 Welcome to today's edition of Life in the Law and I'm your host, Carol Mon Lee. Our guest today is Justine Herrera, a lawyer and graduate of the William S. Richardson School of Law and the new executive director of MaxCorp, Maximum Legal Services Corporation, a very important non-profit legal organization that provides trustee, conservatorship and other services for people who need help managing their finances or properties. It serves people around the entire state who are not otherwise able to obtain those services elsewhere. So, welcome, Justine. Thanks so much for having me, Carol. Good to see you again. Good to see you too. So, MaxCorp, which the full name is Maximum Legal Services Corporation. So, tell us a little bit about MaxCorp and its mission. Well, MaxCorp was started in 1988, so we've been around for quite a bit of time. And we were originally founded from the Legal Aid Society of Hawaii. So we are a non-profit corporation. And the idea behind starting MaxCorp was that at the time Legal Aid was coming under some strains for funding, similar to where we are now where the federal government is looking to cut back on some legal service fundings. MaxCorp was founded around that same period of time. And it was because the Legal Aid Board of Directors really saw the need for guardianships of the property for disabled adults and children that wasn't necessarily going to be funded by grants. So they started MaxCorp Legal Services Corporation as a way to fill that need for what we call the GAP group individuals, people that may not qualify for legal services, but may actually qualify for additional services, but not necessarily funded by grants. So MaxCorp was started and we eventually became our own independent non-profit. So you're no longer affiliated with Legal Aid. That's correct. We're no longer affiliated with Legal Aid. But we have a lot of the same Board of Directors that actually initially started MaxCorp still on our board today. So give me the background of the name Max. Is it Maximum? Maximum Services? Maximum? Maximum was actually started because one of the founding attorneys from Legal Aid on Kauai, his name is Max Graham. So it was kind of a play on words, so you know Max, so it was kind of a play on words and he was one of the founders. And they decided to have a little fun with the name. And so they came up with Maximum Legal Services Corporation. I see. So okay, so I see you were specifically then established to service only certain types of cases. Well, originally when we were founded, the idea was behind it was really servicing disabled people who may need help managing their finances. Okay, so give me an example. So an example of that, the typical case is going to be an individual who may have been involved in an accident. And through that accident, they've lost capacity to manage their finances and funding. And a lot of the times you're getting money from a settlement because of the accident and the insurance, whatever that case may be. And so a lot of the times you're setting up a special needs trust for the individual so that their money can be used for their benefit, but oftentimes if there were adults or minor children, there wasn't anyone to actually serve as trustee. And so MaxCorp came into existence to actually be that trustee to manage the finances, making sure that we were able to pay the bills. A lot of the times with a special needs trust, you can't pay for all the things that you could want. It's there so that the person, individual can still get benefits like Medicaid and Medicare, Social Security benefits, while receiving some supplemental income to kind of keep them above poverty line since they have that funding available to them. So will MaxCorp actually maintain these accounts for individuals? Will open up an account at a bank or some other financial institution, pool all of the resources for that individual and then distribute and pay bills? Correct. A lot of what we are is a fiduciary service. So we are opening accounts, reconciling bank accounts, paying bills. And then the additional level to that is we have myself an attorney on staff that we can actually, if it's court ordered, file petitions with court, accountings with court and report back to court so that they know exactly what we are doing and that we are confining to the law in that regard. So how many attorneys do you have on staff? Well right now we just have me. I'm the solo attorney as well as the executive director so I wear lots of different hats. But we also have a paralegal that helps me and as you know paralegals are always the crux to a legal practice so we have a fantastic paralegal office assistant. And then in addition to our legal team we actually also have two bookkeepers on staff that help manage the clients finances making sure that bank accounts are reconciled monthly so that we know exactly what's going in and what's coming out of each bank account so we can make financial decisions based on accurate accounting. And then in addition what makes MaxCorp really unique is that we've had this social worker aspect which allows us to add a different level of service for our clients that social worker helps the clients by setting budgets with them and also connecting them with different social services making sure that they're really getting the full benefit whether that's connecting them with social security office with the VA to get certain other benefits that may be available to them. So we're really kind of a we like to call ourselves kind of a one stop shop in terms of fiduciary services where we're not only covering the legal side but we've got the bookkeeping and accounting side as well as the social side. And by how many clients do you have at any given time? Well right now we have a client base of about 60 clients so we're still growing and there's always room to grow. Are they all from Oahu or do you also accept clients from neighbor islands? We are all over the neighbor islands so we have cases on Big Island, on Maui, majority of our cases are in Oahu and I don't know if we have any current active cases on Kauai but we do have a presence on all islands. You know I know we have a great slide on the summary of the services and the team sir can we show that one? So let's see you've mentioned the conservatorship administration and trust administration, special needs trust administration what is that? So the special needs trust and the supplemental needs trust are different types of trust that can be created and these trusts have higher restrictions on them as to how you can spend the funds. So an example of a person who might need that? So that's typically an individual and we have a lot of cases where there can either be a first party