Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-Coup_Reshapes_Legal_Aid-5.txt)
Sent 1: Still untaken are several steps that required goodwill from local bar associations and others who had opposed the combination.
Sent 2: "[I am] not a fan of Neal's," admitted John Peck, a former board member of the San Gabriel-Pomona Valley program and a Pasadena Bar Association board member.
Sent 3: Peck says bad feelings still linger among Ailies of the old program who feel left out.
Sent 4: "They really screwed us.
Sent 5: We had a good program," Peck said.
Sent 6: An observer familiar with the reconfiguration debate who requested anonymity wondered why Dudovitz had not spent more time mending fences.
Sent 7: "He ought to be bending over backwards for reconciliation, but if you want to do impact work and people in the San Gabriel Valley want direct services, you have to accommodate that or change your approach," the observer said.
Sent 8: "Neal would never consider doing that."
Sent 9: More than a year after he officially incorporated the San Gabriel-Pomona Valley, Dudovitz had not placed a local resident on the board of Neighborhood Legal Services or made the rounds of the private legal community to recruit the volunteer lawyers.
Sent 10: "Our emphasis has been on having our potential clients know about us and deliver services to them," Dudovitz said.
Sent 11: "We have done that spectacularly."
Sent 12: He did not hire any of the old program's nine lawyers and has yet to permanently place any of his 18 new hires in the San Gabriel-Pomona Valley.
Sent 13: The lack of a legal aid presence in Pomona prompted the bar association and court officials to start their own once-monthly family law clinic.
Sent 14: After learning of the effort, Dudovitz sent personnel to staff the clinic for three hours per week and is helping to write a grant application to fund a self-help kiosk for Pomona patterned on the center he pioneered in Van Nuys.
Sent 15: The help, although late, has earned Dudovitz some appreciation.
Sent 16: "There has been a transition and [the clinic] has helped to fill some void," said Deni Butler, administrator for the Eastern District Superior Court.
Sent 17: "But we are working together quite nicely contrary to what the other side issue is."
Sent 18: Scott Wheeler, president of the Eastern Bar Association of Los Angeles and an ally of the old program, said he mobilized his 200 members to staff the clinic after watching the ranks of unserved poor grow over the past year.