Opinion ID: 2334397
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Under Flores, ANDVSA Is A Public Agency.

Text: In holding that there was a right to counsel in Flores, we noted that, although the custody proceedings below had been initiated by a private individual, [14] that individual was represented by counsel provided by a public agency and [f]airness alone dictates that the petitioner should be entitled to a similar advantage. [15] Later in the opinion, we reiterated that a parent in a custody case who is without the aid of counsel ... will be at a decided and frequently decisive disadvantage and [t]his disadvantage is constitutionally impermissible where the other parent has an attorney supplied by a public agency. [16] This emphasis on fairness and equal advantage indicates that the right to counsel where the opposing party is represented by a public agency arises, at least in part, from the government's otherwise one-sided support for the party with an attorney supplied by a public agency. Such support need not be provided exclusively through funding or the direct provision of government resources; but fairness considerations undoubtedly do arise where one party benefits from the government's funding of a public agency. As ANDVSA puts it, this court was concerned in Flores with the fundamental imbalance of power that occurs when one side has an attorney being paid in part by public funding and the other side is indigent and is without any counsel. The notion that government funding sources are among the characteristics required for an organization to be classified as a public agency is underscored by the remedy we provided in Flores: after finding that ALSC and the Public Defender Agency could not provide representation under the circumstances of the case, we concluded that counsel should be appointed from the private bar, with attorney compensation provided by the State pursuant to Administrative Rule 15.1. [17] In other words, the solution to the potential unfairness of public agency representation for one party was to pay for representation of the other party through public funds, thus equalizing the public financial support on both sides of the dispute. [18] In its brief, OPA provides an overview of how courts in other jurisdictions have defined public agency, both pre-1980 (i.e., during the Flores period) and post-1980. OPA explains that this history is set forth to give this Court a broad range of sources from which to review whether or not ANDVSA meets any `public agency' definition. We find this approach overbroad. The question before us is not whether ANDVSA meets any public agency definition, but whether ANDVSA is a public agency under Flores and the related statute. Definitions of public agency used in other contexts and jurisdictions are useful only to the extent that they represent the background that the Flores court may have had in mind when it chose to use the term. But, given that the Flores court did not cite to any other jurisdictions or definitions, there is no indication of an intention to draw on prior interpretations of public agency; and it is unlikely that the court considered criteria for public agencies that only appeared in cases that came after Flores. Moreover, where definitions from other jurisdictions are in direct conflict with the Flores holding that ALSC was a public agency, those definitions are clearly irrelevant to the question on appeal. It is reasonable to assume, at a minimum, that the Flores court was aware of the characteristics of ALSC specifically identified by Justice Connor in his partial dissent, where he noted that the Alaska Legal Services Corporation is a private corporation and not an agency of the state or federal government. [19] The court presumably considered these aspects of ALSC's organizational structure and status, but nonetheless determined that ALSC was a public agency. Flores thus suggests that the characteristics identified by Justice Connornamely, being a private non-profit corporation with no connection to a formal government agencydo not preclude an organization from designation as a public agency. Several of the public agency definitions cited by OPA require that an organization be a government agency or government-created agency in order to qualify as a public agency. To now adopt those definitions would, as ANDVSA argues, effectively overrule the approach we took in Flores. We decline to take that step. [20] We conclude that the use of the term public agency in Flores must be understood as referring primarily to the nature of an organization's funding sources, and not to an organization's status as a government agency.
