Social Work and Legal Services Integrating Disciplines: Lessons

Social Work and Legal Services

Integrating Disciplines: Lessons from the Field

Thea Zajac, MSW

Introduction

As resources for underserved populations become scarcer and the populations’ needs

become greater, it is important that providers continually re-evaluate how they serve their

neediest clients. Legal services clients often have more than just legal issues. Clients seeking

legal services often have complex problems with health, housing, and social environments,

along with a multitude of other challenges.

Several organizations have found innovative solutions to provide more comprehensive and

holistic services to their clients by coordinating with other disciplines. One such partnership

that has become more common—and even necessary—is the collaboration of social workers

with legal services providers.

While many legal services providers recognize the assets that social workers bring to a legal

case, challenges can emerge when integrating two professions with fundamentally different

professional ethics.

In this paper, the lawyer/social worker relationship will be examined in terms of the

strengths it offers, the challenges it presents, and the lessons learned from the field by those

who have adopted this collaborative approach to serving clients.

Thea Zajac, a 2011 graduate of the University of California, Berkeley School of Social Welfare, worked with the

Legal Aid Association of California (LAAC) on this project during summer 2011. Salena Copeland, Sydney Howe,

and Denise Watt of LAAC provided support.

LAAC is the statewide membership organization of legal services nonprofits that serves and strengthens its

members through advocacy, training, and support in their efforts to provide critical legal assistance to low-

income Californians and ensure equal access to justice.

Literature Review

The academic and professional literature available on this topic is mostly recent and

somewhat sparse. The main issues addressed are:

 General overviews and summaries of the role a social worker can take in a legal

services setting

 The identification and explanation of the conflicting professional ethical

commitments of each profession and how they interact

 Models for integrating social work and legal services while still adhering to ethical

principles

Role of a Social Worker

The literature outlines the roles that social workers can fill to support an attorney. They can

assist with “interviewing clients, assessing the client’s psychosocial needs, *and+ making

referrals” (Pierce et al., 2001). Social worker roles offer support for clients who have more

complex issues embedded within their legal issues. Social workers can offer the additional

time and a different perspective on issues that are external to the legal case, but that still

affect the client’s ability to participate in the necessary legal processes.

Professional & Ethical Conflicts

The most researched issue regarding a lawyer/social worker collaboration is the ethical

conflict implicit in the adoption of two professional codes of ethics. “Social workers are

obligated to maintain confidentiality according to state licensing laws and the National

Association of Social Workers (NASW) Code of Ethics which permit disclosures for mandated

reporting obligations” (NASW, 2008). Conversely, attorneys are bound to confidentiality

with stricter limitations. In the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional

Conduct, Rule 1.6: Confidentiality of Information states that, “a lawyer may reveal

information relating to the representation of a client to the extent the lawyer reasonably

believes necessary … to prevent reasonably certain death or substantial bodily harm” (ABA,

2010). While these ethical guidelines can conflict, there are practice models which enable a

legal services provider to collaborate with social workers while still maintaining attorney-

client privilege. The most common model utilizes the American Bar Association's Model

Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 5.3, which states that lawyers who employ or retain non-

lawyer assistants are required to “make reasonable efforts to ensure that the person's

conduct is compatible with the professional obligations of the lawyer” (ABA, 2010). Under

such stipulations, the social worker acts as a member of the legal team, or a “non-lawyer

assistant,” and thus falls under the attorney-client privilege. When social workers are hired

under this model, it is important that their role and confidentiality requirements are

explicitly outlined to ensure that they are comfortable with this arrangement.

In another model, social workers operate as a separate entity from the legal team and are

utilized to assist clients on a referral basis from the attorneys. In this model, social workers

don’t communicate directly with the legal team. Therefore, social workers maintain their

ability to be mandated reporters because they are not privy to confidential client

information from the attorneys.

Below are the three basic practice models that are outlined by National Association of Social

Workers (NASW), as well as several other legal services organizations who have defined their

lawyer/social worker relationship.

Practice Models

In an online report, NASW includes six practice models for incorporating social workers into

a legal services environment (NASW, 2008).

In an article published in the Clearinghouse

REVIEW Journal of Poverty Law and Policy (2011), three practice models are outlined.

Below

is summarized version of the three basic categories of practice models encompassed in the

literature (Block & Soprych, 2011).

1. Consultant Model: In this model, the social worker does not meet directly with the client

but serves only as a consultant to the legal team to provide support and expertise.

2. Multidisciplinary Model: In this model, social workers and attorneys work independently

of each other and interact only to refer clients from one service to the other. This model

maintains the professional ethical standards of both professions and ensures clients

receive necessary services without disclosing confidential information.

3. Interdisciplinary or Employee Model: This model includes social workers as non-lawyer

employees of the legal team and thereby requires them to adhere to attorney-client

privilege. While this model seems the most controversial, ways to address the potential

for handling admissions of abuse or neglect have been developed.

a. Confidentiality Wall: This refers to a legal case that is reviewed by an

attorney to see if abuse or neglect is present before including a social worker,

thus avoiding collaboration on any cases where a social worker would have a

reporting conflict.

