Chief Justice Richard Guy Temple of Justice
P.O. Box 40929
Olympia, WA 98504-0929

Richard Eymann, President
Washington State Bar Association
801 Washington Mutual Building
601 W. Main Ave.
Spokane, WA 99201-0671

RE: Six-Month Report of the Access to Justice Board

Dear Chief Justice Guy and President Eymann:

On May 18, 1994, the Supreme Court entered an order establishing the Access to Justice (ATJ) Board for an initial evaluation period of two years. The formal work of the ATJ Board began in November 1994. On November 21, 1996, the Court, on the recommendation of the Washington State Bar Association (WSBA) Board of Governors (BOG), reauthorized the ATJ Board for an additional five years, having found that it had successfully completed its initial evaluation period. The Court ordered the ATJ Board to continue to file evaluative reports every six months with the Court and the BOG. This Report and the attached Exhibits constitute the tenth six-month report, and the completion of the first three and one-half years under the new Order. This Report also documents the ATJ Board's activities since the last formal Report to the Court and the BOG on January 31, 2000.

BACKGROUND

A. ATJ Board Mission, Members, Structure and Staffing: Mission: Promote and facilitate equal access to justice in Washington state for low- and moderate-income people through high-quality legal services. The ATJ Board continues to track and evaluate its progress under the directives of this Court's Order, and continues to refine its mission through the mechanisms it has established to do so: the Revised Plan for the Delivery of Civil Legal Services to Low Income People in Washington State (Revised State Plan), the annual Access to Justice Conference and the annual ATJ Board retreat.

This Court, on the recommendation of the BOG, appointed three new members to the ATJ Board in May 2000: Dwight Williams (representing the Legal Foundation of Washington); Hon. Rebecca Baker (at-large member); and Richard Kuhling (at-large member). They replace outgoing members Hon. Marlin Appelwick, Hon. Paul Bastine and Isabel Safora, who all were founding members of the ATJ Board.

Attached is a current list of ATJ Board members and ATJ Board Committee chairs (Exhibit 1). Nearly 250 volunteers serve on the ATJ Board's eleven permanent committees and four interim committees (described in detail below) They include state and federal judges, administrative law judges, private and government attorneys, law librarians, court clerks, courthouse facilitators, paralegals, legal services and volunteer attorney legal services staff, pro bono attorneys, law students and faculty, paralegal students, mediators, LAW Fund and Legal Foundation of Washington representatives, staff from the Office of the Administrator for the Courts and the Washington State Bar Association, state agency staff, and representatives from the media. The new Council on Public Legal Education was established through the collaboration of a broad-based group of stakeholders convened by the ATJ Board, and the ATJ Board is collaborating closely with the Council. The ATJ Board also continues to work closely with WSBA's Pro Bono and Legal Aid Committee (PBLAC) on efforts to promote and support pro bono work by lawyers, and to secure additional funding for this state's civil legal services providers. Representatives from the ATJ Board and the Access to Justice community are serving on the BJA's Project 2001 subcommittees.

The Access to Justice Programs at WSBA (ATJ Board, Pro bono and Legal Aid Committee, the Greater Access and Assistance Program ? GAAP, the Emeritus Program and state support functions) are now under the umbrella of "Justice Programs" within the Office of the Executive Director. The staff and administration of the Council on Public Legal Education also falls under the Justice Programs umbrella. Justice Programs staff include: Joan Fairbanks, Justice Programs Manager; Sharlene Steele, Access to Justice Programs Liaison; Joyce Raby, Justice Programs Technology Specialist; Pam Inglesby, Public Legal Education Manager; and Leslie Johnson, Justice Programs Coordinator.

B. Meetings: The ATJ Board met four times since its last Report, which included its annual meeting with the Supreme Court and its annual retreat. Attached are the Agendas from the February 25, March 2, May 5 and June 22-23, 2000 meetings (Exhibit 2).

C. Web Site: This Report and most of the attached exhibits can now be found on the ATJ page of the WSBA web site, www.wsba.org/atj.

ATJ BOARD ACTIVITIES

A. Overview: At its annual retreat on June 22 and 23, 2000 the ATJ Board reviewed a detailed analysis of the progress on the implementation of the Board's priorities for 2000, which had been approved at its September 1999 retreat (Exhibit 3). Based largely on the enormous number of tasks delegated to the Board in the Revised State Plan (adopted September 1999), the Board necessarily revised its 2001 priorities to address these responsibilities (Exhibit 4).

