Many hotlines are also the intake system for a legal services program. The program will have its own guidelines concerning what cases it accepts which frequently are different from those of the hotline. The program may encompass more than one type of service. In addition to the traditional legal service staff, the program may have a volunteer attorney unit; it may have units that take cases only in specified subject areas, such as housing, or family law. The hotline should make the initial determination as to which program a client should be referred. Thus, the hotline staff needs to be fully aware of how the other projects in the program function.

Every component of the program should provide written guidelines concerning what cases it accepts, financial guidelines specific to that project, information it needs and any other relevant criteria in making a decision about routing a case to that component of the program. Each program should develop a streamlined policy for getting hotline clients an appointment with a full-service unit attorney. Some programs allow the hotline attorneys to schedule the in-house appointments while others require the hotline advocate to email or fax the hotline intake record to a designated person in the relevant unit who will contact the client. The first procedure is easiest for the client. It is important to stress to the client that the appointment does not guarantee the staff attorney will represent him. This decision must be left to the staff attorney and his supervisor.

a. Cases That Should Referred In-House Approximately 25- 30% of clients calling the hotline will require more than advice or brief services simply because of the nature of their case. This includes cases that may go to court, cases requiring an administrative hearing, cases involving extensive negotiation, and cases with multiple parties, to name a few. Other clients will need to be given an appointment because their case is factually too complex to assess accurately on the telephone, or there are numerous documents. Some clients must be interviewed in person because of individual limitations. They may have poor communication skills, or other disabilities that make it difficult to advise them by telephone. This includes clients whose comprehension is doubtful, or when it is vitally important to be sure the client truly understands the situation. Occasionally, the hotline will schedule a client because of uncertainties about his honesty.

b. Home Visits A hotline service is an immense help to those clients who are unable to come to the office at all, or only with great difficulty. By merely having a hotline the program will probably be able to serve many more homebound clients than were otherwise served. Of course, there are homebound clients whose legal problems are not ones that can be resolved over the phone. If that is the case, the hotline attorney may be able to refer the client to the in-house staff to supervise a home visit. In theory, the hotline could both request and supervise the home visit but it is generally more efficient to have home visits transferred to in-house staff since the problem may require more extensive services than are available through the hotline. If this turns out not to be true, the client can always be referred back to the hotline.

In one Pennsylvania program, volunteer lay advocates were recruited and trained to act as "links" to the hotline, by helping clients make calls to the hotline. Volunteers either make home visits or work at specified times and days in community agencies that serve older people. As with all volunteer programs, this strategy demands a certain amount of administrative time.

All Legal Services Corporation field programs are required to spend a portion of their budget on private attorney involvement programs (PAI). In many cases, this involvement takes the form of a separate unit in the program, or a unit affiliated with the program, staffed by a coordinator who spends much of his/her time recruiting private lawyers and placing pro bono cases with these lawyers.

Setting up a hotline as an intake system will force a legal services program to sharpen its focus on exactly which cases it will handle in house and which ones it will refer to the PAI component. The preferred methodology is to have the hotline perform intake for the PAI and empower hotline attorneys to make preliminary decisions concerning which program will represent the caller based on clear guidelines.

The PAI component will also have its priorities and should set forth in writing clear guidelines concerning eligibility for pro bono placement. This would include a listing of subject matter priorities, financial eligibility, and any other special requirements of the pro bono unit. There should be easy communication between the hotline and the PAI program about availability and priorities

Since the hotline, especially over time, will become more and more adept at handling advice and brief services requests, the percentage of pro bono placements for this type of service should go down. At that point it may not be cost-effective to refer most brief services to pro bono attorneys. This is because the cost of developing and referring the case often exceeds the cost of handling the case in-house. Also it uses up a pro bono referral that could have been used on a more complex case. Thus, the referrals to the pro bono panel should be composed of a higher concentration of cases that require more in-depth services such as document preparation, administrative agency appeals, court cases, and cases requiring negotiation. Cases outside a legal services program’s priority areas are also appropriate referrals.

Many clients can be referred from the hotline directly to the PAI. These include simpler matters such as requests for wills and powers of attorney. More complex cases will need more screening, factual development, and issue identification prior to be being referred.

