An Opportunity To Employ the Full Range of Your Skills:
Assisting Inmate-Clients

By: Michael S. Hamden, Executive Director
North Carolina Prisoner Legal Services, Inc.

As printed in: Facts & Findings Journal for Legal Assistants - National Association of Legal Assistants), Vol. XXVII August 2000, p. 21

Established in 1978, North Carolina Prisoner Legal Services, Inc, (NCPLS), is a non-profit, public service organization. The program employs ten paralegals, of whom, two have achieved NALA's Specialist Certification, four are Certified Legal Assistants, and all others are candidates for, or are working toward certification. NCPLS serves a population of more than 32,500 prisoners and 10,000 pre-trial detainees, providing information and advice concerning legal rights and responsibilities, discouraging frivolous litigation, working toward administrative resolutions of legitimate problems, and providing representation in all State and federal courts to ensure humane conditions of confinement and to challenge illegal convictions and sentences. No other entity in North Carolina routinely provides these services.

Too many paralegals and legal assistants are under-utilized, assigned to routine and redundant tasks that sap creativity and initiative, depriving attorneys and their clients of the valuable contributions these professionals can offer. Of course, lawyers and their employees must be well-versed on the proper role of the legal assistant so as to avoid the unauthorized practice of law. But with appropriate training and supervision, legal assistants can perform many of the functions traditionally reserved to lawyers. Such an enhanced role can be much more satisfying and fulfilling to the legal assistant, far more efficient and cost-effective for the supervising attorney, and of tremendous benefit to the client. These advantages are especially apparent where the client is indigent or is a member of a class of persons who have special or heightened needs for legal assistance. As harsh as it may seem, folks would generally agree that prisoners are the most despised and least deserving of all people. Virtually all prisoners are awaiting trial on, or already have been convicted of serious criminal charges. A significant number suffer from mental illness and other disabilities, and many lack the basic education and social skills necessary to lead a successful and productive life in free society.

The stigma associated with incarceration, constant interaction with the government and governmental officials, and the particular vulnerabilities of inmates render them powerless and more frequently in need of legal advice and assistance. Yet, because most prisoners are indigent, such assistance is often difficult or impossible to obtain, especially after conviction. But we know from countless news stories and television shows that not everyone who is convicted is in fact guilty, and that conditions of confinement can sometimes be cruel and inhumane.

So, for those of you who are motivated by a desire to employ professional skills in the public interest, prisoners constitute a group of people who offer golden opportunities for pro bono service. Those who are more concerned with financial considerations and the bottom line should be aware that there are various fee-shifting statutes that make it possible for a "prevailing party" to recover attorney fees (including fees for the assistance of paralegals) in certain types of legal proceedings. See, e.g., 42 U.S.C. § 1988. Both factors are legitimate and deserving of consideration.

What skills have you to offer inmates in need of legal assistance? The list is long, but well worth enumerating. You may not realize, for example, how developed are your analytical abilities. You will use all of your communications and interviewing skills to determine the nature of your client's problem. In a flash of brilliant insight, you may discern that the problem is an administrative one with a practical, common-sense solution. Your perspective could help the client understand his situation for the first time, and the solution you suggest may resolve the problem, while providing the client an object-lesson in dealing with prison rules and regulations through administrative channels. In such a case, you would have provided a significant service with a minimum time-investment, and entirely in accordance with professional standards (since legal advice was not requested or given).

In a more complex case, it may be necessary for you to conduct an investigation to determine the facts or to identify the governing legal principles, or both. For example, paralegals in our office are often called upon to contact witnesses; draft, revise, and secure signatures on affidavits and declarations; and to request, collect, and summarize records and reports of all kinds. With training and a little experience, legal assistants require very little supervision in performing these tasks, but they add a great deal of value to the process. First, and most obviously, legal assistants free the lawyer to more strictly focus on "legal" matters (that is, tasks only a lawyer can perform). Second, as the old saying goes, "two heads are better than one," by which I mean that having someone to work with often helps to generate ideas and improve the work product. Finally, a seasoned legal assistant can bring invaluable initiative and intuition to an investigation that can be critical to the full development of relevant facts.

