Filling the gap: Salt Lake City's Open Legal Services caters to those who aren't indigent but still can't afford the high-priced spread

Despite the old adage that says justice is blind, the American justice system still sees money. If you find yourself in legal trouble and don’t qualify for free legal services — for example, from a public defender or legal aid society — but also don’t have enough money to pay a large law firm several hundred dollars an hour to represent you, your options for access to justice are limited to non-existent. Or they were until several years ago when Open Legal Services opened its doors in downtown Salt Lake City.

Founded by Shantelle Argyle and Daniel Spencer in 2013, just after they graduated from the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law, Open Legal Services is a nonprofit offering legal assistance and representation on a sliding fee scale based on clients’ incomes and family size. Hourly rates at Open Legal Services range from $75 at the bottom to $145 at the top.

“We’re basically trying to fill the gaps,” Argyle said.

And there are plenty of gaps to be filled. Open Legal Services launched with four full-time-equivalent attorneys and two part-time staff members in an office in the basement of a Himalayan restaurant. The firm now has six full-time attorneys, two staff members, brand-new offices in downtown Salt Lake and a satellite office in Ogden. There was no one doing what they were doing in 2013; now there are four other similar models operating in Utah and about four dozen nationally, Argyle said.

“The future of what we do and access to justice will probably be a hybrid,” Argyle said. By charging clients instead of operating on federal and other grants, Open Legal Services avoids the risk of folding if grant money dries up. “We didn’t ever want to hire somebody and get them a bunch of clients who depended on them and then lose a grant and they’re gone.”

Funding their company through donations and client fees — which cover 92 percent of Open Legal Services’ operating costs — rather than government grants also gives the organization more flexibility in the cases they can take and clients they can represent.

For example, the firm recently represented a refugee woman from Sudan who was falsely accused of domestic violence. The reality was that the woman was a victim of domestic violence and rape at the hands of her husband. When police responded to a call about an incident at her home, the woman didn’t speak enough English to explain what had happened. But her husband, who did speak English, told the officers that she had assaulted him, showing off scratches she had given him in self-defense as evidence. Unable to communicate well enough to refute the husband’s story, the woman went to jail. Her husband filed for and was granted a protective order — meaning the woman also lost custody of her four-month-old baby.

Respondents to protective orders do not qualify for free legal aid. But because they do not accept federal grant money, Open Legal Services has no such restriction. The refugee liaison at the Salt Lake City mayor’s office scraped together some money and Open Legal Services took the case. Working with a public defender and the guardian ad litem assigned by the court to represent the interest of the minor child, Open Legal Services prevailed in having both the protective order and criminal charges dismissed. A private attorney would have charged around $3,000 for the work they did, Argyle said. Open Legal Services charged $150.

Had the woman not been able to secure legal representation, she most likely would have been convicted, Argyle said.

Stories like that one show exactly why a model like the one Open Legal Services uses is necessary, said Charles Stormont, a Salt Lake City-based attorney who serves as chair of the organization’s board of directors.

“For better or worse, justice is rarely free,” he said. “Once you get above a certain income level — which is not very high — all of a sudden your choices become do it yourself or go to a law firm where they charge hundreds of dollars an hour.”

Self-representation is rarely good for anyone — the individual or the system, Stormont said — but many people find themselves with no other alternative.

Stormont confessed that when he first met Argyle on a pro bono committee through the Utah State Bar, he was intrigued by, but a little skeptical of, what she was doing. The more he learned about Open Legal Services, however, the more impressed he became with what they were trying to do — and what they were already accomplishing.

“They’re not just surviving; they’re growing,” Stormont said. “That’s as much the success of the model as the drive to help people. Part of our mission is to reach out and help as many people as we can. We made a conscious decision not to hoard the model but to open our doors and say, ‘This is what we are doing. If you want to learn how to do it and help more people, let us show you how.’”

In addition to legal representation, the Open Legal Services model also includes “wrap-around” services whenever possible, Argyle said. Attorneys at Open Legal Services help clients find therapy, domestic violence counseling and family counseling when necessary and feasible.

“We recognize, particularly in this demographic, if they have a legal problem they probably have life problems as well,” Argyle said. “Solving their legal problem won’t do any good if we don’t solve the problems that contributed to it.”

That mission to not only provide legal services but to try to improve lives is what is most attractive about the Open Legal Services model, Stormont said. And it is something that the newest generation of lawyers values, as well.

“We’re seeing that they want to make a good living but they also want to make an impact and they’re willing to sacrifice income,” Stormont said.

Argyle said she is frequently asked to present to legal groups about what Open Legal Services is doing, and how they do it. Especially as federal money that supports legal aid organizations that provide free legal services shrinks, more and more people are interested in the type of self-sustaining model Open Legal Services uses. And Open Legal Services is more than happy to oblige.

“Our perspective is that we want there to be so much competition to provide affordable legal services that there are so many other people doing this that we close our doors,” Argyle said. “If there were so many people providing affordable access to legal representation that we went out of business, mission accomplished.”