University Daily Kansan, March 4, 1985
CAMPUS AND AREA
Page 9
Legal aid clinic lets students practic
By ANN PETERSON Staff Reporter
A law student shuffled through a stack of papers Friday in Douglas County District Court. His client was told he would call the judge would call them in soon.
"I'm never quite sure what will come up during the hearing," said George Gomez. Topeka third-year teacher Randy a way each case I try is different.
Gomez is one of 25 KU third-year law students certified by the Kansas Supreme Court to try cases for the court through the campus legal aid clinic.
The students are enrolled in Law 988, Legal Aid Clinic. Students receive three hours of credit for the class and can take it for two semesters.
In October, Gomez's client came to the clinic in 105 Green Hall for an
interview that cost $1. Clients also can go to the other legal aid office at Haskell Indian Junior College, Gomez said. The offices are open Monday and Tuesday during regular business hours.
AFTER GOMEZ'S client had proved in the interview that she met the financial qualifications, there was no other fee except court costs, said Dennis Prater, law professor in charge of the clinic.
"I can't say what our financial qualifications are, but I can say they are low." Prater said.
About 1,500 people come to the clinic each year, seeking help with divorces, adoptions, charges of drunken driving, petty larceny and other misdemeanors, said Karen obliterated. Overland Park third-year law student.
Of those 1,500, about 900 quality and are represented in court by students each year, Prater said. Most are Lawrence residents, he
said, but occasionally a student will come in.
STUDENTS USUALLY do not qualify financially, Schlueter said, and many student cases involve problems with landlords. Landlord-tenant cases are directed to Legal Services for Students, on level one of the Burge Union.
Gomez said that after he interviewed his client, his next step was to research the client's background and set a date for the hearing.
Prater said, "The interns get three hours of credit each semester but they work more than anyone could ask for."
Gomez said he had spent months preparing for a divorce case that only took about 10 minutes in court to decide.
"I was pretty wound up about the case after all the work I put into it, but to the judge, it was probably pretty normal." Gomez said.
GOMEZ WAS ASSISTED in court
by Phillip DeLaTorre, associate professor of law. All interns work under lawyers at the law school or Lawrence lawyers-who volunteer their time. Prater said.
The interns gain practical experience in dealing with real clients in real courtrooms. Prater said. Most interns have heard of hearing and rarely go to trial, he said.
Schlueter said, "Sometimes a case will go on for a couple of weeks and it goes berserk. Attitudes change and nobody agrees on anything."
Clients are often hard to contact because many of them don't have phones. Schlueter said. She said it was frustrating when she became involved in a client's problem and then the client never came back in.
Nancy Mitchell, Overland Park third-year law student, said many of the clients needed social workers in addition to lawyers.
Legislature begins push on key bills
By United Press International
TOPEKA — The House and Senate — embarking on a $1^{1/2}$-week drive to clear their calendars of most of their own bills to make room for each other's — are to work extended hours and deal with numerous issues this week.
Key issues will be reappraisal and classification, liquor questions, medical malpractice and decisions on appropriations.
As a way to keep the legislative process moving, a March 13 deadline will end Senate action on most Senate and House action on most House bills.
The 125-member House will be most pressed by the deadline. Because it has more members than the 40-person Senate, the House receives more bills and to pass more bills out of its larger committees.
The House is to have floor debate every day this week to clear away
what Speaker Mike Hayden, R-Atwood, called a "mountain of some 60 bills."
HOWEVER, IT WILL be the Senate that deals with the major legislation of the week, a bill to impose statewide reappraisal, and a proposed constitutional amendment for classification of property to reduce the impact of shifting tax burdens reappraisal would bring. They are expected to be debated in mid-week.
The Senate Assessment and Taxation Committee Friday adopted its "00-12-1" classification proposal, shelving the "30-20-10" plan created by Thomas Tax Review Commission headed by I.L. Gov. Thomas Docking.
The committee plan would allow assessment of residences at 12 percent of fair market value, while other property would be assessed at 30 percent of fair market value — or 30 percent of use value in the case of farm land. In addition, it would put in the Kansas Constitution a personal
property tax exemption for business inventories and for business and farm equipment.
The reappraisal bill would initiate $3^{1/2}$ years of data collection aimed at determining the proper value of all property in the state.
CURRENT LAW SAYS all property must be assessed at a "uniform and equal" rate of 30 percent of fair market value. But because Kansas has not had a mid-1960s, shifting values have moved assessments out of line.
For several years, Gov. John Carlin has threatened to veto any appraisal bill unaccompanied by a classification plan designed to prevent drastic shifts in the tax burden. He has been told he good to see both moving in tandem.
Tax committee Chairman Fred Kerr, R-Praff, said he was cautiously optimistic both reappraisal and classification would pass the
ON THE HOUSE side, the Federal and State Affairs Committee will
The committee begins the week with a briefing from Oklahoma State. Mike Combs, R-Bethany, chairman of the Oklahoma Senate's Economic Council on that state's experience of going from a "dry" to a "wet" state.
receive the most limelight during study of a Senate-passed resolution for a constitutional amendment to the county on the basis of a county-option basis.
Meanwhile, Hayden said there was concern in the house over Senate plans for a proposal to increase the minimum drinking age from 18 to 21. The senate's government plans to deny some funds to states that fail to adopt a 21 minimum.
"I am still concerned that the drinking age hasn't shown any movement in the Senate," he said.
The House passed a bill raising the drinking age, but amended it to also circumvent restrictions of the state's private club law by allowing a drivers license as substitute for a club membership card.
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Reunion of feminists to start special study
By SHARON ROSSE Staff Reporter
A group of about 20 women who called themselves the February Sisters quietly locked themselves into the East Asian Studies building on Feb. 4, 1972, and demanded an affirmative action program, a women's health center and child day care on campus.
Pat Henry. Lawrence graduate student, was one of those women.
"We felt we needed to do something radical." Henry said yesterday. "We were frustrated with working through normal issues and getting nowhere. And raditionalism was the flavor of the times."
Few students can remember the women, the night or the time when the demands they made were not met and that part of the University of Kansas.
But the February Sisters and other Lawrence women who made history will be remembered Saturday night at a reunion of Lawrence feminists who have been active between 1968 and 1985.
KIM STRYKER, an organizer of the reunion and Blue Rapids graduate student, said the reunion will be held in reference Women's Herstory Project.
The project, coordinated by Stryker, Debbie Ausemus, Madison senior, and Judy Browder and Susan Davis, Lawrence residents; is in recognition of this week's Women's History observance.
About 200 women were invited to
the reunion and were asked to bring photographs, newspaper clippings, memorabilia and stories in the feminist movement in the feminist movement.
After the reunion on Saturday, Stryker said, the group will try to refine the information, compile it into written or recorded form and make it available to the Lawrence community.
STRYKER SAID, "The purpose of the project is to inform both men a.1 women of past issues and make them aware that discriminatory practices are more subtle now, but that just more need for awareness even greater."
The group sent invitations to women who helped found such groups as the February Sisters, Rape Victim Support Services, Women's Coalition and Women's Transitional Care Services, Stryker said. But they also relied on word of mouth to reach women not directly related to organized groups.
BROWDER SAID, "Radical to not-sradical women were invited. We don't want just the history of organized groups. We know what women did personally, how the personal became political."
The Women's Resource Center also is observing National Women's History Week with a film festival at 7 p.m. today in the Jayhawk Room of the Kansas Union. The two films, "American Parade: We the Women," and "Emily Dickinson: The Author's Life," are free and open to the public.
The University of Kansas University Lecture Series