These six models include the consultant model, the direct services provider model, the employee model, the

consent model, the confidentiality wall model, and the notice model.

These three practice models include interdisciplinary collaboration, multidisciplinary approach, and agency

collaboration.

b. Notice and Informed Consent: This refers to a policy that informs clients of

the dual roles of the lawyers and social workers and encourages clients to

disclose and/or report abuse or neglect to the social worker.

Research Methodology

To better understand how legal services organizations incorporate and utilize the skills of a

social worker, we conducted key informant interviews with representatives from agencies

throughout California. Below is a chart outlining the five organizations that were

represented from the key informant interviews. From the existing literature, we formulated

a set of questions covering several areas, including:

 Agency history and rationale for incorporating social workers into the staff

 The substantive areas for which agencies utilize social workers

 The unique strengths, skills, and perspectives that social workers bring to a legal

services setting

 The way an organization deals with professional ethical conflicts between the social

work and legal professions

 The lessons learned and advice that legal services organizations with social workers

have for other organizations in the legal services community

Organization

Department

Length of

Involvement with

Social Worker

Model

Legal Aid

Foundation of Los

Angeles

Homeless

Prevention, Torture

Survivors, Domestic

Violence/Family Law

Long history at

organization

Multidisciplinary

(homelessness prevention),

Interdisciplinary (torture

victims/family law)

Public Counsel

At-Risk Youth,

Families, Veterans,

Multi-service centers

More than 20 years

Interdisciplinary

Bet Tzedek

Caregiver/elder

rights

2 years

Interdisciplinary w/ informed

consent (i.e. social workers

are mandated reporters,

clients are informed of this

role and that any reportable

information will be reported)

Alliance for

Children's Rights

10 years

Interdisciplinary

The Law Foundation

of Silicon Valley

Legal Advocates for

Children & Youth

(LACY)

15 years

Interdisciplinary

Findings

Several themes arose through the key informant interviews. These themes are outlined

below and reflect both the benefits and challenges of employing social workers in a legal

services setting. Key informants offered their advice and “lessons learned” from their

experiences of combining these two professions. Their responses are paraphrased

throughout this section.

Integrating a Social Worker

Many of the organizations have used social workers for many years. Organizations that have

employed social workers more recently explained that they saw a need for them in a

particular area of their legal services. Social workers are most often funded by a grant, or

written into an existing grant, to better serve a specific group. Most commonly, social

workers were employed in legal areas that included families involved with the child welfare

system and clients with housing and homelessness issues.

Skills and Strengths

Legal services organizations that utilize social workers understand that social workers bring a

unique set of skills and perspectives. In every key informant interview, respondents

commented that social workers have a more holistic perspective than attorneys, who tend

to focus on solving only the legal problem. Toby Rothschild of LAFLA said that “social

workers maintain a big picture systems perspective whereas attorneys focus on solving the

legal issue” (Personal Interview, June 9, 2011).

This singular skill was seen as the greatest asset of employing a social worker as part of a

legal team. This unique perspective is the foundation for many social work education

programs. Social work education is based on establishing a systems perspective that looks at

all aspects of a client to address the issues at hand.

Social workers are also adept at working with difficult clients who bring a multitude of

complex issues to a legal case. In this way, social workers can help create a more efficient

legal team by supporting clients with resource referrals, psychosocial support, and other

non-legal needs integral to meeting their legal needs. Jennifer Kelleher, from the Legal

Advocates for Children & Youth (LACY) program at the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, said

that social workers’ expertise in crisis management, conflict resolution, and working with

complicated family dynamics are crucial contributions to the legal services team. In this

organization, social workers also serve as a resource for attorneys who experience vicarious

trauma as a result of their work with intense cases (Personal Interview, June 21, 2011).

While using social workers requires more funding and often additional time spent with

certain clients, social worker involvement can prevent clients from returning with the same

legal issues repeatedly. Barbara Facher, a social worker from the Alliance for Children’s

Rights, said that social workers “fit right in” and create a partnership that offers a different

set of advocacy skills. It is “advantageous for legal services to have” social workers (Personal

Interview, June 22, 2011). Toby Rothschild stated that social workers offer a “different

perspective” that supports clients and helps to prevent recidivism (Personal Interview, June

9, 2011).

Ethical Conflicts

One of the prominent concerns about incorporating social workers into a legal services team

is the fundamental conflict between the professional ethics of each discipline. Most of the

literature surrounding the incorporation of social workers into legal services focuses on this

subject. The key informants from organizations utilizing social workers have handled these

ethical conflicts in similar ways.

First, the importance of establishing a model or protocol for navigating the professional

relationship between a social worker and an attorney is crucial. Organizations must have a

clear understanding of the model that they are employing, as well as a direct and clear

communication of that model to their staff. Several key informants spoke to the importance

of establishing clear protocol prior to engaging social workers in a legal services setting.

