Over the past decade it has become apparent to legal service providers to the poor that the demand for quality assistance is greater than the available resources to help. The American Bar Association, in its Standards for the Operation of Legal Hotlines, adopted by the House of Delegates, August 2001, has noted that "recent research demonstrates that people need improved resources to help them determine whether they have a legal problem and to provide them advice on when to use a lawyer and how to proceed if they do not obtain a lawyer. Telephone hotline services providing legal advice and information have emerged as a formidable mechanism to assist people in becoming aware of their legal rights and responsibilities, making important decisions and responding to the information that they receive from hotline personnel". (Introduction to American Bar Association’s Standards for the Operation of Telephone Hotlines Providing Legal Advice and Information, August 2001) (ABA Standards).

In 1997 the Legal Services Corporation recommended the implementation of a hotline to its grantees concluding that such a system would improve "prompt access for clients throughout the service area, including special populations" and provide "better quality, more timely and more responsive service for a large number of clients". Basic Elements of Centralized Telephone Intake Delivery Systems, March 1997. In May 2001, LSC promulgated Draft Characteristics of a Telephone Advice and Referral System, which will be published in final form as an LSC program letter. See Appendix A. The hotline model has been singled out for merit by both the American Bar Association and the National Legal Aid and Defender Association (NLADA). Wayne Moore, Director of the AARP Foundation Legal Advocacy Group and father of the legal hotline concept, received the ABA Louis M. Brown Legal Access Award in 1998 and the NLADA First Innovations in Equal Justice Award in 1999, for his work in creating and promoting the legal hotline service delivery system.

In 1985 AARP’s Legal Counsel for the Elderly (LCE) initiated the Legal Hotline for Older Americans in Pennsylvania - the first legal hotline to provide free services to people over 60 years of age. This was a brand new concept for providing legal services by telephone and unconnected to a legal service provider. It was located in Pittsburgh and served elderly residents of the state. It was followed in 1987 by a hotline set up in LCE’s Washington, D.C. office to conduct intake for its full service program as well as to provide advice and brief services by telephone. Since then at least 154 hotlines have been established in the non-profit sector. See, State by State Directory of Legal Hotlines 2000 (Directory).

The experience to date has shown that hotlines can provide legal advice, brief services, and referrals at a substantially lower cost than a full service provider. In part this is because significantly less time is required to provide these services by telephone than in face-to-face meetings with clients. The hotline is efficient because all client information and casenotes are put directly into the computer instead of being recorded manually and subsequently entered into the computer. The inefficiencies and disruptions caused by clients failing to show up for appointments, or showing up without the relevant papers, is reduced.

Because hotline attorneys specialize in advice and brief services cases, they become very skilled at giving advice that is detailed, accurate, and understandable. High quality is achieved and maintained by the prompt review of all casenotes by a supervising attorney to ensure completeness, accuracy, and consistency of the advice. Call-backs to clients may be made to ensure the advice was understood. Self-help materials and other publications can be mailed to clients as appropriate.

A hotline unit can be run with minimal or no support staff and produces no paper case files. All client and case information can be kept in the computer. All letters and documents are created directly on the computer and stored with the case information. Consequently, experience has shown that a full-time equivalent hotline attorney can close up to 1700 cases per year and set appointments for 600 other cases to be handled by the program’s non-hotline staff. However, AARP Foundation’s experience with the Pennsylvania Legal Advice Line has shown that a hotline full-time equivalent attorney can handle more than 9000 calls per year when demographic and eligibility gathering duties are shifted to a telephone receptionist and when brief service tasks are transferred to another unit. See, Section VI infra; See also, Senior Legal Hotlines Annual Reports and W. Moore, A New Concept in Service Delivery-the Brief Services Unit. Appendix D.

A hotline can provide a client with detailed legal advice even when a program lacks the resources to give the client all the help he needs. It costs about the same to provide legal advice through the hotline as many programs spend to turn away a client after a face-to-face interview. Hotlines can also provide legal information that may prevent future problems. A study conducted by the Center for Policy Research found that it was possible for a properly designed program to increase its capacity to provide brief services without significantly decreasing its capacity to provide extended services. This result is not guaranteed, particularly for smaller programs, so it is important to be careful in designing and implementing a new hotline. The Hotline Outcomes Assessment Study Final Report - Phase I, by Christine Allison, M.A., Jessica Pearson, Ph.D., Center for Policy Research, March 2000 (CPR Phase I).

A study described in the State Bar of Michigan Access to Justice for All Task Force Service Delivery Subcommittee Work Group B-Hotlines Report (April 2000)(Michigan Hotlines Report) also recommends using larger regional, multiple program hotlines to "produce high quality, consistent service, and prevent duplication of cost, administration, and supervision." Michigan Hotlines Report p.4.

A hotline provides fast service for the majority of clients who need only advice, information, or brief services. Usually, such matters can be handled by telephone without requiring the client to make an appointment or travel to an office. This obviates the delays in service occurring in many intake systems that tend to erode client satisfaction.

A hotline is useful for serving certain hard to reach populations. These include persons with disabilities that make it difficult to travel to an office, rural populations, people who cannot take time from job or family responsibilities, and frequently the elderly. However, while telephone access can bring services to those who would otherwise be excluded by physical, transportation, or other barriers, sometimes the telephone itself may be a barrier to access. Special outreach strategies should be implemented to reach clients for whom this is true. These may include the hearing or speech impaired, persons without telephones, and non-English speakers. Some hotlines have contracted with Language Line, Inc. to provide interpreters where the need justifies the cost. Other hotlines hire bi-lingual staff.

The hotline can improve a legal services program’s reputation in the community. Although a program may achieve high satisfaction among the clients it serves, if it turns others away with no help its reputation will suffer. Experience shows that unsatisfied clients tell many more friends and relatives about a bad experience than satisfied clients do about a good experience. A poor reputation will hurt a program’s ability to fund-raise, particularly from local community sources. Hotlines also are in a good position for spotting trends in the client community and identifying where resources are most needed and where there is duplication of services.

Caveat: A hotline does have limitations, and, therefore, programs will need to schedule or refer some clients for traditional face-to-face interviews. Appointments are appropriate in cases that involve documents not easily handled by phone or sent to the program. Clients who can’t articulate their problem well or fully understand advice that is given by phone may need appointments. (Stand-alone hotlines will provide referrals to other legal resources.). Nevertheless, a program can achieve maximum efficiency and quality by using the hotline to handle all appropriate cases and reserving the more expensive, face-to-face delivery mechanism for those matters and clients that truly require it. When a hotline serves as the intake mechanism it also obviates the need for case acceptance meetings and thus achieves additional cost savings. (See Section V. for further discussion.) An efficient addition to the continuum of services may be the "Brief Services Unit", which, together with a hotline and full service unit, may achieve the optimal balance of providing the most service for the least expense. For more information, see, W. Moore, "The Theory Behind The Hotline System" Appendix C and W. Moore, "A New Concept in Service Delivery- the Brief Services Unit". Appendix D.

It is noteworthy that in the course of preparing the Phase I report on hotlines the Center for Policy Research interviewed the managers or executive directors of 44 hotlines. When asked about the overall effectiveness of hotlines the responses were very positive. All the interviewees cited more strengths than weaknesses and believed that their hotline had expanded the program’s "capacity, productivity, and client accessibility." They overwhelmingly perceived that the "hotline enabled their program to help more people with the same or fewer resources." (CPR Phase I, supra, at pp. 16-17.) Not a single one regretted implementing a hotline.