At the national level, the ATJ board and many of its initiatives continue to be showcased as models.
The American Bar Association featured the Access to Justice Board and its state planning process in its publication, Roadmaps, and again featured the ATJ Board in its annual publication on State and Local Justice Initiatives.
ATJ Board staff initiated and staffed a national project to secure the adoption by the National Conference of Chief Justices of a resolution, Providing and Institutionalizing Leadership on Access to Justice. Chief Justice Richard Guy introduced the resolution at the July meeting; a decision on the resolution was tabled until the January 2001 meeting (Exhibit 5).
A member of our ATJ Board participated in a workshop on domestic violence in April 2000 sponsored by the ABA's Section of Litigation. The ATJ Board facilitated the selection of the topic for the workshop and assisted with the publicity.
The ATJ Board is nearing completion of its Washington State Equal Justice Training Manual, funded last year by the Open Society Institute. It will be used by the national legal services network and those individual states who wish to replicate, where appropriate, Washington State's innovative approaches to state planning, legal services funding, technology, and other initiatives.
ATJ Technology Specialist Joyce Raby has written a manual, Technology Basics, which is being advertised nationally by the National Legal Aid and Defender Association (NLADA) (and locally through WSBA), the proceeds from which go for the support of the Access to Justice Board (Exhibit 6).
The Access to Justice Board was invited to participate in a national "convening" in New York City by the Open Society Institute in May to discuss the possibility and potential of a national portal web site.
Technology consultant Richard Zorza asked the ATJ Board to convene a meeting in Washington State on May 18, 2000 to provide him with the opportunity to brief the community on plans for a national portal web site and suggest that Washington state may be chosen as a pilot site.
Members of Washington State's Access to Justice Network were asked to serve as panelists at a number of national and international conferences (e.g., ABA/NLADA Equal Justice Conference; ABA Annual Meeting; Operation Outlook; Management Information Exchange 2000 National Fundraising Conference; and state conferences (Oregon Access to Justice Conference, Massachusetts Technology Conference).
ATJ Network members continue to provide assistance to those in other states on an as-needed basis who are interested in learning about Washington's initiatives. In the past six months there have been visits from legal services providers in Massachusetts and Maryland, and extensive telephone assistance to legal services providers in other states, including Texas, New York and California.

Within Washington State, there continues to be a growing recognition that the ATJ Board is a mechanism for "coordinating, improving and advancing civil access to justice for low and moderate income residents," as contemplated by this Court's Order. Increasingly, organizations, committees and individuals are contacting the ATJ Board and its committees for assistance, counsel and input on a wide variety of topics and issues. Examples of these (since January 2000) include the following:

The ATJ Board and greater access to justice community have been active in helping to launch the new Council on Public Legal Education. There is substantial representation on the Council and its committees from the access to justice community
The Supreme Court asked the ATJ Board for assistance in defining the criteria and developing a framework for regulating the practice of non-lawyers in Washington State.
The WSBA BOG's Committee to Define the Practice of Law has invited four ATJ Board members to join its committee for the purpose of defining criteria and developing a framework for regulating the practice of non-lawyers in Washington State.
Seattle University School of Law's new Access to Justice Institute invited the ATJ Board to co-sponsor its May 19, 2000 Symposium on the Unauthorized Practice of Law.
At the request of the ATJ Board, the Board for Judicial Administration added representatives from the Access to Justice community to its Project 2001 subcommittees.
Representatives from the ATJ Board, the Legal Foundation of Washington and the civil legal services providers made a presentation at the Board for Judicial Administration's retreat on June 3, 2000.
An ATJ Board member is serving on the WSBA BOG's new study group on Multi-disciplinary Practice.
� The ATJ Board participated in the WSBA BOG's Town Meetings on diversity.
ATJ Board representatives and ATJ Board staff participated as panelists at the May 2000 substantive law training conference, "Connections," sponsored by NJP and CLS.

