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Agency Gets New Chief ‘Problem-Solver’

Statewide Legal Services director wants advice offered online

By CHRISTIAN NOLAN

When Janice Chiaretto decided to go to law school, she knew she wanted to help people who could not afford a lawyer on their own. So it became especially tough for Chiaretto to turn people away during her four years in private practice.

“I started to take cases where people couldn’t pay me,” Chiaretto recalled. “That’s just not a very good formula in private practice…but I knew I could help them.”

So Chiaretto decided to leave her practice in Worcester, Mass., and help less fortunate clients full time. In April 2007, she was hired as the deputy director of Statewide Legal Services of Connecticut in Middletown.

After just 20 months, she has advanced to become the executive director, assuming the top spot on Jan. 1. The outgoing director, Norman K. Janes, will serve as interim executive director of the Connecticut Bar Association, which is seeking a new leader after the retirement of Tim Hazen.

“Her vision of providing legal services is very exciting to us,” said Daniel Blinn, president of Statewide Legal Services’ Board of Directors. “Jan is an effective advocate for the importance of alternative legal services, such as hotlines, in an era of reduced funding and increased need.

“Jan, in a very short time, reviewed office procedures in handling calls from clients, streamlined them and helped staff provide better reports and make better references to legal aid agencies,” said Blinn, who is the managing attorney for the Consumer Law Group in Rocky Hill.

Advice By Phone

SLS differs from other legal aid providers in that the Middletown agency does not meet clients in person or directly represent them if their problem warrants litigation. SLS, formed in 1996 and funded primarily through the federal government, consults with clients only on the telephone.

Chiaretto explained that callers talk to one of SLS’s eight intake workers, who get a sense of the problem and then determine the caller’s eligibility for the free service.

Then, one of SLS nine paralegals or five staff attorneys call the person and offer an array of legal advice. If necessary, the lawyer or paralegal refers the person to one of the three “sister” legal services groups in the state – Connecticut Legal Services, Greater Hartford Legal Aid or New Haven Legal Assistance.

“We’re not just giving out phone numbers,” said Chiaretto. “We’re jumping in with legal critique and strategic advice.” She said if a case is not worthy of a referral, callers can continue contacting an SLS lawyer throughout the legal process.

Chiaretto said many of the callers have housing problems or family issues, and perhaps want to know more about child custody issues or their rights when it comes to dealing with their landlord.

“We’re offering brief advice but not directly assisting them. People might not even understand what the legal problem is,” said Chiaretto, who commutes to Middletown from Sturbridge, Mass. “We can frame the issue, apply the law to the facts. We consider ourselves problem solvers.”

One of Chiaretto’s goals is to enable potential clients to get legal advice online as well as over the phone. That, she said, would allow the agency to help even more than the approximately 14,000 people who call the agency annually.

After graduating from Northeastern University School of Law in 1988, Chiaretto volunteered at a community law center in San Antonio, Texas, dealing with women’s issues and the juvenile courts.

She then continued her legal aid work in Worcester, at the Massachusetts Justice Project. After that, she tried private practice for four years at a small Worcester firm. But, she acknowledged: “It wasn’t really my cup of tea.”

Chiaretto sought an opportunity that would allow her to get back into legal services and also use her management skills. That chance came at SLS last year.

Now she’s proud to be part o f a legal services network that, from her experience, ranks among the nation’s best. “Connecticut has one of the best legal services network systems in the country. They all collaborate to try to function as one voice,” Chiaretto said.

Meanwhile, she’s happy to be back helping an indigent client base, just as she envisioned when she was attending law school. “As a lawyer, it’s an obligation to be part of the solution of their problems,” Chiaretto said. “It’s a rewarding thing.”•