Title 45

SECTION 1620.3

1620.3 Establishing priorities.

§ 1620.3 Establishing priorities.

(a) The governing body of a recipient must adopt procedures for establishing priorities for the use of all of its Corporation and non-Corporation resources and must adopt a written statement of priorities, pursuant to those procedures, that determines the cases and matters which may be undertaken by the recipient.

(b) The procedures adopted must include an effective appraisal of the needs of eligible clients in the geographic area served by the recipient, and their relative importance, based on information received from potential or current eligible clients that is solicited in a manner reasonably calculated to obtain the views of all significant segments of the client population. The appraisal must also include and be based on information from the recipient's employees, governing body members, the private bar, and other interested persons. The appraisal should address the need for outreach, training of the recipient's employees, and support services.

(c) The following factors shall be among those considered by the recipient in establishing priorities:

(1) The suggested priorities promulgated by the Legal Services Corporation;

(2) The appraisal described in paragraph (b) of this section;

(3) The population of eligible clients in the geographic areas served by the recipient, including all significant segments of that population with special legal problems or special difficulties of access to legal services;

(4) The resources of the recipient;

(5) The availability of another source of free or low-cost legal assistance in a particular category of cases or matters;

(6) The availability of other sources of training, support, and outreach services;

(7) The relative importance of particular legal problems to the individual clients of the recipient;

(8) The susceptibility of particular problems to solution through legal processes;

(9) Whether legal efforts by the recipient will complement other efforts to solve particular problems in the area served;

(10) Whether legal efforts will result in efficient and economic delivery of legal services; and

(11) Whether there is a need to establish different priorities in different parts of the recipient's service area.