Additionally, the ATJ Board continues to work to institutionalize a variety of methods to increase awareness of, and appreciation for, the important work being done in Washington to improve the justice system:

periodic six-month reports and at least one annual presentation to the Supreme Court and the Board of Governors;

ATJ Board presence at all BOG meetings;

ATJ Board presence at semi-annual WSBA section and committee chair meetings;

annual meeting with the Supreme Court;

letters to every new WSBA member about the role of the legal profession in preserving and expanding access to the justice system (Exhibit 7);

use of WSBA's Bar News and other media, including a new Access to Justice Department in the Bar News, for pertinent articles;

nomination/support of key individuals/organizations for awards and recognition (e.g., Leonard Schroeter for the WSBA Lifetime Services Award; Foster Pepper Sheffelman for the WSBA Pro Bono Award; Barbara Vining for the WSBA Angelo Petruss Award);

annual briefing on access to justice for WSBA presidential candidates;

annual briefing on access to justice for new BOG members (Exhibit 8) and WSBA section and committee chairs;

continuing to reach beyond the "usual suspects" to involve new people on the ATJ Board committees and as liaisons at the ATJ Board meetings; and

support of funding efforts and appropriate legislation.

B. ATJ-Coordinated State Planning Process: The ATJ Board's first significant project was the development in 1995 of its Plan for the Delivery of Civil Legal Services to Low Income Persons in Washington State (State Plan), at the request of the Legal Services Corporation (LSC). Using the guidelines set out in the Hallmarks of an Effective Statewide Civil Legal Services Delivery System (Hallmarks), the ATJ Board developed 18 recommendations for reconfiguring and supporting Washington's delivery system so as to preserve access for low-income clients to a full range of advocacy and services. Although the state's civil legal services providers have been responsible for much of the State Plan's actual implementation, the ATJ Board and its committees continue to perform critical coordination and oversight functions (see below), as contemplated by this Court's Order, and in accordance with the vision of a statewide civil legal services delivery system articulated in the Hallmarks. Additionally, the ATJ Board, through its annual Access to Justice Conferences (see below), has created a mechanism for institutionalizing an ongoing statewide planning process that involves the entire Access to Justice Network.

In mid-1998, the ATJ Board, through its State Plan Evaluation Committee, began a process to determine how well the State Plan was working and to consider which aspects, if any, should be rethought. After an extensive and inclusive process, documented in the April 1999 Report to this Court, the Board presented its draft Revised State Plan and recommendations to the participants at the June 25-27, 1999 Access to Justice Conference in Wenatchee. The ATJ Board adopted its final Revised Plan for the Delivery of Civil Legal Services to Low Income People in Washington State at its annual retreat on September 16, 1999. The following day the Revised State Plan was formally submitted to the Legal Services Corporation Board of Directors at its meeting in Seattle. The ATJ Board has developed a detailed plan for the implementation of the new and revised recommendations.

Following is the status of the implementation of key aspects of the Revised State Plan since its adoption in September 1999, and since the ATJ Board's January 31, 2000 Report:

The clear message from ATJ "stakeholders" to the 1999 evaluation of the 1995 State Plan was that, while the architecture of the statewide delivery system is sound, the implementation at the local and regional levels in some areas of the state is less than uniform. In response, the Revised State Plan recommends Phase II Planning, which will focus on enhancing integrated local and regional civil equal justice delivery networks. The two statewide legal services providers, Northwest Justice Project and Columbia Legal Services, have developed a template for formal regional planning whose goals include the following (Exhibit 9).
Engage with clients, the community, and equal justice partners to gather information, identify client needs and client service capacity gaps, survey available resources, and discuss what might be done to address the spectrum of needs identified;
Draft a specific plan containing strategies, including specific advocacy initiatives, and assigning responsibilities for addressing identified client need (including strategies to fill identified service capacity gaps); and
Continue bar, bench, community and client involvement over time so that the plan can be periodically evaluated and modified as necessary.
Two statewide legal services programs have now been in operation for four years (Exhibit 10):
Columbia Legal Services (CLS) is a full-service, statewide legal services program dedicated to ensuring that a full range of legal services is available to all of Washington's low income population, in particular, vulnerable and hard-to-serve special needs populations that face unique barriers to the justice system. CLS operates out of seven regional offices around the state. Its primary funding sources include the State of Washington, the Legal Foundation of Washington and LAW Fund donations.
The Northwest Justice Project (NJP) is the federal partner in the statewide Access to Justice Network. NJP's goal is to assist as many eligible low income clients as possible, either directly or through efficient and effective referrals. NJP operates out of seven regional offices throughout the state. Principal funding is from Congress through the Legal Services Corporation, which regulates the types of cases that may be handled and the types of representation that may be provided.
The state's Volunteer Attorney Legal Services Programs continue to enjoy stable financial support (Exhibit 10). Under the Revised State Plan, underwriting for a portion of these programs? operating funds has been transferred from the Northwest Justice Project to Columbia Legal Services. The Legal Foundation of Washington will continue to provide funding support. The ATJ Board and the Washington State Bar Association continue to devote significant resources to providing support for these programs. In addition to the technology staffing and support described below (see ComTech Committee, below), ATJ Board staff directs WSBA's new Emeritus Program and the activities of WSBA?s Pro Bono and Legal Aid Committee, and the ATJ Board provides support for legislation and rule-making that provide incentives for attorneys to volunteer. The Supreme Court recently adopted a rule, developed by WSBA's Pro Bono and Legal Aid Committee and supported by the ATJ Board, that awards CLE credits for certain types of pro bono work (Regulation 103 (g), Washington State Board of Continuing Legal Education).
A key component of the Revised State Plan is to utilize, wherever possible, available and emerging technologies to establish intake and referral systems. This has been accomplished through NJP's CLEAR Project (Coordinated Legal Education, Advice and Referral), that now serves as the primary point of access for low income clients to speak with an attorney or advocate in every county in the state, with limited assistance available in King County. NJP has developed a very extensive web site (www.nwjustice.org), featuring the Law Center that provides hundreds of legal education brochures for online reading and downloading. CLEAR and the web site are viewed as national models. The ATJ Board has been awarded $10,000 by the Legal Services Corporation to conduct an assessment of CLEAR, focusing on the quality of service and the results for clients, which results can in turn assist in the state and regional planning and resource allocation efforts.
Another key component of the Revised State Plan is to utilize existing and emerging technologies to provide expansive geographic coverage and maximize local legal services delivery capacity and presence outside of principal urban centers. In addition to the services provided through CLEAR, the ATJ Board's Communications and Technology Committee (ComTech), in cooperation with NJP, CLS, the Legal Foundation of Washington, the Office of the Administrator for the Courts, and others, has made major strides toward implementing Washington State's Equal Justice Communications and Technology Vision (see ComTech Committee, below). The Revised State Plan significantly expands the recommendations for ongoing and prospective technology initiatives, many of which are being pursued currently by the ComTech Committee, the legal services providers, the Office of the Administrator for the Courts, and WSBA's Pro Bono and Legal Aid Committee.
The Revised State Plan recommends a significant role for the ATJ Board to coordinate statewide training, in partnership with CLS, and expand the reach of training beyond staff attorneys to volunteer attorneys and non-attorney advocates. The ATJ Board currently lacks sufficient staff to fully partner in this effort.
The Revised State Plan provides that legal services-related entities that engage in fundraising activities do so cooperatively so as to maximize the total number of dollars raised and made available in the delivery system. The Revised State Plan establishes a resource investment protocol, to ensure that all major civil equal justice fund raisers strategically invest new resources, and allocate funding reductions, in accordance with the protocol. The ATJ Board's Resource Development Committee is reorganizing for the purpose of supporting the implementation of those recommendations (see Resource Development Committee, below).
The Revised State Plan includes a significant new set of initiatives to encourage private attorney involvement, and formally acknowledges that volunteer attorney programs and volunteer attorneys can and must be full partners in the effort to meet the unmet civil legal needs of low income people in this state. The list of proposed initiatives includes the completion of the implementation of the Volunteer Attorney Legal Services Action Plan (VALS Action Plan), the establishment of targeted statewide volunteer attorney panels, and assistance from the Supreme Court in recruiting volunteer attorneys.
The Revised State Plan includes a new section on access to the courts, self-help and preventive legal education to reflect the great strides that have been made the past five years by several ATJ Board committees (Education, Systems Impediments, Status Impediments, ComTech), NJP?s CLEAR program and web site, the courthouse facilitator programs, and the new Council on Public Legal Education. The recommendations include new and expanded roles for courthouse facilitators, lay domestic violence advocates and other non-lawyers (see Law Related Services Committee, below).

C. ATJ Board Committees: The ATJ Board now has eleven permanent and four interim active working committees (Exhibit 1) that are addressing the priorities established by the Supreme Court's Order. I have included the rosters for each committee (Exhibit 11).