Most often, social workers are adopted as part of the legal team and, therefore, forego their

obligations as mandated reporters. This can put social workers in a difficult position, as some

have concerns with foregoing the responsibility of being a mandated reporter. It is important

in the hiring process that the social worker role is explicitly outlined so that social workers

working under this model understand their responsibilities regarding attorney-client

privilege. Several organizations stated that this model creates an ongoing dialogue between

social workers and attorneys and helps to bring to light any mandated reporting issues and

address them within the legal team.

Other organizations have adopted alternate models. At Bet Tzedek, clients are informed up

front that social workers are required to report abuse or neglect (M. Court, Personal

Interview, June 20, 2011). At the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA), where

multiple social workers work on various projects, two programs (i.e. Torture Survivors and

Domestic Violence/Family Law) use an interdisciplinary approach as described above, while

the Homelessness Prevention program utilizes a multidisciplinary model where social

workers operate in a separate department without contact with the legal services team (T.

Rothschild, Personal Interview, June 9, 2011).

Overall, the best approach to mediating any conflicts that arise due to professional ethics

codes is to have a clear plan and blueprint for handling these issues. Organizations that have

established clear mandated reporting policies indicated that they experience less conflict

regarding ethical issues. Since expectations for their staff were set from the beginning of

employment, social workers and other legal services staff understand when it is appropriate

to report abuse or neglect. Toby Rothschild of LAFLA stresses the importance of “*thinking+

through and understanding the relationship before you start” (Personal Interview, June 9,

2011).

Ongoing Challenges

Every key informant emphasized the importance of having a strong working relationship

with clear and open lines of communication between social worker and attorney. This, above

all other strengths, was the best way to both prevent conflicts and address them when they

arose. Jennifer Kelleher of LACY expressed the importance of establishing distinct role

definitions as well as treating both professionals as equals to create an “even playing field.”

She also stressed the importance of social workers having a supervisor who is also a social

worker instead of asking an attorney to fill that role (Personal Interview, June 21, 2011).

While this may not be a possibility in smaller organizations that employ only one or two

social workers, it is important to treat social workers as an equal member of the legal team

as opposed to a subordinate member.

Conclusion

The collaboration between social workers and legal services has become increasingly

important as both legal and social services are challenged by increasing client needs and

decreasing resources. This collaboration allows for more efficient and holistic services for the

neediest clients and ensures that the root causes of legal issues are resolved to prevent

further need for legal action.

While integrating social workers and attorneys in one office can pose great challenges,

organizations that have adopted a collaborative approach have seen the benefits for their

clients, who are ultimately better served. By creating clear expectations and protocols and

establishing a strong relationship with clear communication, social workers and attorneys

can work together to serve their clients in the best possible way.

Paul Freese, of Public Counsel, offered that social workers are “sensitized to identify at risk-

issues” and “address them upstream,” providing an integrated delivery model that provides

education and empowerment to liberate clients from poverty (Personal Interview, June 14,

2011).

Works Cited

American Bar Association. (2010). Model rules of professional conduct (MRPC, Rule 1.6 &

Rule 5.3). [Online]. Retrieved from:

http://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_

rules_of_professional_conduct/model_rules_of_professional_conduct_table_of_conte

nts.html

Bassuk, K. & Lessem, J. (2001). Collaboration of Social Workers and Attorneys in Geriatric

Community Based Organizations. Journal of Gerontological Social Work, 34(3), 93-108.

Block, M. T. & Soprych, A. (2011). Beyond Advocacy Alone: Incorporating Social Work into

Legal Aid Practice. Clearinghouse REVIEW Journal of Poverty Law and Policy, 44(9,-10),

465-470.

National Association of Social Workers. (January 2008). Legal and Ethical Issues in Social

Worker- Lawyer Collaborations. Legal Issue of the Month. Retrieved from

http://www.socialworkers.org/ldf/legal_issue/default.asp.

National Association of Social Workers. (1999). NASW code of ethics. Washington, DC:

Author. Retrieved from http://www.socialworkers.org/pubs/ code/default.asp

Pierce, C. T., Gleasonwynn, P. & Miller, M. G. (2001). Social Work and Law. Journal of

Gerontological Social Work, 34(3), 61-71

Other Resources

Programs

Orange County Collaborative Courts

http://www.occourts.org/directory/collaborative-courts/index.html

California Courts – Collaborative Justice Courts

http://www.courts.ca.gov/programs-collabjustice.htm

Greater Boston Legal Services

http://www.gbls.org/

Webinar

Garcia, Y. & Sanz-David, D. (2010, December 3). Legal Services/Social Worker Collaboration

in Elder Abuse Cases. Legal Aid Association of California. Retrieved from:

http://vimeo.com/17532945

Key Informants

Court, Michelle Williams. Vice President and General Counsel, Bet Tzedek

www.bettzedek.org

Facher, Barbara. Social Worker, Alliance for Children’s Rights

www.kids-alliance.org

Freese, Paul. Vice President, Public Counsel

www.publiccounsel.org

Kelleher, Jennifer. Directing Attorney, Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, Legal Advocates for

Children & Youth, www.lawfoundation.org/lacy.asp

Rothschild, Toby. General Counsel, Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles