From: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Our April 2008 Member of the  Month, Paul Uyehara (pronounced OO-AY-HA-RA) is a senior attorney at Community  Legal Services of Philadelphia, one of two basic legal services programs  covering low income residents of Philadelphia.   The agency has about 50 lawyers on staff as well as over 65 paralegals  and support staff, about 10 of whom focus on bankruptcy and foreclosure  cases.  CLS  lawyers, including Henry Sommer, helped to create consumer bankruptcy as an  area of legal services practice “in the old days.”

Since 2000, Paul has worked  primarily in the Language Access Project, which is responsible for ensuring  outreach and proper service to clients who don’t speak English well and for  language rights advocacy for those clients. Because he started out doing  consumer work at CLS (in 1992), he  developed an interest in the area of language access in the bankruptcy  system. 

In 2003, Paul filed a  complaint with the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department against the  US Trustee for refusing to provide his Cambodian clients with an interpreter  for their 341 meeting.  The complaint  resulted in the issuance of a new policy by EOUST which included a pilot  project in Philadelphia  and six other districts to provide interpreters.  The EOUST has failed to keep its promise to  offer this service nationwide by 2007, but continues to work on it and  hopefully will be providing interpreter support nationally this year.

By 2006, when it became  evident that EOUST had failed during the set-up of the credit counseling and  debtor education system to accommodate the needs of limited English proficient  debtors, Paul organized a sign-on letter to complain to EOUST and the Civil  Rights Division which was endorsed by 37 consumer, ethnic and immigrant  organizations, including NACBA.  Later  that year, Paul assisted Carolina Lombardi from Legal Services of Greater Miami  as well as pro bono counsel who were representing Jean Raoul Petit-Louis, a  Creole speaking debtor who was unable to locate a single credit counseling  agency that could provide him instruction in his language before he filed  bankruptcy.  His case resulted in the  decisions by Judge Cristol finding that he properly filed his petition without  counseling since none could be found.   This advocacy has led to gradual improvement in the language capacity of  the counseling system, with more improvement likely to follow when EOUST  implements a new regulation regarding the approval process for the counseling  agencies.

Paul  graduated from Oberlin   College with an AB and  went to work in legal services as a paralegal in the late ‘70’s.  He earned a law degree at night from Temple Law   School while working as a  paralegal, graduating in 1988 with honors.   After a year clerking in federal court and a three year stint in working  with the City Solicitor in Philadelphia,  Paul returned to CLS in 1992, at  which point he Paul started learning bankruptcy (and worked with Henry Sommer  and other consumer bankruptcy lawyers).  

Among  other lawsuits, Paul worked with Henry on a class action against the  Philadelphia Municipal Court on behalf of disabled litigants, which resulted in  a good settlement instituting access for the disabled under the ADA. 

In  1996, the CLS program split in  half because of federal funding restrictions and Paul moved to Philadelphia  Legal Assistance, where he also served as a part-time supervising attorney for  the Consumer Bankruptcy Assistance Project, a pro bono program. Paul continues  to serve on the CBAP board.

Reminiscing  about a memorable moment, Paul offered this perspective:

“Because  of the good work by NACBA, Clifford White, the director of EOUST, came up to  Philadelphia last summer to meet with Henry, who was nice enough to invite me  so I could complain in person about their chronic failure to provide access for  language minority debtors.  Cliff came  with an entourage and Henry came with me and my summer law clerk.  As is my practice at meetings, I pulled out my  Palm Pilot, opened up a wireless keyboard and started typing notes of the  meeting.  Soon enough, Cliff became  flustered and asked me if I was creating a transcript of the meeting with my  equipment. I assured him that I wasn’t good  enough at typing to generate a transcript.

I  had another opportunity to see Cliff White again and to meet Judge Cristol when  I testified on behalf of NACBA before the  House Judiciary Subcommittee in October about the UST  Program.  I related many complaints  gathered from NACBA members about the UST’s  blind eye treatment of creditor fraud and abuse in contrast to the nitpicking,  harshness and harassment heaped upon debtors by trustees, and the stonewalling  and silence NACBA had received in response to complaints. I also criticized the  program’s ongoing violation of federal language access requirements, the  stalling on remediation, and the poor handling of the Petit-Louis case.  Cliff was very cordial at the hearing but  later called me up to share his real response to my testimony!”

Paul  first joined NACBA ten or fifteen years ago – too long ago for him to recall!  Paul has been invited to attend this year’s 16th  Annual Convention in Hollywood  to speak about dealing with language issues in bankruptcy.  He has been active on NACBA’s listservs for a  number of years, and he credits that activity with forcing him to open a g-mail  account.

Paul  and his wife have two children, the “baby” being a college sophomore.  “If you met us, I’m the last one you’d guess  is the lawyer.”