[Peace-discuss] lawyer stuff

[jencart at mailstation.com]

I am in TOTAL agreement w/ Peter on all 3 counts.  Let's count our blessings that we found out the negative things about Gerstein before we went any further.  I'd say we got off cheap.    Jenifer C.

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Rohloff <rohloff at uiuc.edu>
Sent: Apr 19, 2004 10:28 AM
To: Peace-Discuss Listserv <peace-discuss at lists.cu.groogroo.com>
Subject: [Peace-discuss] lawyer stuff


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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