Archive for the ‘FLS’ tag
On December 11, family, friends, and co-workers of Paul Doyle, and others from the Florida legal community, gathered at the main office of Florida Legal Services, Inc. in Tallahassee for the dedication of the Paul Doyle Justice Center.
The building dedication capped an ambitious capital campaign that ensures that statewide legal services, and the clients we represent, will always have a permanent home in the state’s capital city. Thanks to FLS staffer Bonnie Koon, there are pictures from the night after the break.
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Civil Filing Fees Waiver Restored in SB 1718 - By Ann Perko
FLS is happy to report that Gov. Crist signed SB 1718 on May 27, 2009, which means that the waiver of civil filing fees for indigent clients has been officially restored into law. After five years of lobbying and legal work by FLS, all the legal services and legal aid programs, and our allies, the Florida Association of Women’s Lawyers, SB 1718 was negotiated during the conference to include waiver. We thank everyone who helped us during this long process, but need to recognize the tremendous work of Steve Metz and Josh Doyle who represented our interests along with the interests of the courts on behalf of the Florida Bar.
Application for Indigent Status:
Your client’s process of applying for indigent status should not change. However, once the person has been found indigent under s 57.082, the filing fee will be completely waived under new language in 57.081(1).
Payment Plan:
New language in 57.082(6) provides that filing fees that are waived should not be included in a payment plan. If there are other fees or costs that your client is faced with paying, those costs should be included in a payment plan if your client is unable to pay for them prior to filing the case.
Delay of Case:
Aside from the filing fee, any remaining costs are still not required to be paid up front. The law was amended to provide that the case may not be impeded in any way… due to nonpayment of any fees or costs by an indigent person. F.S. 57.082(6)
Recovery of Fees by Prevailing Party
The law was amended to provide that if a prevailing party is awarded costs in an action, that those costs should be applied to filing fees or costs that have not been paid. F.S. 57.081(3)
The changes to 57.081 and 57.082 appear in green underline and are as follows, after the break: Read the rest of this entry »
Since 2003, member programs in the Florida State Support System have been meeting to develop and refine the network of support for local programs that exists within the statewide programs. As part of that work, the State Support Network Group (SSNG) is making available to everyone the following resources. In fact, recommendation 4 of the SSNG states:
The attached Substantive and Advocacy Skills/Litigation Support charts should be disseminated widely. Field staff should use these documents as a starting point to determine which state support office they should contact first for technical assistance. Staff within state support will promptly respond to these requests or, if appropriate, direct the individual with the question to another staff member within the state support network who has more suitable expertise and can better respond to the question.
The first two resources that are provided are charts that plot various substantive and advovcacy and litigation support topics along with the state support program that should be contacted for assistance in the given topic. All documents are in PDF format.
Click here for the Substantive Expertise Chart.
Click here for the Advocacy & Litigation Support Chart.
The next four resources are documents each from Southern Legal Counsel, Florida Inistitutional Legal Services, the Florida Immiagrant Advocacy Center, and Florida Legal Services, which further direct those in need of assistance to the correct staff member in each office.
Click for:
SLC
FILS
FIAC
FLS
A very special note from Dorene Barker:
Finally! After many sessions of lobbying to restore waiver of filing fees for the poor, we were able to finally restore it!! As most of you know, FLS has made this a number one priority since it was removed during the Article V rewrite. Congratulations to Ann Perko, FLS substantive expert who conducted the research, drafted all the materials, testified at the hearings and walked the Capitol corridors with us (and of course Kent who was always providing excellent guidance behind the scenes!) Ann, Arthur & I took it as far as we could and handed it off to the Florida Bar. Florida Bar Lobbyists, Steve Metz and Josh Doyle expertly navigated the budget process and came out with a huge win for poor Floridians. This would not have happened with out them!! Many of you have contributed directly to this legislative victory. I truly believe that all of your contributions played a very significant role and for that WE at FLS wish to thank you for taking the time to talk, write letters and visit with your local legislators and leadership about waiver!! A special thanks to Mary Anne De Petrillo who was always ready to assist with whatever request was made of her and for keeping the faith!!! Thank you!!
