File #: 17-064    Version: 1
Type: Other Proposal Status: Passed
File created: 2/21/2017 In control: Judicial Council
On agenda: 7/28/2017 Final action: 7/28/2017
Title: Equal Access Fund: Status Report and Technical Correction (Action Required)
Attachments: 1. 20170728-17-064

Title

Title

Equal Access Fund: Status Report and Technical Correction (Action Required)

 

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Summary

Summary

Since 2014, the Legal Services Trust Fund Commission has been engaged in work to streamline and improve the efficacy of its grant making, including instituting new data collection protocols designed to determine the outcomes of the legal services provided through the Equal Access and Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Account Funds. This report describes this effort to document the impact of legal services and demonstrate accountability in use of resources. The multiyear transition to a new grant-making platform also resulted in short-term challenges, and this report also contains technical corrections to previous reports prepared for the Judicial Council regarding the distribution of the Equal Access Fund.

 

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Recommendation

Recommendation

The State Bar’s Legal Services Trust Fund Commission (the “Commission”) recommends that the Judicial Council:

1.                     Endorse ongoing efforts by the Commission to enhance efficiency and document the impact of the Equal Access Fund; and

2.                     Approve the following technical corrections to previously approved reports entitled Equal Access Fund: Distribution of Funds for Partnership Grants and IOLTA-Formula Grants:

a.                     For the report submitted for the October 27, 2014 Judicial Council business meeting, accept revised Attachment C that inadvertently did not include one of the grantees whose funding was approved by the Judicial Council.

b.                     For the report submitted for the October 26, 2015 Judicial Council business meeting, accept Attachment D that sets out the individual grant awards for each recipient of IOLTA-formula grants, which was inadvertently not included in the report. The report should be further corrected to note that the approved amount for the partnership grant award for the Alameda County Bar Volunteer Legal Services Unlawful Detainer Project was $25,000, not $55,000. Lastly, because of the tight timing of the grant cycles, the report did not include subsequent adjustments to a requested IOLTA-formula grant of $23,000; the distribution amount should be reduced from $12,773,000 to $12,750,000 to reflect that fact.

c.                     For the report submitted for the October 27, 2016 Judicial Council business meeting, approve the revised Attachment E that has been corrected to remove an allocation to a grantee that withdrew its application after the report to the Judicial Council was submitted. The total recommended distribution of IOLTA-formula grants is $17,199,592.