NEW HAMPSHIRE’S North Country is, in many ways, another world. Far removed from the populous southern tier and its business and industry, the northern third of the state is dotted with small, sparsely populated, isolated towns in which there are fewer jobs, lower income levels and limited access to resources—including legal services.

The task of meeting the legal needs of the many low-income residents of the North Country falls on the shoulders of the state’s legal services organizations. It is up to those organizations to not only help clients address landlord-tenant issues, domestic violence situations and other matters requiring legal assistance, but to also overcome a number of challenges unique to the North Country.

Some define the North Country as the area "north of the Notch"—Franconia Notch, that is. But most consider the rural northern areas of Grafton and Carroll counties and all of Coos County as the North Country.

As all of Coos County is considered North Country territory, it is perhaps most representative of the area. Coos had a population of 32,865 in 1998—compared to populations of 362,477 in Hillsborough County and 127,895 in Merrimack County, according to statistics from the US Dept. of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).

Coos County residents earn the lowest per capita income in the state, making an average of $23,370 in 1998, according to the BEA. That year, the average per capita income of Hillsborough County residents was $31,315. Coos County also has the highest poverty rate in the state; 10.6 percent of residents (3,573 people) of all ages were in poverty in 1995, according to the US Census Bureau. Carroll, Grafton and Sullivan counties followed with poverty rates of about 9 percent.

The low incomes and high poverty rate of the North Country are due in large part to a lack of jobs. Many of the jobs in the area’s paper mills, lumber trade and manufacturing facilities have disappeared as contracts for such services have gone to the competition—especially overseas. There were a total of 19,459 full- and part-time jobs in Coos County in 1998, according to the BEA. There were 85,272 jobs in Merrimack County and 234,001 in Hillsborough County that year.

The North Country remains rural and sparsely populated, because of geography, distance from the state’s existing population centers and lack of industry. There are more dirt roads, more residents without telephones and fewer places to turn when encountering a legal difficulty.

According to NH Bar statistics, there were only 24 private attorneys practicing in Coos County as of February 2001 (in contrast to 1,048 in Hillsborough). The low incomes of many North Country residents makes it difficult for them to avail themselves of the services of the few private attorneys who do practice in the area. According to Alethea Froburg, a Berlin attorney and member of the Bar’s Pro Bono panel since 1980, many of the private attorneys in the area take on cases pro bono in addition to being part of the Bar’s formal Pro Bono program. Froburg calls these attorneys the "unsung heroes." But despite these efforts, there are still many North Country clients whose circumstances prevent them from seeking legal assistance from private attorneys.

Dawn M. Poland and Robert A. Brazil are the two staff attorneys in the Littleton office of New Hampshire Legal Assistance (NHLA), in the heart of North Country. NHLA is the only legal services organization in the state that has an office dedicated specifically to the North Country. Poland, Brazil and paralegal Donna Larsen (who splits her time between NHLA’s Littleton and Berlin offices) deal with a variety of legal issues facing North Country residents, including landlord/tenant matters, evictions, local welfare cases, domestic violence situations, and disability/social security work. NHLA offers a range of legal services, from advice and counsel to full representation, to its low-income clients. According to NHLA statistics, NHLA’s Littleton branch handled 212 cases in 2000, including 94 in Coos County, 32 in Carroll and 78 in Grafton.

Two of the state’s other key legal services programs, Legal Advice and Referral Center (LARC) and the Bar’s Pro Bono program, also provide legal advice and counsel or lawyer referral to low-income North Country residents. LARC does the intake for Pro Bono; both deal with a lot of family law cases.

Representatives of the various legal services organizations agree that the legal problems of North Country clients aren’t any different from those of other clients, but that the isolated, rural character of the region makes these clients’ needs unique. "It almost feels like a different state up there," said Connie Lane, executive director of LARC.

Accessibility is a major issue. Low-income North Country clients often have unreliable transportation, if any at all, making it nearly impossible to get to a legal aid or attorney’s office, or court. The lack of population centers and great distance between towns means clients have to travel far to get to court or their attorney’s office. "It’s one of the areas in the state where I have to spend a lot of time hooking up a lawyer and client who are geographically close," said Pro Bono staff member Cindee Carter.

Many clients also don’t have telephones, relying on friends, neighbors or relatives who do to stay in contact with an attorney.

Accessibility issues often mean that the attorney must go to the client in the North Country. Also, the division of the counties is a problem—for example, towns in northern Carroll County are up to three hours away from Ossipee, where the Superior and probate courts are located.

As a result, a good deal of North Country attorneys’ time can be spent on the often poorly maintained roads. "A 15-minute hearing can turn into a day’s work, and that has a major trickle-down effect," said Poland. "How accessible are you to other clients when you’re behind the wheel?" she asked.

Conflict is another obstacle to obtaining legal representation in the North Country. Because its towns are so small and often populated with generation after generation of the same families, the likelihood that an attorney is somehow connected to a client or has had previous dealings with a client’s family member is high. "Conflicts abound up here because the Bar itself is so small—if a handful of the already small number of attorneys are unable to represent a client, it makes it even more difficult for the client to get legal representation," said Poland.

