represents a situation that should be remedied. May I suggest
to you that if the three hundred fifty thousand lawyers
are each answering only ten client questions per day, more then
ninety per cent of the questions are being answered. Let us
not impose controls or regulations on a system that is serving
the public as well as the present system is unless we are sure
that we have something better to offer. From my own knowledge I
simply do not believe that South Dakotans are going without
legal counsel because of their inability to afford counsel in
such matters as selling or buying a house or probating a Will.

I am proud of the legal profession. I am particularily proud of
my professional brothers in South Dakota. They are hard working
and conscientious community leaders. They are working long hours
and employing every resource available to them to serve the needs
of Clients. They are honorable and ethical. They are respecters
and defenders of the Constitution and all Laws thereunder and
devoted to perserving the rights that result therefrom. Because
they do this under the adversary system they are in constant
controversy and misunderstanding does result.

Your Committee will be hearing from those who are dissatisfied, in fact on your first page of your statement where you indicate from whom your Sub-Committee will be hearing you describe only the dissatisfied. We find as I have stated that most of our dissatisfaction in this State results from misunderstanding and I trust that your Committee will keep the complaints of the few dissatisfied in perspective of the total service afforded the Country by my profession.

I would like to take up the various specific topics that your Sub-Committee is considering as listed on the beginning of the second page of your remarks.

In this State we have had no minimum fee schedule for three years. We know nothing of five hundred dollar fees for checking the title to a home. I would estimate that the average abstract examination fee for the ordinary residential property in South Dakota runs from thirty five to fifty collars depending on the volume and complexity of the title chain. From my experience a five hundred dollar fee would be an exorbitant fee for title examination work. By saying that I do not mean to preclude unusual circumstances that might justify such a fee. If it is typical of the situation in the area where it resulted I assure you it has nothing to do with the situation in South Dakota.

On the subject of government regulation and subsidy of
legal fees. I know nothing of the cases involving Black
Lung Benefits and am unable to comment on their complexity
or the propriety of the fee you mentioned. Every South Dakota
lawyer is familiar with contingent fee arrangements with the
Client. It is the key to the Court House for many litigants,
particularily the poor. In most tort cases a twenty per cent
fee is extremely modest and in my experience a lawyer who took
very much tort work on twenty per cent contingencies could not
make his services available to any except those with a sure
case of liability. From twenty five per cent to thirty three
and one third per cent is the usual arrangement in this area
and I have heard no complaints of it.

You mentioned a situation where attorneys who secure benefits for Veterans are limited to the flat rate of ten dollars per claim. There are similar Federal statutory limitations in other areas. In my judgment these limitations are of no benefit to the public or the profession. They are not realistic. They do not represent adequate compensation to a lawyer who handles such a matter. They assure difficulty in having it handled.

We have one Public Defender program in one area of South Dakota. All other indigent defender work is done by private attorneys who are Court appointed and compensated at an hourly rate. I have had no personal experience with the Public Defender program as the one program is a pilot program less then a year in being. In a rural area such as South Dakota geography requires us to depend on Court appointed counsel and I believe always will to some extent. Indigent defendents are well represented in South Dakota by Court appointed counsel. To my knowledge the same is true of those represented by the Public Defender. My personal preference without personal experience with the Public Defender, is to extend the Public Defender system in urban areas in a State such as this one, with Court appointments filling the gaps in the most sparsely settled areas.

In this State we have a few types of proceedings where the Court has the power to assess an allowance for attorneys fees in favor of the prevailing party. However the general rule is that this cannot be done and is only done in a few specific type cases specifically authorized by the Legislature. I personally believe this should be extended though I do not believe it is a proper subject for Federal legislation, at least on matters in State Courts. Care must be exercised in extending it however so that a litigant with a good case of liability will not load on extra costs to compel surrender on the issue of the amount of damages.

I think there is some danger in extending the taxation of attorneys fees. It can promote Client unrest and misunderstanding. Many

people think that they should not have to pay to obtain what is theirs as a matter of right.

For many years our largest city, Sioux Falls, has had a legal aid program manned by local lawyers on a voluntary basis furnishing legal aid for those who cannot afford to hire it. In the rest of the State most lawyers do the same thing but not on an organized basis, that is, nearly every lawyer discounts the bill or makes no charge in cases where persons needing legal services have no ability to pay.

