a county commissioner post.
Sent 17: Brendan Gill, the former executive director of the Bexar County group, said he has since come to see the merger as a positive move for South Texas.
Sent 18: "I always knew there were good points to merging, just as I knew that there were bad points," Gill said.

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-Boone_legal_service-2.txt)
Sent 1: Boone, Ia.
Sent 2: -Poor and elderly people may soon go without legal representation in Boone County.
Sent 3: Boone County Legal Aid, which for 31 years has provided legal services to those who couldn't afford them, will close in February if a $10,000 grant from Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino is not awarded.
Sent 4: The legal service is one of the few programs in Iowa that offers legal representation to those who qualify without turning to the state for its services.
Sent 5: "It is a very sad situation, but that's the fact," said Alan Schroeder, city attorney and supervisor of Boone County Legal Aid.
Sent 6: For the past two years using money mostly from the city and county, Schroeder has upheld the outfit alone, taking on about 60 clients a year, and settling cases that range from domestic abuse to bankruptcy.
Sent 7: He also has a private practice.
Sent 8: If the legal service closes, he's unsure where his clients will go.
Sent 9: The city of Boone gave Schroeder $6,300 in July to resolve pending cases, said Kathy Berg, Boone's finance officer.
Sent 10: Without that, the program might already be closed.
Sent 11: "All governments are having problems with finances," Boone Mayor George Maybee said.
Sent 12: "No one else stepped in.
Sent 13: The county didn't.
Sent 14: The state didn't."
Sent 15: Donovan Olson, chairman of the county Board of Supervisors, said the board quit funding the legal service in July because it felt the county didn't need it.
Sent 16: Drake University ended its funding after the 2000 spring semester "for a variety of reasons," Suzanne Levitt, the law professor who oversaw the program, said via e-mail.
Sent 17: Olson said Schroeder must prove Prairie Meadows is the primary money source for the board to grant the program any more money.
Sent 18: Schroeder ran the program without the help of law students or Drake, which had provided as much as two-thirds of the money in some years.

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-Assuring_Underprivileged-5.txt)
Sent 1: "The impact of her interest and work on the provision of legal services in the state of California is immeasurable," said Patricia Philips, senior of-counsel for Los Angeles' Morrison & Foerster.
Sent 2: "Its value is felt every day by someone who would otherwise be floundering around in the legal system yet dealing with very serious problems."
Sent 3: Zelon's public-interest work has not gone unnoticed.
Sent 4: Several organizations that share her commitment to public service - including the National Legal Aid & Defender Association and the State Bar of California - have honored her.
Sent 5: Two years ago, Zelon received the Laurie D. Zelon Pro Bono Award, which had been named for her one year earlier by the Law Firm Pro Bono Project, which she'd helped found.
Sent 6: "I didn't find out until I was standing in the great hall of the Supreme Court, surrounded by 300 people who were there, that the award had been named for me and was thereafter going to be given in my name.
Sent 7: It's very hard to believe, for anyone who knows me well, but I was actually speechless for a period," Zelon said.
Sent 8: Zelon faced one of the greatest challenges of her legal career, she said, when her appointment to the bench forced her to switch gears from civil litigation to criminal law.
Sent 9: "It was a steep learning curve for me," she said.
Sent 10: "It's a whole different set of processes.
Sent 11: The rules are different.
Sent 12: The case law is a whole body unto itself."
Sent 13: Attorneys praise Zelon for her thorough understanding of the law.
Sent 14: "She's extremely well-versed in the law," Leon said.
Sent 15: "She's very thorough in her research," Wong said.
Sent 16: Of course, not all attorneys concur with every decision Zelon makes in court.
Sent 17: Some city attorneys disagree with her interpretation of evidentiary statutes when Zelon puts limits on their use of hearsay testimony.
Sent 18: But lawyers who have appeared before her say that they appreciate her intelligent interpretation of the law.

