[Peace-discuss] lawyer stuff

[Phil Stinard]

My recollection of last week's meeting is that they just wanted to delay the 
payment until this was discussed with Carl and Rick present.  I would 
recommend paying the bill regardless.  I wouldn't want to wait until a 
collection agency asks.

--Phil Stinard


Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 10:28:35 -0500
From: Peter Rohloff <rohloff at uiuc.edu>
Subject: [Peace-discuss] lawyer stuff
To: Peace-Discuss Listserv <peace-discuss at lists.cu.groogroo.com>
Message-ID: <39734A2A-9216-11D8-82BC-0003934140A8 at uiuc.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed


Howdy all,

I hate to bring this up, but one issue remains outstanding after three
weeks of discussion about the lawyer situation. Maybe we can discuss it
on the list and thereby avoid taking up more meeting time.

Basically, several persons have raised blocking objections to the use
of Gerstein (sp?) as AWARE's lawyer. At yesterday's meeting, those
objections stood, and we decided to spend time looking for another
lawyer and also trying to do our own homework (filing complaints,
pressing charges etc etc) better.

However, the outstanding issue, as far as I can tell,  is that several
persons are also blocking disbursement of funds to Gerstein ($100) for
services already rendered--i.e., for meeting for one hour with Carl and
Ricky. Am I correct on this? If not, someone please correct me, and
disregard the rest of my message.

Here's how I see it.

To block payment of the $100 to Gerstein would be a show of really bad
faith. It has been alleged that AWARE never agreed to a billed meeting
(some people thought this meeting was going to be free). Even if this
might be technically true, its not a very good reason for blocking
payment--in fact it goes against the way, historically, AWARE has run
and cut checks. Ricky and Carl had been talking about this meeting for
AT LEAST one month before it happened. The fact is that no one else
bothered to do any research on Gerstein until after the meeting and
after the N-G article. The time to raise an objection would have been
before the event. AWARE has a long-standing policy of one week from
proposal to approval for raising objections. This policy was honored in
the Gerstein case and no objections were raised. Granted, new
information has come to light, and it has been carefully taken into
consideration. But I don't see how we can with integrity apply our
policy changes retroactively.

What's more, AWARE has always allowed considerable leeway for the
disbursement of small ($50-100) funds for working group activities
without much oversight by the large group, especially by long-standing
members (i.e. Ricky and Carl).  To block payment of such a small
amount, after the fact, will reflect badly, IMHO, on Ricky and Carl,
who exerted considerable time and energy on the project. It also sets
the bad precedent that members who put energy and time into a project
may find themselves unsupported finally, by those with no interest in
working on the project themselves. I think we should not set this
precedent. I for one would find these sorts of things discouraging to
my own self-motivated enterprise on AWARE's behalf.

So I propose the following:

1. The objection to not hiring Gerstein should stand.

2. The objection to paying him $100 should be withdrawn.

3. If people are interested in formalizing our policy of cutting
checks, that could be an agenda item on a future meeting.

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