1. Access to Justice Conference Planning Committee (permanent): (Colleen Kinerk, Chair) Mission: Organize and coordinate the annual Access to Justice Conferences. The fifth annual Access to Justice Conference will be held jointly with the Washington State Bar Association and the Washington State Judiciary during Celebration 2000 on September 13-16, 2000 in Spokane.

2. Accountability Standards Committee(permanent): (Jim Bamberger, Chair) Mission: Develop a statewide institutional accountability system. In October 1999 the ATJ Board adopted the Civil Equal Justice Performance Standards, which are designed to measure grant performance for all providers in a way that will be meaningful to all funding entities, including the Legal Services Corporation, Legal Foundation of Washington, the State of Washington and others. There are six standards which encompass the benchmarks needed for a quality program and which are responsive to the Hallmarks and the Revised State Plan. The committee has been studying how other states are handling the process of overseeing and enforcing performance standards, and is considering whether and what role the ATJ Board should play.

3. Communications and Technology (ComTech) Committee(permanent): (Robin Lester, Chair) Mission: coordinate, implement and oversee statewide access to justice-related technology initiatives. ATJ Technology Specialist Joyce Raby was hired by WSBA in April 1998 to staff this effort. It has rapidly evolved into several major initiatives developed in response to the Washington State Equal Justice Communications and Technology Vision, the Revised State Plan, ATJ Conference recommendations and recommendations from the Pro Bono and Legal Aid Committee. The following has been accomplished since the ATJ Board's January 31, 2000 Report:

Statewide Technology Upgrade : Since completing the task of securing hardware, software and Internet access for every program in the legal services provider network, the committee has been working to develop a software standard with a common data definition statewide. The goal is to be able to track and maintain every client record in the same way, thereby facilitating the compilation and analysis of statewide statistical information gathered from every program. This data definition standard is essential because the two statewide staffed legal services providers found it necessary to abandon Kemps Caseworks (used statewide) to develop a separate case management system (CASS) that could better accommodate their unique reporting requirements.

Online Interactive Forms Project : This project will enable pro se litigants to create their own documents online to obtain domestic violence protection orders. The Office of the Administrator for the Courts has obtained $100,000 to develop this project in partnership with the ATJ Board's ComTech Committee and the state's domestic violence community. This "document assembly" software prompts the pro se litigant with a series of questions that, when answered, result in the production of pleadings which meet the mandatory form requirements, and which can be filed immediately in court. The pilot sites are the King and Chelan County courthouses. There will be a demonstration of the new project at Celebration 2000. After the project has been evaluated, the goal is to put these forms on the Internet for the benefit of pro se litigants and their advocates throughout the state.

Access to Justice Web Page : The WSBA Web Site now hosts an Access to Justice page (www@wsba.org/atj). There are two entry points: for the public looking for legal assistance and for WSBA members and others looking for volunteer opportunities and information about access to justice-related initiatives and activities. The goal is to serve as a host site for all members of the Access to Justice Network who do not have their own sites, and who wish to post articles, information, notices of training events or meetings, and available services.

Gateway Web Site : Members of the ComTech Committee and members of the Council on Public Legal Education (PLE) have joined forces to develop a "gateway web site" for Washington State, which would focus primarily on self-identification of legal problems by the public and which would expand on information and resources currently offered on existing law-related web sites. National Technology Consultant Richard Zorza is seeking the participation of Washington State in a national portal web site project currently under consideration for funding by the Open Society Institute. Richard Zorza met with members of this committee and other interested parties on May 18, 2000 to outline the vision (Exhibit 12).

Technology Bill of Rights : The committee has developed general parameters for a technology bill of rights (Exhibit 13), which will be the focus of a workshop at the Access to Justice Conference at Celebration 2000, "The Digital Divide and Digital Justice: Do Clients Need a Technology Bill of Rights?" The concern behind this project is there may be those who will be "left behind" because of their inability to access new and existing technology.

Videoconferencing Project : The committee is working closely with WSBA's Pro Bono and Legal Aid Committee on a pilot project that will link corporate legal departments with rural volunteer attorney legal services programs utilizing videoconferencing technology. The goal is to enable and encourage volunteers in attorney-rich Seattle to represent low income clients in rural parts of the state where there are few attorneys.