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/masc-A_defense_of_Michael_Moore-5.txt)
Sent 1: The rally took place on October 17, the shooting on February 29.
Sent 2: Again, standard filmmaking techniques are interpreted as smooth distortion: "Moore works by depriving you of context and guiding your mind to fill the vacuum -- with completely false ideas.
Sent 3: It is brilliantly, if unethically, done."
Sent 4: As noted above, the "from my cold dead hands" part is simply Moore's way to introduce Heston.
Sent 5: Did anyone but Moore's critics view it as anything else?
Sent 6: He certainly does not "attribute it to a speech where it was not uttered" and, as noted above, doing so twice would make no sense whatsoever if Moore was the mastermind deceiver that his critics claim he is.
Sent 7: Concerning the Georgetown Hoya interview where Heston was asked about Rolland, you write: "There is no indication that [Heston] recognized Kayla Rolland's case."
Sent 8: This is naive to the extreme -- Heston would not be president of the NRA if he was not kept up to date on the most prominent cases of gun violence.
Sent 9: Even if he did not respond to that part of the interview, he certainly knew about the case at that point.
Sent 10: Regarding the NRA website excerpt about the case and the highlighting of the phrase "48 hours after Kayla Rolland is pronounced dead": This is one valid criticism, but far from the deliberate distortion you make it out to be; rather, it is an example for how the facts can sometimes be easy to miss with Moore's fast pace editing.
Sent 11: The reason the sentence is highlighted is not to deceive the viewer into believing that Heston hurried to Flint to immediately hold a rally there (as will become quite obvious), but simply to highlight the first mention of the name "Kayla Rolland" in the text, which is in this paragraph.

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-Justice_for_all-1.txt)
Sent 1: After becoming disabled in a machete attack on a visit to his native Haiti, Jean-Claude Joseph needed help persuading his landlord to move him from a fifth-floor apartment to one on the ground floor.
Sent 2: Isaac Benjamin became ensnared in a bureaucratic snafu that took away his Social Security disability payments for more than two years.
Sent 3: The story of Martha, a woman from Sierra Leone, was more compelling.
Sent 4: Beaten, raped and tortured in her politically repressive homeland, she knowingly used someone else's passport to escape to America, but was caught by immigration authorities upon her arrival.
Sent 5: She desperately sought political asylum.
Sent 6: Not the kind of cases that lead to ground-breaking upheavals in the law, but the kind of cases that are handled day in and day out by lawyers for the legally disenfranchised who have no where else to turn.
Sent 7: The work of attorneys from Legal Services of New Jersey will be highlighted in a onehour documentary, "Quest for Justice," to be aired 9 p.m.
Sent 8: today on New Jersey Network.
Sent 9: Produced by NYD2, a communications firm based in Somerset, the documentary features case histories of clients whose needs ranged from housing to fighting off deportation.
Sent 10: Joseph, a 54-year-old naturalized citizen, turned to Legal Services when the landlord of his federally subsidized apartment complex in Elizabeth turned a deaf ear to his request for a ground-floor apartment.
Sent 11: Having lost the use of his left arm in warding off the machete attack during a robbery attempt, Joseph said he found it increasingly difficult to negotiate the five flights of stairs lugging groceries or laundry on the frequent occasions when the building's elevator was out of order.
Sent 12: "With this, it became impossible for me to stay upstairs," he said, pointing to the scars on his forearm.
Sent 13: "If I cannot carry my groceries or my laundry, how can I live?"
Sent 14: "It was a compelling case," said Legal Services attorney Stephen St. Hilaire.
Sent 15: "The key for us -- and we have to make tough decisions all the time on whether to take a case -- was visualizing what he had to do to get to the fifth floor, struggling with a bag of groceries," he said.
Sent 16: Benjamin, 53, of Jersey City had been collecting Social Security disability after undergoing double bypass surgery when the checks stopped coming.
Sent 17: He said the agency claimed he had failed to return a form updating the condition of his health.
Sent 18: "But what got me was they didn't let me know they didn't get it, they just cut me off," he said, adding he found it impossible to negotiate the Social Security bureaucracy himself.