Sending a pro bono attorney a morass of documents or an ill-defined legal problem will only result in poor relationships with the pro bono attorneys. In freestanding hotlines the attorney should develop the case as thoroughly as possible. For hotlines connected to a legal services program this development can be done in- house to the extent there are attorneys available to do it. Care must be taken that the screening process does not create such a bottleneck that the flow of cases to the PAI becomes only a trickle, thus under utilizing the pro bono attorneys. See, Appendix D for discussion of using a brief services unit to develop cases for PAI.

A variation on this methodology exists in emergency cases. Often a client will have a case that requires immediate attention (e.g., filing an answer in Landlord & Tenant Court or filing a notice of appeal in a Social Security case), but once the emergency is dealt with, the case is placed with a pro bono attorney. Thus all three components (hotline, staff attorney, and PAI unit) are involved in the case, and complement each other in terms of allowing each some measure of control over the workload.

Probably the single most important factor in the smooth flow of cases from the hotline to the case handlers and the PAI unit is the hotline attorney’s ability to get a clear statement of the facts in as much detail as possible to allow an informed decision and route the case appropriately. If the caller’s problem cannot be handled in one of the above ways the hotline attorney may have other options depending on the program. If the hotline is free standing, that is, not connected to any other program, the caller may be referred to a local bar referral service or other legal and community resources.

a. Referrals to Other Free Legal Programs If the client is not eligible for free help through the programs the hotline services, she or he may be eligible for assistance from some other agency. Other legal aid offices may have different criteria. The hotline should maintain information about the other free legal services available in the community and keep them current on their computer database. In fact, new technology is available that allows these other organizations to update their own information.

There may be programs offered through nearby law schools, or organizations with a particular mission. It may simply be a matter of staff availability on any given day. For the sake of efficiency, the hotline should have current information on the intake criteria, areas of practice, and procedure for referring clients to other programs. Obviously, the hotline cannot guarantee that another agency will assist the client but the referrals should be made in good faith. The ABA Standards state that the "goal of the referrals must be to provide the callers with competent representation that meets clients’ needs. Procedures should be developed and employed throughout the hotline service to insure that goal is attained and that it is done within governing rules of professional conduct." Comments on ABA Standard 2.10 It is important for the hotline to set up streamlined referral procedures with each of the more common referral agencies to facilitate the referral and make sure the client isn’t starting anew. The procedure could include having a specific hotline contact person at each agency and developing referral forms and follow-up sheets (preferably electronic) so the hotline can track whether the case was accepted by the agency.

b. Referral to Attorneys in Private Practice Some clients will not be eligible for free legal service. They will need to be referred to other resources in the community. Some programs have made arrangements for certain clients to receive legal services at a discount. Other clients may simply need to be given information about finding an attorney on their own.

1.) Reduced Fee Panels For callers whose problems cannot be resolved through any of the hotline’s services or other in-house resources, a program might consider developing a referral panel of private attorneys who will provide legal services at a reduced rate. Many hotlines have recruited private attorneys who have agreed to accept referrals from the hotline in accordance with specified terms. These attorneys should be carefully selected and meet certain criteria, including several years of experience, maintenance of malpractice insurance, and willingness to enter into a written contract that sets forth all the terms of participation. These terms usually include: adherence to a preset fee schedule; willingness to abide by the hotline’s complaint system; participation in a client satisfaction survey; and, in some cases, sharing of fees collected from clients with the hotline to help support hotline administration costs. A referral panel may also include a pro bono component. Eligibility will depend on criteria set by the program. A computer program that automatically matches a client with a referral attorney will help to ensure a fair distribution of cases among panel members. See Appendix J, Sample Reduced Fee Panel Contract.

2.) Other Discounted Legal Services In some jurisdictions the local bar may offer some discounted services. Bar Referral Services may provide for limited free consultations. Some organizations provide for some low cost services to their members. AARP, for example, has created its Legal Services Network through which selected attorneys in private practice will give discounts to AARP members. See, www.aarp.org/lsn.

c. Non- Legal Referrals If the caller does not have a legal problem, the hotline attorney explains this fact to the client and provides relevant non-legal information or refers the caller to the appropriate agency. The ABA Standards state that "hotline services providing legal advice and information should establish procedures to identify and maintain information about non-legal services that assist with the problems of callers". ABA Standard 2.9. On occasion the hotline attorney may offer to call the agency to acquaint them with the client’s problem. The client must always consent to this action and authorize the attorney to share information that was given in confidence.