TheLedger.com reported on the events leading to the restoration of the waiver. It’s a good thing this will occur. As you will also see in the article, many court fees are also being increased.
One exception to higher court filing fees will be the waiver for people who can show they are indigent, which is expected to cost taxpayers $4 million a year.
“We thought we’d join the other 49″ states, said Senate Ways and Means Chairman J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales. “We felt that we wanted to do our best to make sure that no matter what your situation you have the ability to access our courts. We think that’s an important principle.”
The waiver was part of the Senate’s court fee bill but not included in the House’s version. The fee for filing a tenant case also will drop from $265 to $180.
Miriam Harmatz was the lead counsel in a complex class action on behalf of Florida Medicaid recipients in which she ultimately prevailed against ACHA. Boiling the case down to its main holding, the result of the litigation is that patients in the Medicaid system will be able to continue to access the drug Neurontin. As ancillary relief, Miriam, along with co-counsel Jane Perkins, Neil Kodsi, Shawn Boehringer, and Jennifer Wimberly, secured a fee award from Florida ACHA in the amount of $288,336.
For much more background and to read the details, check out the Order on Plaintiff’s Motion for Attorneys’ Fees and Litigation Expenses, here in PDF.
On April 8, the Chief Financial Officer of Florida, Alex Sink, held a news conference in which she praised the Florida Attorneys Saving Homes project and took mortgage lenders and servicers to task. Flanked by Kent Spuhler, Alice Vickers, and Jennifer Newton of Florida Legal Services, the CFO expressed frustration felt by homeowners and volunteer attorneys in working with lenders to modify terms.
Jennifer Newton, Alex Sink, Alice Vickers, Kent Spuhler
Here’s an article from the The News-Press covering the presser:
TALLAHASSEE - Florida families facing foreclosure run into a frustrating maze when they try to work out emergency arrangements with their lenders, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink said Wednesday.
Backed by lawyers from Florida Legal Services Inc., she announced plans for an April 20 meeting in Tampa to bring banking executives together with lawyers who give free legal advice to the poor.
Since the economy crashed last year, with housing always ranking as the state’s chief economic challenge, Sink said tens of thousands of families have faced foreclosure. She said many of them heed the advice of the banking and mortgage industry, to contact their lenders at the earliest sign of trouble, but that homeowners often get no answers - or can’t even find out whom they need to contact.
“We’ve been hearing a sense of frustration from our lawyer partners,” Sink said. “They were getting wrapped up in the runaround.”
There were more than 46,000 Florida foreclosure filings in Florida, ranking the state second in the nation.
She said the Florida Bar and Legal Services have created a volunteer program, involving about 1,000 attorneys, to help people facing foreclosure who can’t afford to hire a lawyer. Jennifer Newton, an attorney in the “Florida Lawyers Saving Homes” program, said about 25,000 calls have been received since last June.
Newton said to qualify a property must be a homestead and the owner must be unable to hire private counsel - and must not have already been served with a foreclosure order.
Sink said she will convene the Tampa meeting with “a dozen or so of the largest lenders” in the state, to work out a method for volunteer lawyers to cut through the bureaucracy and get answers for homeowners.
By: Jeffrey Hearne, LSGMI
In August 2007, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development announced it would take control of the Miami Dade Housing Agency (MDHA) because of financial and operational mismanagement. After HUD’s takeover, MDHA’s Section 8 voucher program became completely dysfunctional — tenants’ housing assistance was terminated before MDHA held termination hearings, tenants could not timely obtain paperwork required to move with the housing assistance, the Section 8 office was closed without notice, and tenants were being terminated from the program without fair hearings. MDHA’s failures created financial and emotional turmoil for many Section 8 participants, and in the worst cases, resulted in homelessness.