or third party trust and the first party trust is that example of someone who may be in a car accident where the funds are given to them directly and they are able to because they have the funds. So they have an accident and someone's insurance pays them a million dollars to cover part of their injury and other loss. Now if they may already be receiving some benefits maybe they want to keep their SSI they can't receive the full amount to themselves it will automatically disqualify them from certain services. So you put it in a special needs trust and that allows them to still have that fund available to them without disqualifying them from certain federal funding services that they may need. So it's theirs technically but they don't have access to it as easily without that trust so therefore will not disqualify them. And those trusts also have an automatic payback provision that says after they pass the money left over will go back to payback Medicaid. So any excess funds that they don't spend will can be used to payback the state for any medical services that went covered. And then I noticed the last service was probate administration. So that's actually one of our newer services that we just started doing in 2016 and it came about because a lot of our conservatorship cases they typically end when an individual passes away but what do we do when there's still funding left over. So for our audience what what is a conservatorship good question. So a conservatorship is when an individual loses capacity to manage their finances and they don't have a power of attorney in place. Typically you have to go to court and so this might be someone who has become incapacitated because of an accident or dementia Alzheimer's you know that I think typically what we're seeing nowadays because as a society we're living longer you know a lot of these issues facing us when we age like losing your mental ability to be able to keep up with your finances pay your bills get your taxes done on time all those things if they go undone someone can look and say hey you may need a conservatorship to have someone help you manage those finances. So a lot of the time it's family members or other individuals like care homes who may see that a person is not being you know able to manage their own finances and they may ask an attorney to come and petition the court to get a conservatorship over an individual. So this might be an adult child or a friend of the family I see yeah and you step in if there are no children or well we step in if there's no one that's willing to become the conservator and with being appointed as a conservator by the court you have some responsibilities that may be your regular person wouldn't want to handle and that would be like you have to report back to the court annually as to your expenses and you need to provide budgets to the court for future expenses. So actually any conservator would have to provide that except they may not be equipped or want to do that so you can step in and do that. I mean it's challenging enough to manage your own checkbook imagine having to manage somebody else's and be able to keep your accounting in line to present it to the court annually. So it is a challenge that most you know regular family members maybe they're busy taking care of the actual individual. Sure day to day needs. Yeah and they may not have time to go about and to actually do all the financial steps make sure all the bills are paid make sure everything's done timely and then again put it all together in a report to the court at the end of the year. So we can provide that services to families who either don't have anyone necessarily to serve and that could be maybe the elderly couple who hasn't had any kids or it's the family that maybe only has one or two kids that maybe are on the mainland or are already handling their everyday care and don't have the energy and time to really spend it on the financial side. Okay and so then when that person dies the do we call that person the patient? Well our client. The client. Our client when they pass if they have funds left over we come into the issue of what do we do. You know we've been conservator and your conservatorship ends at the term of somebody's life. So the next step is typically you have the will probated at court. Now what happens if they don't have a will or if the person they list in the will was never asked in the first place and are not willing to do so. So MaxCorp has offered those clients that we would step in and we can be the personal representative named in the will and we will actually go through the steps to make sure that the will is properly probated. Notice is provided to the public through publication and newspaper. Notice to creditors are made and then after any excess bills that need to be paid we go ahead and we distribute to the beneficiaries either listed in the will or the interstict succession. So I bet it takes a long time how long does that take? It does. The program process can take up to six months at minimum and typically can last over a year. So how do your services get supported or paid for? Well we are a fee for service nonprofit and that means that we charge fees for our service. Now we also stick by our mission and I don't know if we can pull the mission out on the screen. Look at our mission again. But our mission is to provide high quality legal services and assistance to all persons of all ages who would not be otherwise able to obtain or afford adequate legal representation. So although we are a fee for service nonprofit and we do have to accept cases with fees we do first and foremost when we're looking at whether or not we're going to take a case is does it fit within our mission? This is an individual who would not be able to receive services elsewhere and elsewhere when we talk about elsewhere we're usually talking about corporate trustees and that's typically the banks, the larger banks institutions and they have certain thresholds for amount of liquid assets that a person needs to have in order for. Minimum. Exactly. And so a lot of the times when we're looking at a case as to whether we should accept it or not is really is there anywhere else for this person to go? And so that's for me the first checklist that we need to ask ourselves and then come secondary whether or not they can pay. And if they can only provide a limited amount then we work that out. We don't want to turn anyone away because like I said our mission is first and foremost and that's really where we want to be able to serve the public. That's why MaxCorp was set up and so we try to do it in a fiscally responsible way but at the same time recognizing the need and the community for the service. Great. Okay well