LEGAL HOTLINES

BEST PRACTICE TIPS GUIDE

2000 Edition

Compiled and Written by
Carol Matthews
Jan Allen May

AARP Legal Advocacy Group
WASHINGTON, DC
(202) 434-2120

Overview & Acknowledgements

The original BEST PRACTICE TIPS GUIDE was compiled by Leslie Corbett, Executive Director of Coordinated Advice and Referral Program for Legal Services (CARPLS), and published in September, 1997. It was based on a survey of twelve hotlines in operation at that time. The development of the GUIDE was underwritten by the AARP Foundation as part of an Administration on Aging project to provide technical assistance to legal aid programs interested in learning about and/or adopting a hotline model delivery system. Since publication of the original GUIDE the AARP Foundation has continued to provide technical assistance to hotlines as well as gathering information from and about new and existing hotlines.

One result of this effort was the compilation of the first State-by-State Directory of Legal Hotlines published in July, 1998 by the AARP Foundation Legal Technical Assistance Project. A second edition of this Directory was published in April 2000 and now includes information on 154 hotlines in 45 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. (For information about how to get a copy of the Directory, See Appendix A.) The topics covered in profiling these hotlines for the Directories do not parallel the survey done for the original GUIDE. Nevertheless, the surveys and interviews conducted in the course of compiling the information for the Directories yielded many good practice tips that form the basis for much of the subsequent editions of the GUIDE. All numerical data are based on the information obtained for the most recent Directory.

Additional information resulted from a Best Practices Workshop held as part of the Middle Managers’ Legal Services Conference sponsored by Management Information Exchange (MIE) in Park City, Utah during the Spring of 1998. Further information was obtained by faxing and e-mailing questions on various topics to hotline managers around the country and from innumerable phone conversations. We are grateful to those who took the time to respond and answer questions.

As always, a rich treasury of ideas and information comes from picking the brains of knowledgeable people. Thus, many thanks are due to Wayne Moore, the originator of the statewide senior legal hotline model, Leslie Corbett, Mary Ann Sarosi, Shoshanna Ehrlich, Monica Kolasa, and Mark Marquardt, many of whom were instrumental in putting together the second edition as well. Much gratitude is also due to Paul Davis and Linda Mayo for their help in making this edition a reality.

Carol Matthews & Jan Allen May
AARP Foundation
July,2000