Despite numerous demands by attorneys from Legal Services of Greater Miami, MDHA and the HUD Oversight Administrator failed to take action to correct these significant problems. In July 2008, LSGMI and Florida Legal Services filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of three single mothers who were improperly terminated from the Section 8 voucher program. The lawsuit asked the Court to order MDHA to restore the women’s rental assistance and to order MDHA to make permanent changes to the operation of the Section 8 program. The lawsuit also sought to recover money for the clients’ economic and emotional damages.
Immediately after the lawsuit was filed, MDHA agreed to restore the clients’ rental assistance. After an early mediation, the parties reached a settlement which included $60,000 for our clients. The settlement also included several systemic changes to the program’s operation. These changes include specific timeframes for MDHA to process the paperwork which allows participants to move, specific timeframes for MDHA to approve new housing, and administrative safeguards to ensure that the housing subsidy will not be terminated without due process. The county also agreed that this settlement will apply to the private company it recently hired to operate the Section 8 program. This settlement will ensure that Section 8 participants in Miami Dade County will no longer have to worry about whether their housing assistance will stop without notice and they can be confident they will continue to benefit from this valuable government housing program. This case was handled by LSGMI Senior Attorney Jeffrey Hearne and Charles Elsesser from Florida Legal Services.
From the next issue of the Florida Bar News…
Administrative Law Section works to help disabled adults and children
The state is in such dire straits right now that those lawyers blessed with the gift of a little spare time are apt to find long lists of people needing help. A new measure by The Florida Bar’s Administrative Law Section and Florida Legal Services is aimed at helping Florida’s disabled adults and children rise to the top of that list. And they’ve made it quick, free, and relatively easy for lawyers to get up to speed in time to roll up their sleeves and pitch in….
The section held training for both groups in November and December in Tallahassee to educate future volunteers, but those who missed it shouldn’t worry: all the documentation for both trainings, as well as video, are available both at floridaprobono.org and the Administrative Section’s Web site, www.flaadminlaw.org.
Sheila Meehan of Florida Legal Services coordinates the program, which is just getting off the ground now and very actively seeking volunteers. Meehan credits McArthur and former administrative law section chair Andy Bertron with being the first to sign up. The two are awaiting their first cases.
“These are the people who are least able to help themselves — they are in financial need and have been disabled before they reached adulthood — they’re in this situation through no fault of their own,” Bertron said. “I can’t think of a more deserving class of people for us to help.”
There’s much more at the source.
From the Daily Business Review, this profile of FLS staffer Purvi Shah. (registration required)
Tenant rights advocate gives voice to renters in foreclosed properties
When landlords are in the process of losing their apartment buildings to foreclosure, they often stop maintaining the properties. Leaks begin to surface, floors cave in, and sewer systems overflow. Low-income renters are left to fend for themselves, often unaware of the pending litigation on the property and the inevitable eviction that comes at the conclusion of the foreclosure lawsuit. Yet, they have a friend in attorney Purvi Shah, an advocate for tenant rights. She works with the Community Justice Project of Florida Legal Services and focuses on tenant and landlord issues prevalent in low-income communities. Her legal advocacy group offers direct legal services and community legal education.
Purvi Shah
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More good news for victims of so-called Medicaid reform.
Medicaid HMO patients will be allowed to drop out of their health plans and switch their care to other doctors under a pair of administrative and legal actions recently approved by the state. Medicaid HMO patients will be told that they can leave their health plan if their doctors aren’t in the network of the managed care organization or if their care is poor, denied or unreasonably delayed, among other things…
“As the state moves more and more to managed care, these rights become more critical,” said Florida Legal Services attorney Miriam Harmatz, lead counsel on the class-action suit filed a year ago in Fort Lauderdale…
Harmatz represented David Reed, David Mitchell and Joann Brown, three Medicaid recipients who filed a class action suit last year on behalf of the 200,000 Medicaid beneficiaries enrolled in the Medicaid Reform counties. The suit alleged that AHCA violated their rights and federal law by failing to let them know they could leave their managed-care plan at any time if they had a good reason.
AHCA tried unsuccessfully to dismiss the case. On Nov. 20, the agency signed a settlement agreement with Florida Legal Services and Broward Legal Aid.