When legal services programs under the office of Economic Opportunity came into being seven or eight years ago, the State Bar of South Dakota applied for funding for a Judicare Program and this was denied. The Judicare concept of course contemplates the use of private practicing attorneys who bill the Legal Services Program instead of the Client in the case of indigence. In a rural area this type of a program is the only one that can really make legal services available to every indigent person. There is no way to put in full time employees of Legal Service Program in small county seat towns in rural areas. Funding was denied for Judicare in South Dakota. Folks here think it was denied because the powers that be in OEO Legal Services were more interested in full time staff employees who would promote social change than in actually getting run of the mill and day to day legal services available to poor people. We do have Federally funded Legal Services Program on the Indian Reservations in South Dakota and these have made a good contribution in recent years to provide legal services to indigents. I expect that there are some poor people now in South Dakota who do not obtain legal services because of inability to pay or because of the fear that they do not have the legal ability to pay the charge that will be made. I honestly do not believe there are very many but must concede. that there are some. If the Judicare concept were authorized, whatever problem in this area remains would be remedied immediately.

There is the occasional lawyer who acts unethically and dishonestly. We have an active Grievance Committee and our disciplinary procedures are reasonably rapid and effective. We have a Client Security Fund. Bar By-Laws require that each lawyer contribute twenty dollars annually for the Client Security Fund in order to provide a fund to make payment to any who may be wronged financially by a member of the profession.

I personally believe that the public relations program of the Bar needs to be expanded in some way to educate the public more fully as to what problems require lawyers. The disciplinary rules that

prohibit solicitation of business leaves the profession with a low profile and I truly believe there are sometimes people who do not recognize that the problem they have is one that needs the attention of legal counsel. Those areas that have adopted the Lawyer Referral Service have been able to ethically put on a much better public education program of services available from law offices. We have no Lawyer Referral Service in this State.

I disagree with your fourth page comment that there is a growing chasm between the legal profession and its constituents the citizenry. That may be true in some areas but I do not believe it to be true in this State. Nor do I agree that Watergate has caused South Dakota citizens to lose confidence in their lawyers. Politicians as such have been besmirched by Watergate in this part of the Country but I do not believe that is true of the legal profession. The public mind here has readily drawn a distinction between the lawyers engaged in the active practice of law and serving the people and those persons with law licenses who are engaged in political and governmental activities. I think we need to be ever vigilant in intensifying the instruction and indoctrination on legal ethics that we give both to students and active practioners. In South Dakota I believe that both our admissions procedures and disciplinary procedures are effective. I am proud to be a lawyer. I think that many of the problems you contemplate have been greatly minimized in the last few years with the activities of the lawyers and organized Bar Association as well as government funded legal services programs. The large numbers of new attorneys who are leaving Law School and going into private and public practice are imbued with ideas of public service. Their very number must serve to make legal services fully available. Activities of Bar Association in such matters as Legal Aid, Prepaid Legal Service Programs and Lawyer Referral Services are gaining momentum. Consider the sources of the complaints that come before your Sub-Committee and extend to our profession the courtesy of looking for the good as well as the bad as you continue in your efforts.

I hope these thoughts will be of some help to you and your
Sub-Committee in the work you are pursuing.

Sincerely,
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Ross H. Oviatt
President

I appreciate your October 11 letter concerning the ability of individuals or groups to obtain adequate legal representation in the settlement of their grievances.

While I am replying as President of the Tennessee Bar Association, I cannot in fact represent to you that I am acting pursuant to the authority of the Board of Governors of that Association in writing this letter nor that the views expressed herein represent the views of either a majority of the Association members or the governing body. It is my opinion, however, that the views which I express do represent the concensus of a majority of the membership.

For some time, we have recognized that the indigent citizen through either the voluntary efforts of the Bar or through various welfare programs have been afforded some substantial legal representation. In like manner, representation to the affluent has never been a problem in the opinion of most lawyers. It is the group in between who have the problem of either not knowing a lawyer, not knowing the services which a lawyer renders, not knowing the method which a lawyer employs in charging for his services that have been deprived of representation. Further than that, we recognize that this is especially true in the field of small claims, primarily consumer complaints. Our immediate reaction has been that