we're going to take a short break justine and come right back and hear more about Max, MaxMill Legal Services Corp and it's very important work in our community. We'll be right back. Hello thank you for watching Think Tech, Planet of the Courageous. I'm Dr. Dean Nelson, host of Planet of the Courageous. In Tibetan mythology it's said that you pick this planet to learn something. You picked your birth on this planet to learn something. This planet is spinning and hurling through space at 67,000 miles up per hour and it takes courage to not slip into fear and collapse into anxiety. One can find so many justifications for selfishness and prejudice but we have two ears to listen to one another and one heart that can provide a common ground but this takes courage to stay in that space. We've chosen the right planet for the opportunity to learn, courage and try to solve so many challenges. Aloha, thank you for watching. We're back. This is Carol Monly and my guest today is Justine Herrera, the sole lawyer and executive director of MaxMill Legal Services Corp. So thank you so much Justine for being here. So we're talking a bit about the types of support that you provide to your clients and although your fee for services you do have pro bono clients. So what percentage of your clients are pro bono and what percentage actually pay for services? Well we right now have a nice even mix of both pro bono and fee for service clients. So I would say we're about 50% even on both and like I said it's right in line with our mission that you know although the fees are important it's more important to serve those in need. So even though some may be pro bono some may be very reduced fee for individuals who you know an example would be we have a client who is was involved in the accident and only receives social security. So we all know that's not enough to live off of especially because he's depended on 24 hour care. Oh no. But the accident didn't result in any insurance payout? It didn't unfortunately. Off-grid or nothing? No, no it was just kind of one of those freak medical accidents that happened to individuals and I believe he's suffered several strokes throughout that and made his condition a little bit you know continued to deteriorate. So we only receive a certain limited amount of funding every month for the individual but we want to make sure that money goes towards his care. So you mean you receive it on his behalf? Correct. From social security. And does he have family that? He doesn't, unfortunately. He has no family. So you step in? We've stepped in and we make sure that his caregiver is paid for first and foremost, secondarily that he has... That's all the bookkeeping. That's the bookkeeping. And then you know he's a human being as well so we want to make sure that he has spending allowance. As much as permissible we give them some money to spend on you know the things that we all like just because he's disabled and at home doesn't mean he doesn't have access to Amazon or internet so why not give individuals some integrity, some autonomy in that. It sounds like because you mentioned you have social workers on board as well as people who help with the budget and the bookkeeping. So does your social worker actually go to your client's home and home? Yeah. Our social worker actually does home visits which is like I said what really makes us unique is that aspect. In fact just last week she did a home visit to one of our clients who's actually a couple, a married couple, both are disabled and was able to go and just do a home visit, see how everything's going. They had some wishes and wants on their list so we went there to see if we can make those things a reality. Purchasing certain things. Exactly. Yeah. Washer and dryer, those type of things. And seeing if you know A is the house equipped for it and asking those questions to the resident manager and things like that whether or not the apartment can be retrofitted to include certain amenities that they're requesting and what are our options. So we wouldn't be able to know those things if we didn't go down there and actually see how they're living and what they need. So does the social worker actually go into the shopping if they're not able to get in? We try to get them some level of independence but a lot of what our social worker will do is on top of the home visits and setting the budget is looking for different programs that may suit the individual and then working with the guardian if there is one or the individual directly to get them enrolled in different programs whether it's adult daycare for individuals with dementia and Alzheimer's, getting their caregiver a break and dealing with those issues because if you have a 24-hour caregiver and your client has dementia going on Alzheimer's it can be a lot for one person as a caregiver to deal with 24 hours a day. So being able to find different sources of funding or different programs that we can spend the finances on to get them into that gives the caregiver a break and that allows the individual to get a different you know group of friends get out there and continue to exercise their mind as best they possibly can. So our social worker provides a great tremendous service and it's all catered towards each client because we have such a different variety of clients from children who need guardianship or guardianship of the property services to you have your elderly and disabled clients. So having that wide variety really means that our social work has to wear a lot of different hats you know what client are we dealing with and what role are we fitting are we the conservator are we the trustee you know are we dealing with family members are we the PR probing someone's will and helping you know with different aspects of grief. Boy I didn't realize how complex these services that you provide your clients so how do these clients find you. Well we were very fortunate to have good connections with attorneys in the community since we've been around for so long we get a lot of referrals from attorneys who are in the process of drafting the document and maybe they're drafting the trust or the conservatorship you know they've been approached by a family member to initiate a conservatorship or by the individual to do a trust and the question becomes so who are you naming and if their answer is well I'm not too sure or I don't have anybody you know I can afford to pay a corporate trustee. Exactly so then we rely a lot on referrals from local attorneys in the community for a while we had a very good connection with the Maui office of public guardian we know that the public guardians offices around the state are have a high load of cases and so we we try to connect with them to