We’ve been following a controversy that’s arisen as Maryland lawmakers have threatened to withhold funding from the University of Maryland School of Law unless it provides information that would identify some of its clinical program’s clients. Some lawmakers are apparently upset that the clinical program is involved in an environmental pollution suit aimed at, among others, Perdue Farms – a powerful actor in the state.
ABA President Carolyn B. Lamm came out against the lawmakers’ actions yesterday:
[T]here is a proposal before the Maryland legislature to withhold funds from the University of Maryland School of Law unless it reports on clients and cases served by the school’s clinical legal program, expenditures for those cases and funding sources. Backers of the proposal claim a suit brought by the school’s environmental law clinic is targeting an important segment of the state’s agriculture industry.The proposed legislation is such an intrusion on the attorney-client relationship because of the information that is required to be revealed that it is not tolerable. Clients seeking assistance from law school clinics or other non-profits providing legal services to the disadvantaged —as in the population generally—may be concerned about the ramifications of the release of confidential client information, even if that sensitive information is not formally subject to the attorney-client privilege. This could result in their not seeking and receiving the legal assistance that they need.
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As president of the American Bar Association, I urge those who would undermine clinical law school programs to step back and remember that the rule of law cannot survive if pressure prevents lawyers from fulfilling their responsibilities to their clients.
Even closer to the controversy, Stephen H. Sachs, formerly the Maryland Attorney General and U.S. Attorney for Maryland, has come down squarely on the side of the law school via an op-ed in today’s Baltimore Sun:
Maryland’s General Assembly is being justly criticized for considering holding at least $500,000 hostage to demands for information about clients of the University of Maryland School of Law’s environmental clinic.
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Most of the criticism of these budgetary restrictions has contended that they would undermine both the ethically mandated independence of the clinic’s lawyer-teacher and students and academic freedom. Those points are absolutely right.
But the proposed restrictions do even more harm: They target the rule of law itself, and they betray the citizen groups who seek to enforce it.
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The lesson, unfortunately, that the pending legislation will teach is this: Powerful private interests can use government as a whip to intimidate lawyers for citizen groups who sue them to enforce laws they may be violating. It is hard to imagine a more pernicious lesson for all of us, including the University of Maryland law school’s students and the clients whom they help to represent. It is a message that other governmental bodies will hear and that some undoubtedly will act upon.
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It is not too late for cooler heads to prevail. As one who is proud of our legislature and has great respect for its leaders, I hope so.
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