Washington Lawyer - June 2020 - 29

FEATURE

GOES BACK TO SCHOOL
By Debra Bruno

veryone has a story about James Sandman.
What's unusual, though, is that the former head
of the Legal Services Corporation (LSC), the
largest funder of civil legal aid programs in the
United States, is not the sort of person to seek out
the spotlight. In this world of braggadocio, we have
become almost immune to the self-promoting leaders
who seek to shine favorable light on themselves.
But face to face, Sandman, 68, is as low-key and unassuming as a tax
accountant.
That is, until he starts talking about the issue most dear to him: the
enormous gaps in legal representation in civil matters. Thanks to shows
like Law & Order, most people assume every American has the right to
a lawyer. That's only true in criminal cases.
When he's speaking before an audience, Sandman's voice takes on a
quaver. He speaks without notes and his blue eyes seek out individual
faces. He quotes Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. He talks
about justice. "Legal aid is about health and food and subsistence," he
told an audience at the American Bar Association's annual conference
last year.
Giving poor people the same kind of legal representation that more comfortable Americans have, he says, "will cost money, lots of it." Sandman
pauses dramatically. "But don't let anyone, ever, tell you that we can't
afford it."
The federally funded budget for the LSC is less than the amount that
Americans spend every year on Halloween costumes for their pets, he
says. As the audience chuckles uncomfortably, Sandman frowns.

Photos: Patrice Gilbert Photography

And with that, one can begin to understand just how anyone who has
had any amount of sustained contact with Sandman might have a story or
two to tell.
Philip Horton, a recently retired partner at Arnold & Porter where Sandman
worked for 30 years, 10 of them as managing partner, tells this one. When
Horton heard Sandman was leaving the corporate firm to take a job as
general counsel for the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS), he
picked up the phone and told Sandman, "Have you lost your mind? This
is the toughest legal job in America." Sandman took the job.
Finnegan partner Esther H. Lim remembers turning to Sandman, a former
president of the D.C. Bar, for advice on whether she should consider
running for Bar president. "He laughed out loud," she recalls. "He said,
'The answer is yes,' and then he went on to explain why I should run."
Lim asked Sandman to introduce her as a prospective candidate. First,
though, Sandman insisted on sitting down with her to get to know her a
little more. "I was crying on his sofa," Lim says. "I started telling him about
the importance of mentors in my life, random strangers who took a
chance on me and gave me opportunities."
LSC Chair John Levi recalls that after Sandman flew out to Chicago
to interview for the job of LSC president, he was so convinced that
Sandman would be the perfect pick that he used a flight tracking service
so he could call Sandman the minute his plane landed and make the
offer. "I just wanted to make sure he knew how much we wanted him,"
Levi says.
Merrick Garland, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C.
Circuit, has known Sandman for 40 years, starting from when they both
practiced law at Arnold & Porter. In a speech honoring Sandman on his
retirement as chair of the D.C. Circuit Judicial Conference Committee on
Pro Bono Legal Services, Garland reminded the audience that Sandman's
work as a member of the committee "to ensure the provision of legal
services for the poor comes on top of his full-time job, which is - wait
for it - to ensure the provision of legal services for the poor."

JUNE 2020

WASHINGTON LAWYER 29

Washington Lawyer - June 2020

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