"It is a resource issue," said Virginia A. Martin, the NH Bar’s associate executive director for legal services. "The pool of lawyers [in the North Country] is so limited to begin with, then you take into consideration conflict and transportation issues and that pool gets smaller," said Martin. Although participation in the Pro Bono program is high in the region—16 of Coos County’s 24 attorneys are on the Pro Bono panel—the obstacles remain. "There are special issues and concerns in the North Country, limited private attorney resources and great demand for legal assistance by low-income people. There is quite a disparity despite the fact that the majority of attorneys participate in Pro Bono," Martin said.

When the geographic, economic and other characteristics of the North Country are factored in, legal matters often take a different light. Housing issues, for example, are significant for North Country residents, according to Poland. Despite the lower incomes of the region, there is a lack of adequate and affordable housing for low- and middle-income individuals, Brazil said.

"Where there are greater population densities, there are more housing opportunities. The demand is there," said Brazil, who was in private practice in Nashua before joining the NHLA staff six months ago. "Although there is a lack of affordable housing statewide, the problem is more prominent here," he said.

The lack of low-income housing forces many residents to take what they can get, Poland said, which often means unacceptable living conditions. Housing in the North Country is quite old and landlords who are property-rich rather than cash-rich typically don’t make the necessary repairs. "When the boom came through it made a lot of property very affordable, so a lot of people with not a lot of means became property owners—thinking it would be income-generating—without an appreciation for the need for maintenance," Poland said. There are also "absentee owners" who do not make themselves aware of the problems that exist with their property. Without proper maintenance, there are often health and safety violations in these residences.

"The adequacy of the housing available is often questionable. People are willing to live in inadequate, uninhabitable housing because it’s all that’s available. And landlords tend to have a ‘take it or leave it’ attitude—they know they’ll find someone willing to take it as it is," said Brazil.

North Country residents tend to be ill educated about the rights of landlords and tenants, Brazil said. As a result, he frequently sees cases in which tenants are unfairly evicted or their tenant rights are being violated.

Domestic violence is also a "big issue" in the North Country, according to Poland. Breckie Hayes-Snow, one of LARC’s supervising attorneys, said that about half of the North Country family law cases that her organization deals with have a domestic violence component. Hayes-Snow believes that because residents in the area are more isolated from each other, it is more difficult for those enduring domestic violence to get out of the situation. The lack of jobs, of public (and often private) transportation and of low-income housing, and the limited access to socials services organizations also contribute to the perpetuation of domestic violence in the North Country, according to Hayes-Snow.

"There is a different set of barriers. The empowerment model [that typically helps d.v. victims] fails more easily because it’s harder for a woman to be empowered. It’s harder to access services, find a job or affordable housing," Hayes-Snow said.

Poland agreed. "Because of the rural nature of where we are, it is much easier to keep someone isolated and under control," Poland said. "And for a victim of domestic violence, simply getting out of the situation, to the police department or a shelter or even to a friend’s house, is often impossible without transportation," she added.

There are a number of other legal matters influenced by the characteristics of the North Country. Bankruptcies are common because "the cycle of poverty is deeper and more significant," said Larsen. The poorer economy also results in issues for the elderly and disabled—access to healthcare, ability to buy prescription medicines, ability to pay property taxes and keep their family homes. A lack of education about local welfare, unemployment benefits and disability benefits—on the part of both the providers and the clients—often results in inadequate assignment of or denial of such benefits. Possession of firearms is more common in the North Country, said Brazil, making the potential use of a gun a factor in domestic violence cases.

In the face of these unique challenges of practicing law in the North Country, Froburg said, "We figure out how to overcome them."

"You just have to deal with it. We see ourselves as being in the same boat together, so we all try to accommodate each other and find a way to get things done, to meet our clients’ needs," said Froburg.

But despite their best efforts, one challenge cannot be overcome: the lack of attorneys dedicated to addressing the needs of low-income North Country clients. Legal services representatives agree that were additional funding available, it would go to meet that need, as well as toward programs to educate area residents about certain legal rights and obligations (such as tenant rights and landlord responsibilities).

NHLA used to have a staff of three attorneys and three paralegals in the North Country when Larsen began working for them. Now, because of funding cuts, that staff has been reduced to two attorneys and one paralegal, despite NHLA’s "strong commitment to a North Country presence," according to Larsen. "We can’t begin to cover the need with that kind of staff," she said.

Because of the symbiotic relationship of the state’s legal services organizations, those staffing shortages are reflected in the other organizations, as well.

According to Lane, statistics from a few years back (when more legal services funding was available) showed that the state’s legal services organizations were able to meet about 20 percent of the needs of low-income clients. She said that LARC would likely have to double its staff to begin to adequately meet its clients’ needs statewide, including those in the North Country.

According to Larsen, who is also a North Country native, the region has to fight for increased funding for legal and other services that will help its most vulnerable residents. "We’re like the poor relatives who have to scream and shout for coverage, representation, resources and access," she said.

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