Listservs : To improve communication and facilitate the dissemination of access to justice-related information, WSBA hosts listservs for the volunteer attorney legal services programs, specialized legal services providers, the ATJ Board, each of the ATJ Board's committees, and WSBA's Pro Bono and Legal Aid Committee

4. Courthouse Facilitator Committee (interim): (Michele Jones, Chair) Mission: Develop a courthouse facilitator rule for adoption by the Supreme Court. The committee has circulated a draft rule for comment. However, it will suspend its recommendations on the rule pending the outcome of WSBA?s efforts to define the practice of law and to determine the role of non lawyers (including facilitators) and the BJA Project 2001 considerations of the expansion of the courthouse facilitator model.

5. Editorial Advisory Committee (permanent): Mission: Plan the content for the Access to Justice Department in the WSBA Bar News and to look for additional publication opportunities. The ATJ Board submitted several of Leonard Schroeter's articles to a writing contest sponsored by the Brennan Center

6. Education Committee (permanent): (Professor Helen Donigan, Chair) This committee's original mission was to coordinate justice-related educational efforts around the state. The committee is redefining and limiting its mission to education of judges, lawyers and other legal professionals in light of the broad goals of the new Council on Public Legal Education. The Council will finalize its priorities at its September 25, 2000 meeting; the Education Committee will spend its October 2000 meeting developing a new set of long-range goals which are compatible with its mission and not in conflict with that of the Council.

The following are the committee's activities since the ATJ Board's January 31, 2000 Report:

Judicial Education : The committee continues to work with the Office of the Administrator for the Courts and the Judicial College faculty to reinstate/ reconfigure its educational seminar on Dealing with Pro Se Litigants. The committee also is working with the Superior Court and District/Municipal Court Judges Associations to secure space during their annual spring conferences for access to justice-related seminars.

Judicial Screening and Selection : The committee sent a letter to every editorial board in the state proposing questions for judicial candidates (Exhibit 14). The committee has plans to improve judicial screening procedures by all judicial selection committees in the state to ensure that only those with a demonstrated commitment to access to justice service in this state's judiciary.

Lesson Plan on Access to Justice : The committee is developing a model curriculum for K-12 students to help them understand the concept of equal access to justice to the legal system.

7. Equal Justice Coalition (EJC) (permanent): (Diane Tebelius, Chair; Wayne Blair and Travis Sines, Co-Vice Chairs) Mission: Educate elected officials and the public about the importance of legal services to our community and to advocate for continued and increased support for civil legal services in Washington State. The Equal Justice Coalition was established by the ATJ Board in January 1995 at the request of the WSBA, legal services providers and members of the private bar, to respond to threats by Congress and the Washington State Legislature to cut funding for civil legal services. The EJC continues to work to develop a broad-based nonpartisan network of equal justice supporters around the state who understand and support the need for permanent and stable funding for civil legal services. Former EJC Chair and Seattle attorney John McKay is serving in his third year as President of the Legal Services Corporation. The Legal Foundation of Washington provides staff and support for the EJC.

The recent focus of the EJC has been to work in concert with WSBA to develop a strategy for the 2001 state legislative session. At its June 2000 meeting the WSBA BOG unanimously adopted a resolution, Reaffirming a Civil Equal Justice Crisis and Calling upon the Judicial Branch to Assume a Leadership Role in its Resolution (Exhibit 15). A proposed companion resolution currently is before the BJA (Exhibit 16), calling on the judicial branch to take a strong leadership role in increasing funding for civil legal services.

A related project has been "Summer of Justice," a four-month 32 county educational campaign designed to raise public awareness of, and support for, the need for civil legal services. To date, more than 1,000 postcards have been signed by constituents urging their legislators to support an increase in funding. The campaign will culminate in September at Celebration 2000 in Spokane, where the EJC will sponsor a workshop, "Legislative Advocacy 101."

The EJC sent a team to Washington, D.C. on May 16-18, 2000 during "ABA Day" to meet with Washington State's Congressional delegation about the need for additional funding for the Legal Services Corporation. The team consisted of EJC Chair Diane Tebelius, Immediate Past EJC Chair Lucy Isaki, NJP client-eligible board member Chris Pazen, WSBA President Richard Eymann, NJP Executive Director Pat McIntyre, and Legal Foundation of Washington Board member Hon. Greg Tripp.

Since the ATJ Board's January 21, 2000 Report, the EJC has published one issue of its newsletter, Justice at Work (Exhibit 17), which is mailed to more than 3.500 supporters. The EJC has revised parts of JAWS (Justice at Work) (Exhibit 18), a publication designed to educate elected officials and others about the civil equal justice crisis in Washington State.

