When 2010 begins, the holistic legal advocacy group ArchCity Defenders will move into a downtown office and begin taking cases on a limited basis.

For the young lawyers who are spearheading this effort, it's been a fall filled with fundraising, networking and logistical planning. While the three co-founders await confirmation of their nonprofit corporation's 501c-3 status, they are laying the groundwork for the year ahead.

Thomas B. Harvey and Michael-John Voss, two of the co-founders, will join a lawyer who has experience in Florida's public defender system in the Laclede's Landing office, donated to them by attorney Bernard Reinert.

The lawyers will handle a limited number of cases, likely five to 10 each, during this pilot program. None of them will be paid. They will focus primarily on low-income clients facing state prosecution on criminal charges, and who otherwise couldn't afford legal representation. Among their clients will be people who don't qualify for the public defender system or can't be helped by the system right away.

Although the co-founders have individually done pro bono work with indigent clients in recent months, this will represent the first work done under the auspice of ArchCity Defenders.

The idea, Harvey said, is to get the project up and running so that the lawyers and others involved in the effort can take on more clients when funding is available. He's also hopeful that developing relationships now with social justice groups will help the corporation once it is ready to apply for grants.

"Our focus is not on handling a huge number of cases, but showing we can handle a small number very well and making connections with people in the community," Harvey said.

Area lawyers have volunteered to help with cases while the group is in its infancy. ArchCity will also likely use the services of university legal clinics. Joining the group as an intern is a student working toward a law degree and master's in social work. One of the corporation's goals is to help clients suffering from mental disorders or drug abuse.

Harvey continues to sell the holistic legal advocacy concept. He has made a number of presentations, including one recently to the Mound City Bar Association, which has agreed to include ArchCity in events planned by the association.

ArchCity has hired a fundraiser who is looking at St. Louis corporations as potential donors. A Washington University professor is hosting a fundraising event for the group in the second week of January.

Harvey said the goal is to raise $100,000 by the end of June, which would allow the group to fund the first year of work -- with one paid full-time lawyer on staff and a part-time social worker to help coordinate care -- and to begin accumulating money for year two. The cost of funding the full project remains $200,000, for three paid lawyers and a full-time social worker.

Read the Beacon's earlier story below.  

Four months removed from graduation, three friends from the Saint Louis University School of Law are working to advance a nonprofit corporation they recently started with the intention of providing legal services to the poor.

Each of the co-founders, Thomas B. Harvey, John McAnnar and Michael-John Voss, comes to the project, called ArchCity Defenders , with public-interest experience and fresh-out-of-school exuberance.

While in law school, Harvey worked for the Missouri state public defender's office in St. Louis. Through interviewing new clients and conducting preliminary hearings, among other duties, he learned about the needs of people facing criminal prosecution. Harvey said he was struck by the limitations in helping indigent clients. Lawyers at the office could address a person's criminal charges but were statutorily restricted from handling civil charges that often exacerbated the clients' problems.

archcity defenders

Photo by Elia Powers | Beacon staff

Co-founders (from left) John McAnnar, Thomas B. Harvey and Michael-John Voss.

Harvey noticed that many people coming through the system also appeared to have a mental illness or substance abuse problem that had to be handled elsewhere. Judges often called for defendants to receive treatment, which was "cobbled together" across agencies, Harvey said.

He didn't blame the individual lawyers working at the office -- Missouri is at the bottom nationally in supporting its public defender system, and caseloads have been increasing for years. But the waiting lists and maze of referrals that can face poor people needing legal help prompted Harvey and his law school classmates to start ArchCity Defenders.

Under their model, which the founders call "holistic legal advocacy," lawyers would see clients facing state prosecution on criminal charges. The attorneys would also be able to respond to their clients' civil concerns - including pre-existing charges or problems that arise over the course of a criminal case. One example: a defendant who accepts a plea is incarcerated, rendering him unable to pay rent, which prompts a civil suit from his landlord.

An in-house social worker would be available from the outset to respond to defendants' non-legal problems, such as mental disorders or drug abuse. And for the sake of continuity, one lawyer would be assigned stay with a client throughout the legal process.