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-Coup_Reshapes_Legal_Aid-4.txt)
Sent 1: Former Long Beach Executive Director Toby Rothschild, now a policy wonk in Iwasaki's outfit, agreed.
Sent 2: "To some extent, I did look at it and say, 'We are the littlest kid on the block, and we don't want to get beat up so we need a bigger protector,'" Rothschild said.
Sent 3: "Once we got past that, it became a real positive for the Long Beach program and Long Beach clients."
Sent 4: But to the San Gabriel-Pomona Valley legal aid program, the positives of merging with Dudovitz's program, San Fernando Valley Neighborhood Legal Services, were never obvious.
Sent 5: A meeting in late 1999 between Dudovitz and the San Gabriel-Pomona Valley program's board showed how little the two programs had in common and how difficult bridging the gap between their ideologies would be, Dudovitz recalled.
Sent 6: Although no merger plans were discussed, board members at the smaller program knew of Dudovitz's preference for impact litigation over direct services.
Sent 7: "We had a discussion about what our separate views were," Dudovitz said.
Sent 8: "The message we got was that they wanted their program to stay as it was."
Sent 9: Lauralea Saddick, former executive director of the San Gabriel-Pomona Valley program, said her board simply did not share Dudovitz's desire to spend money influencing social policy and participating in high-profile litigation over poverty-related issues.
Sent 10: "Our board's philosophy was that the money given by the federal government was to help people with basic everyday needs," Saddick said.
Sent 11: "It might take a little bit of humility to take those kinds of cases.
Sent 12: Impact work is very important ... but what was the good of getting the law changed if no one is there to help the individual?"
Sent 13: Before the San Gabriel program was subsumed by Dudovitz's group, it offered to merge with the Legal Aid Society of Orange County.
Sent 14: The boards of both organizations eschewed impact litigation in favor of the 1960s model of providing direct client services.
Sent 15: Supported by resolutions from the Pasadena, San Gabriel, Eastern and Foothill bar associations, the two programs drew up plans to merge and submitted them to the Legal Services Corp. Dudovitz won Iwasaki's backing to oppose the deal, and Legal Services Corp., the national funding source, overruled the proposed San Gabriel-Pomona Valley/Orange County merger.
Sent 16: On Jan. 27, 2001, the federal agency awarded the San Gabriel-Pomona Valley service area to Dudovitz under the umbrella of an expanded San Fernando program, citing the location of both programs in Los Angeles, which would allow "better coordinated and more effective advocacy on county government policies."
Sent 17: The San Gabriel-Pomona Valley program sued Legal Services Corp. to stop the takeover, claiming the federal program based the decision on favoritism for the politically active Dudovitz and the politically powerful Iwasaki.
Sent 18: Though the federal suit accomplished little, it effectively suspended the end of the old program and the start of the new one for nearly a year.

Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-Abuse_penalties-2.txt)
Sent 1: If you beat a dog in Schuylkill County, you'll probably get a $100 fine.
Sent 2: If you repeatedly beat a woman, you'll probably get the same fine.
Sent 3: In 2001, county judges heard 98 Protection From Abuse cases, finding the defendant guilty in 48 percent of those cases, either after a hearing or through a technical violation or plea.
Sent 4: Of those found guilty, the majority were ordered to pay court costs, plus a $100 fine.
Sent 5: No defendants were ordered to pay more than a $250 fine for violating the court order.
Sent 6: In 27 percent of the cases, the charges were dismissed or the defendant was found not guilty.
Sent 7: In the rest of the cases, charges were withdrawn or the matter is not yet resolved.
Sent 8: Sarah T. Casey, executive director of Schuylkill Women in Crisis, finds it disturbing that in most cases, the fine for violating a PFA is little more than the fine someone would get for cruelty and abuse toward an animal.
Sent 9: "In most of the counties surrounding Schuylkill County, the penalties given for indirect criminal contempt are much stiffer than those in Schuylkill County," Casey said.
Sent 10: "What kind of message are we sending those who repeatedly violate Protection From Abuse orders?
Sent 11: That it's OK to abuse women in Schuylkill County, because you'll only get a slap on the wrist?"
Sent 12: Under state law, the minimum fine for contempt of a PFA is $100; the maximum fine is $1,000 and up to six months in jail.
Sent 13: Like others who are familiar with how the county's legal system does and doesn't work for victims of domestic violence, Casey believes some changes are in order.
Sent 14: Valerie West, a manager/attorney with Mid-Penn Legal Services, with offices in Pottsville and Reading, regularly handles domestic violence cases.
Sent 15: She finds fault with the local requirement that a custody order must be established within 30 days after a PFA is filed.
Sent 16: West said she feels a custody order should be allowed to stand for the full term of the PFA - up to 18 months - as it does in many other counties in the state.
Sent 17: "It places an undue burden on the plaintiff, in terms of cost, finding legal representation and facing their abuser - not to mention a further burden on the system to provide those services," West said.
Sent 18: "It may be difficult for the parties to reach an agreement so soon after violence has occurred.