8. Family Law Task Force (interim): (Hon. Paul Bastine and Alden Garrett, Co-Chairs) Mission: Recommend improvements to the availability and delivery of family law legal services, assistance and information in Washington State for low and moderate income people, including pro se litigants. The ATJ Board has concluded that the current systems for providing family law legal services, assistance and information in Washington State are inadequate to ensure meaningful access to the justice system for many low and moderate-income clients and those proceeding pro se. Recognizing there have been other efforts to address these problems through committees, task forces, and the like, the ATJ Board nonetheless determined that little had been accomplished, and that significant changes to the system itself needed to be explored. The ATJ Board appointed a Family Law Access to Justice Task Force in early 2000 to recommend improvements. After spending six months studying readily available information and identifying the issues, problems and barriers that impede the availability and delivery of family law legal services, assistance and information, the Task Force has issued a preliminary report with six major recommendations (Exhibit 19). The report will be introduced at Celebration 2000, with the goal of obtaining feedback. The ATJ Board will follow up with the implementation of these recommendations after it approves the report.

9. ATJ/YLD GAAP (Greater Access and Assistance Project) Committee(permanent): (Susan Daniel and Brian Born, Co-Chairs) Mission: Establish a structure to support viable moderate means panels in Washington State. A joint committee of the ATJ Board and the Washington Young Lawyers Division (YLD), the project has the support of the WSBA BOG in the form of funding for staff support. Formerly the ATJ Board Telephone Access Committee, the committee's focus has shifted from establishing a for-profit legal advice and referral hotline for moderate income people to establishing moderate means panels of attorneys throughout the state. The committee is supporting pilots in Spokane and Thurston Counties, which will utilize the services of CLEAR to screen and refer clients. Local bar associations and young lawyers groups will recruit lawyers to serve on panels which will offer moderate income clients reduced fees for designated legal services. To date, the committee has developed guidelines for establishing GAAP panels in anticipation of the start-up of the pilots (Exhibit 20).

Despite this shift in focus, the ATJ Board and the greater access to justice community are exploring the possibility of establishing a not-for-profit legal information, advice and referral hotline, the income from which would support civil legal services providers. LAW Fund has provided seed money for a statewide feasibility study and business plan to determine how a not-for-profit hotline could be run in Washington State, whether it would generate adequate revenues to make it worth doing, and whether it is realistic given the goals of this community. The feasibility study and business plan are nearing completion.

10. Impediments to Access to Justice Committee (permanent): (Hon. Anne Ellington and Hon. Judge Sweeney, Co-Chairs) Mission: Identify and remove impediments to the justice system, including physical and language barriers, ineffectual and unworkable rules and procedures, disparate treatment and other obstacles that may serve as barriers to equal justice. The ATJ Board has combined its Systems and Status Impediments to Access to Justice Committees into an Impediments Committee. The committee will meet at Celebration 2000 to refine its goals and to identify additional committee members. The committee will continue the implementation of the current initiatives of the Systems Impediments Committee, which include the following:

Attorneys Fees Legislation : The committee, along with WSBA and the ATJ Board, will for the third year offer proposed state legislation to amend the Equal Access to Justice Act to award payment of attorneys' fees for successful representation of persons in administrative hearings who are recipients of state services.

Identification of Administrative Procedural Barriers : The committee is undertaking an analysis of current administrative procedures from an access to justice perspective to determine whether changes are appropriate. Responses from its initial questionnaire, Impediments in the Administrative Process of Public Programs that Appear to Deprive Low and Moderate Income Persons of Meaningful Access to Justice, were minimal, and the committee is re-working and simplifying the language in the questionnaire, with plans to redistribute it to advocates.

11. Jurisprudence of Access to Justice Committee (permanent): (Leonard Schroeter, Chair) Mission: Enhance understanding of the jurisprudential foundations of access to justice. Its initiatives are broad-based, and include publishing significant law review and other articles (Exhibit 21); assisting the courts in identifying significant access to justice issues; convening forums to discuss these issues; and providing assistance to ATJ Board committees and other groups in identifying constitutional bases for their proposals/activities.

Central to the committee's activities is a workshop at the annual Access to Justice Conference. "Will Access to Justice in the 21^st Century Resuscitate, Shun or Re-tool Its Historic Fundamental Rights Jurisprudence?" is this year's program.