"Our hope is to coordinate the care to address the underlying problems at the beginning," Harvey said. "We're not wide-eyed idealists, but we think we have a lot better chance of helping people if we can address their legal problems, and their mental illness or substance abuse problems all at once."

ArchCity Defenders would take on clients who would otherwise be unable to afford legal representation. That includes low-income people who aren't eligible to benefit from the public defender system. (Perhaps their earnings are barely over the state-mandated maximum.)

While the corporation plans to follow the American Bar Association guidelines to determine who is indigent, McAnnar said the plan is to go beyond the usual focus on earnings and take into account factors such as child-support payments and other debts.

Model in the Bronx 

ArchCity Defenders is modeled off a New York nonprofit called the Bronx Defenders , which provides free legal representation to area residents charged with crimes. Harvey, McAnnar and Voss plan to observe the Bronx office, which employs dozens of lawyers and several social workers.

The ArchCity founders say they see their group as supplementing and not competing with the Missouri state public defender system or other public-interest groups. Cathy Kelly, deputy director of the state's public defender system, said in an e-mail that she's "excited to see something like ArchCity Defenders group gaining ground" and would like to see the idea replicated across the state.

"There are so many borderline non-indigent people [our system] is unable to serve but who are unable to pay the going rates for a private attorney without real hardship to themselves or their families," Kelly said. "Most of our defenders really struggle with having to turn these people away knowing they have very few other options, but we simply can't keep up with those who qualify for our services much less take on those who are close, but not quite there."

Kelly also acknowledged that there are many cases in which a public defender can handle the criminal charges against a client but can't address the other issues that have contributed to their being in the justice system in the first place.

"Our area of responsibility is very narrowly circumscribed by statute and we can't stray far from that," she said. "As a result, we can't deal with a client's landlord-tenant issues that threaten them with homelessness or litigate their expulsion from school or immigration issues created by their criminal charges. ... There are huge needs in these areas and we applaud any and all who step in to pick up that mantle."

Working on funding 

Arch City Defenders has several proposed annual budget models, one of which would be for a single lawyer on staff (likely Harvey, who is a private criminal defense attorney) to coordinate care through a referral system. A social worker would be hired part time, and students and volunteers would provide additional help. The annual cost of sustaining that model is roughly $50,000, and the founders have yet to reach that mark in fundraising.

The cost of funding the full project is about $200,000. That would include three lawyers and a full-time social worker, at which point the office would follow the ABA's recommendations on when to cap its caseload -- 450 felonies and 1,200 misdemeanors a year.

McAnnar said one of the benefits of being a nonprofit is the ability to determine what kind of cases to take. The group's founders say one focus would be nonviolent criminal offenders whose lives could veer far off course.

"There's an invisible cost of a small-code violation," McAnnar said. "I've seen plenty of people who get tickets for not paying the Metro fare, and it ends up being a huge thing that destroys their lives."

Added McAnnar: "We'd like to take cases where we can make the largest impact - people who have an addressable problem. Hopefully we could fix it before it becomes a recurring problem."

help from others 

The ArchCity founders are waiting for their corporation's nonprofit status to be approved, and are receiving help during the process from a nonprofit attorney. They already have received an in-kind office donation from a private attorney.

Potential partnerships with Washington University and Saint Louis University would enable law and social work students to lend their help to various aspects of the cases. Harvey said veteran lawyers have promised to donate their time to the project.

Because the founders are all new lawyers - each was admitted to the Missouri bar last month - they are talking with people who are experienced within the legal system to serve on the corporation's board of advisors and advisory board.

Harvey said that while the group could begin taking clients, the plan is to wait until it's clear that there's enough funding to sustain the work. The founders are seeking a combination of private donations, grants and other funding sources.

"The need is out there; we're confident there's a market for what we're trying to do," McAnnar said. "It's just going to depend on whether we can find enough local funding."

The group's founders said they are committed to sticking with the project.

"As newly admitted lawyers, we're optimistic about our future careers, and we feel a moral and ethical obligation to take on this type of project," Voss said.