As of 1979, ALSC received approximately 78 percent of its funding from the national Legal Services Corporation (LSC), which was created by Congress as a private nonprofit corporation to distribute federal funds to local grantee legal assistance organizations. [21] ANDVSA's Legal Advocacy Project (the legal services arm of the organization) currently receives over 99 percent of its funding from the Department of Justice's Office on Violence Against Women (OVW), a federal AmeriCorps grant, and the State. [22] OPA argues that ANDVSA's funding structure is distinguishable from that of ALSC because LSC, a federally-created agency, provided (and continues to provide) direct funding to ALSC, while ANDVSA receives its state and federal government funding through discretionary grants rather than as budget items. In addition, OPA distinguishes the organizations' funding sources, noting that although LSCwhich it describes as ALSC's somewhat `parent' corporationhas a board appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, ANDVSA has no equivalent parent organization. We do not find these distinctions to be meaningful. OPA provides no explanation for why funding received from the government through discretionary grants is less significant for purposes of designating a public agency than funding received through the normal state or federal budget process. More importantly, it is not clear that ALSC receives or ever did receive guaranteed budget funding rather than grants: though the record does not include detailed budget information about the status of ALSC in 1978-79, its 2009 accounting records label the majority of its funding from LSC as a Basic Field Grant, and designate other government funding as, for example, Family Caregiver Grants and Domestic Violence Grants; and ALSC's 1978-79 accounting statements include a broad category of grants and contracts from LSC and a number of other sources. OPA implies that these contributions are non-discretionary or otherwise different from the grants that fund ANDVSA. But as ALSC explains in its amicus brief: [S]ometimes a grant is issued to ALSC in lieu of a budgetary allocation and sometimes this is done because of budgetary and/or political concerns.... [C]ontrary to OPA's intimation, the application for funds from LSC is a competitive one and other nonprofit law firms could [compete] against ALSC ... for those funds. Similarly, OPA's description of LSC as ALSC's parent corporation is called into question by the affidavit of ALSC's executive director Andy Harrington, who stated that [a] review of the regulations reflects that LSC does not refer to the individual programs as LSC entities or LSC branch offices, nor does it refer to itself as the parent of the individual programs.... The most common term the regulations use to refer to the individual programs is `recipients'.... The LSC-ALSC relationship does not seem to extend far beyond funding; as Harrington's affidavit makes clear, LSC places restrictions on how its funding can be used, but it does not create individual legal services programs, hire or fire those programs' directors, or appoint board members. Indeed, ANDVSA draws a compelling parallel between ALSC's relationship with LSC and its own relationship with the OVW, a federal agency that supplies most of ANDVSA's funding. Like LSC, OVW requires that ANDVSA comply with federal regulations and imposes other special conditionsincluding regular progress reports that are made available to the publicfor ANDVSA to maintain its funding eligibility. We conclude that the grounds OPA proposes for distinguishing between ALSC's and ANDVSA's funding structures and sources are not persuasive. [23] Indeed, based purely on the extent of government funding, ANDVSA might be considered to have more in common with the 1978-79 ALSC than the current ALSC does. ALSC received the majority of its fundingabout 78 percentfrom LSC in 1979, compared to 47 percent in 2009; ANDVSA's Legal Advocacy Project currently receives over 99 percent of its funding from federal and state government sources. We do not intend to establish a threshold for the proportion of government funding an organization must receive to qualify as a public agency; however, given that it is funded almost entirely by government sources, ANDVSA qualifies as a public agency based on its funding. We also emphasize that this holding extends only to ANDVSA and does not reach the question whether any other organization is a public agency for purposes of AS 44.21.410(a)(4).
From its inception in 1966, ALSC has been governed by a board of fifteen directors; nine are attorneys selected by the Alaska Bar Association and six are non-attorneys nominated by other organizations specified in ALSC's bylaws. LSC has no power over the director staffing or board membership of its grantees, although the funding it provides is subject to restrictions on use. In addition to the funding distinctions discussed above, OPA argues that ANDVSA differs from ALSC because its board of directors includes appointees from the Alaska Bar Association, an instrumentality of the State of Alaska, whereas ANDVSA's board consists of all members of the ANDVSA corporation and is not subject to similar government direction or control. ANDVSA responds that the organizational differences cited by OPA are minor and unrelated to whether ANDVSA is a public agency. We agree. Although OPA emphasizes the government control and direction exercised on ALSC's board, board composition for both ALSC and ANDVSA is determined by each organization's self-imposed bylaws. [24] The somewhat attenuated government presence in the form of Bar Association appointees on ALSC's board is not mandated by the State; the fact that ANDVSA could presumably choose to adopt a similar composition by amending its bylaws suggests that this is not a defining characteristic of the organization sufficient to place it in a different category from ALSC.