The law firm of Stritmatter Kessler Whelan Withey Coluccio recently established the Schroeter Constitutional Justice Center, a non-profit public interest organization. The SCJC was founded to promote and protect the constitutional integrity of the civil justice system, and to create a jurisprudential think tank for generating ideas and strategies to advance and broaden discussion of our constitutional rights.

12. Law-Related Services Committee (interim): (Hon. T.W. Small and Scott Smith, Co-Chairs) Mission: Assist the Supreme Court and WSBA in determining under what circumstances non lawyers could be authorized to provide legal and law-related services. At its annual meeting with the Supreme Court on March 2, 2000, the Court asked the ATJ Board for assistance in defining the criteria and developing a framework for regulating the practice of non lawyers in Washington State. Subsequent to that meeting, WSBA BOG's Committee to Define the Practice of Law invited four members of the ATJ Board to join its committee for a similar purpose. Draft criteria have been developed by the BOG committee, which will be submitted to the BOG for approval at its September 2000 meeting.

13. ATJ/PLE Media Committee (permanent): (Ruth Walsh McIntyre and Hugh Spitzer, Co-Chairs) Mission: Develop and implement a coordinated plan to invigorate, empower and educate the media and the public about issues pertaining to the law, the justice system, and the need for legal services. Given the similar and over-lapping media-related goals of the ATJ Board and the PLE Council, the two groups agreed a joint committee was appropriate. Although committee members are still being identified, the following initiatives are anticipated: improving the quality, accuracy and frequency of media coverage with regard to the law, the justice system and the need for legal services; educating the media about the justice system, the legal "experts" and issues of access/legal services; educating the public vis-�-vis the media about the law, the justice system and issues of access/legal services; and coordinating communications within and between the ATJ and PLE networks.

14. Resource Development Committee (permanent): (Greg Dallaire, Chair) Mission: Implement the resource development protocol in the Revised State Plan and serve as a resource/facilitator regarding funding issues and initiatives. Originally established to raise funds for the ATJ Board, this committee is being reconfigured to address statewide resource development needs. The committee members have not yet been selected.

15. Unbundled Legal Services Committee (interim): (Barrie Althoff, Chair) Mission: Develop a rule on unbundled legal services for adoption by the Supreme Court. This committee is being established in response to a recommendation from the Access to Justice Conference. Committee members have not yet been selected.

III. NEXT STEPS

The ATJ Board, on the recommendation of this Court, is re-working its Order and hopes to have a final draft approved at its September meeting for consideration by the BOG and the Court.

Having assumed responsibility for implementing the ambitious and extensive Revised State Plan, a portion of WSBA's Long-Range Strategic Plan, and many Access to Justice Conference recommendations, it is anticipated that the Board will ask the Court to re-authorize the Board as a permanent organization. As the Board members like to observe: despite the enormous amount of progress and activity in this state, it is unlikely in "their lifetimes" that the problem of lack of equal access to the justice system will be resolved. It thus appears reasonable to assume that the Board has many "lifetimes" of service ahead of it.

The ATJ Board welcomes your feedback on, and involvement in, its work. Partnerships with the judiciary and the bar are critical to our success. Your continuing support of the ATJ Board is a valued asset. We trust that our extensive work on behalf of the low and moderate income consumers of our civil justice system will continue unabated.

Thank you for your continued support of access to justice.

Very truly yours,

Judge T.W. Small, Chair

Access to Justice Board

Cc: Justice Gerry L. Alexander

Justice Bobbe Bridge

Justice Faith Ireland

Justice Charles W. Johnson

Justice Barbara A. Madsen

Justice Richard B. Sanders

Justice Charles Z. Smith

Justice Philip Talmadge

OAC Administrator Mary McQueen

WSBA President-Elect Jan Eric Peterson

WSBA Governor Dale L. Carlisle

WSBA Governor James E. Deno

WSBA Governor Jenny A. Durkan

WSBA Governor Daryl L. Graves

WSBA Governor Stephen John Henderson

WSBA Governor Walter Krueger

WSBA Governor Richard J. Manning

WSBA Governor Stephen T. Osborne

WSBA Governor John T. Powers

WSBA Governor Lindsay T. Thompson

WSBA Governor Victoria L. Vreeland

WSBA Executive Director M. Janice Michels