For example, a senior paralegal in our office was working with one of our attorneys on a collateral challenge to our client's conviction. Our client told us that he did not commit the murder for which he was convicted. As the investigation proceeded, we learned that one or both of our client's co-defendants might have made statements while in jail or in the Department of Correction incriminating one of the co-defendants as the triggerman. Our paralegal reasoned that someone in the jail might have overheard such a statement, so he obtained a list of people who were confined in the jail some seven years earlier, with our client and his co-defendants. Combing the list, our paralegal identified a person who had been housed in the jail with one of the co-defendants, located and interviewed him, and drafted and obtained his signature on an affidavit for use in the post-conviction proceeding. At the hearing, the judge found that testimony particularly persuasive because our client was not aware that the witness had any pertinent information and because our client and the witness had not communicated with each other at any time since our client was charged with the crime. As a result of our paralegal's intuition and initiative, our client's first-degree murder conviction was set aside.

Of course, not all of our clients' complaints are meritorious or well-founded. When an initial contact or subsequent investigation reveals that a claim may lack merit, our paralegals are often asked to convey that information to our client, either in writing or in person. Typically, such an assignment follows a discussion between the paralegal and the attorney concerning the facts of the particular case and the applicable law. Ordinarily, our paralegals are well-versed in the controlling legal principles, so the discussion generally focuses on the facts of the case and what information needs to be imparted to our client. Although some folks simply don't believe what they're told until they hear it from the lawyer (and sometimes, not even then), most of our clients have confidence in our paralegals and appreciate a straight, honest answer, even when it is not what they want to hear.

The support and involvement of a legal assistant can also be important beyond the interviewing and investigation stages, especially in resolving legal disputes. For example, another of our senior paralegals has particularly well-developed social skills and communicates effectively with all kinds of people. On any number of occasions, she has correctly identified our client's legal problem, brought it to the attention of the assigned attorney, discussed with that attorney a plan to resolve the problem, and undertaken informal negotiations with the responsible law enforcement officials. An extraordinary number of those cases have been resolved consistently with the interests of our clients, and at modest expense to governmental officials or their agencies. In light of the exorbitant expense of protracted litigation, a legal assistant capable of such results is worth her (or his) weight in gold.

But for those cases in which litigation cannot be avoided, there simply is no substitute for the support of a competent, experienced legal assistant. Of course, that is true for all kinds of litigation, and not just prisoner litigation. Legal assistants can provide indispensable help in preparing all kinds of cases for trial, providing such services as the drafting of pleadings and discovery requests, helping to plan case strategy, assisting in the scheduling and conduct of depositions, reviewing and summarizing discovery responses, researching and drafting legal motions and memoranda, preparing and organizing trial exhibits and trial notebooks, and ensuring good communications with witnesses and the client during trial (when the lawyer is most likely to be distracted). Lawyers who have that kind of support have an overwhelming advantage in court, even though it can sometimes produce memory loss ("How'd I ever try a case without my paralegal?").

So, the need of prisoners for legal advice and assistance offers paralegals (and their attorney teammates) extraordinary opportunities to employ a full range of skills, as well as a chance to refine capabilities that for too long may have lain dormant or underdeveloped. Additionally, such work can provide the chance to acquire new skills, to enhance working relationships, and to demonstrate the value of those skills to the legal team and the client. Such work has the potential to generate income for the firm, but perhaps of greatest importance is the sense of professional fulfillment that comes with providing even limited legal services to the destitute and down-trodden. You know, there's a jail or a correctional facility near you where someone needs your help. I hope to see you there!

About the author: Michael S. Hamden has practiced law for 15 years, first as an attorney with NCPLS, and beginning in 1995, as the Executive Director of that organization. Hamden, who serves as the prisoner advocate on the Institutional Review Board for the Protection of Human Subjects at Research Triangle Institute, has authored several articles and publications, including "'Special Providers' Offer Assistance to the Poor," The North Carolina State Bar Journal, Summer 1998, and a self-help manual for pro se prisoner litigants, "Tort Claims Before the North Carolina Industrial Commission." Hamden has delivered presentations to a host of organizations and associations, including the Society of Correctional Physicians (Atlanta, GA); the NC Association of County Commissioners, the NC Sheriffs' Association, and Sedgwick James of the Carolinas Insurance Company; the NC County Attorneys' Conference; and the School for Sheriffs, Deputies and Jailers (North Carolina Institute of Government, Chapel Hill, NC). A long-standing member of the American Bar Association, Hamden serves as a member of the ABA's Corrections and Sentencing Committee, and as the ABA's liaison to the American Correctional Association, where he holds positions as a Commissioner of Accreditation (ruling on applications for ACA accreditation and enforcing operational standards nationwide) and as a member of the Standards Committee ( promulgating standards which reflect "best practices" for all types of correctional facilities.