let them know that if they see cases where we can become a partner we'd be happy to step in and become involved. Is there a wait list? For our services no not right now we don't have a wait list so we are accepting new cases so if there's any attorneys out there. We will post and toward the end of the show some contact information so you all know where to find Justine and Max core Max core. So tell me a little bit about you mentioned your fee for services do you have and your budget or non-profit do you accept donations? We do we do absolutely accept donations so we've been a fee for service program for quite a long time when we first started we did have some grants through the Hawaii Foundation the Justice Foundation so but because we know that grants aren't necessarily sustainable and there's other non-profits out there that also need grants as well we try to be independent as much as possible but we always will accept donations from the community who see what we do as an important aspect but we also really enjoy referrals from attorneys who have cases that we could be of assistance we don't have a minimum threshold so we can accept all types of cases so we're corporate trustee we might have a minimum million dollar account you have no such limitation we have no such limitation in fact recently we accepted a case where it was a probate issue where an individual passed and he left some funds for his grandchildren now they're all minor kids so they can't necessarily just receive it outright I think their ages ranged between 10 and 17 so a wide variety of grandkids we were asked by the court to step in to administer their funds and it was a small amount left for them but enough to have a nice gift for them when they turn 18 so until they turn 18 you establish bank accounts and distribute on a regular basis if they need money they come to you and ask for money correct so we allow them to know where our funds are kept give reportings to them on an annual basis depending on what the court requires we may have to report to the court either annually or try annually and then you know we provide a way so that they can you know get their funds when they need it and the court knows that it's being responsibly held and it's not being spent too quickly and that hopefully will have enough saved so that when they do turn 18 if they want we can turn over the account to them they can invest the money they can spend the money they can use it to college you know whatever they want it'll become theirs but we'll be safe keeping it in the meantime to make sure that they have something when they turn 18 that's a really important method for them to be able to access their money but have it safe in the meantime watched and protected and hopefully growing if that's what you do invest the money we do we oftentimes do in fact we have another case where a minor parent passed away and left a life insurance settlement which is you know a great way to provide for our children's future in case of an accident and you know what do you do when you're a young kid now you all of a sudden have a large sum so she was old enough that we were able to go to financial planner together and include her in the decision-making she could learn about she can learn about finances exactly and make smart decisions for when she is of age and ready to take over that she can either continue to invest and maybe have enough to buy a home eventually one day or use it for college and and you know enjoy a loan-free college experience so you know there's a lot of ways that we help the community whether they're young elderly disabled I mean such a variety different avenues that we can really provide services to people who really don't have a lot of options elsewhere in the community right so what's the future of MaxCorp well I see us growing this is the first time in MaxCorp's history that we've had an executive director and an attorney full-time so I've taken on that role and I'm here looking to expand I've been talking to a lot of attorneys since I first started here to find out what other needs can we fill in the community and and what what do they need in terms of attorneys who are drafting the documents and how else can we serve you know the people of white so I'm starting to get a lot of different inputs from a lot of different attorneys on how we can continue to grow what services are needed and I don't know if we mentioned that I'm my third month at MaxCorp so as I get more familiar with what the needs are in the community I hope to expand our services and be able to offer a different variety of services and places that people may need and so we'll see where the future takes us but I have high hopes for MaxCorp okay great and just quickly do you see any changes in the future because of the changes in the political environment or the possible increase in immigrant issues you know I do and working in the legal service field has been something that I've dedicated to my my very short career as being attorney but my career is in the legal field towards and I know that although it won't directly affect our budget it will affect that of legal aid site of Hawaii and and the other organizations that receive federal funding and because of that I think that they're not going to be able to serve as many people which is the unfortunate reality of getting funding cut which means that we may have to fulfill a need to pick up some of that exactly so once that happens and it's too early to tell exactly what's going to happen with the new administration but once we figure that out and we find out what services have been cut where is the need we may look into picking up that slack and seeing what we can do that to our part we'll be watching you just a wonderful potential help to our society our community we just have a few seconds do you have something you'd like to say to our community and we're flashing on the screen the contact information from MaxCorp there's the website www.maxlegalservices.org and the phone number 808-585-0920 and justine what would you like to say well I would like to tell everyone listening and watching today if you haven't heard of MaxCorp please go our website take a look find out a little bit more about our services that we provide if you're an attorney who has maybe a client in mind that could benefit from our services please do give us a call and then if there's any clients out there or potential clients out there who are watching and who are interested in how max services can help you please call go visit our website and contact us thank you thank you so much justine we really appreciate the learning more about MaxCorp and this is Carol Monly for I think tech Hawaii life and a lot we'll see you next time