1 INTERVIEW SUBJECT: David Pels INTERVIEW DATE: November 13, 2013 TRANSCRIBER: Jodie Algarin TRANSCRIPTION DATE: September 22, 2023 2 Q. Good morning. My name is Kelly McKeon. Today I have the pleasure of interviewing David Pels. Today is November 13th, 2013, and I am conducting this interview as part of the Connecticut Bar Foundation's James W. Cooper Fellows' History of Legal Services in Connecticut project. So, David, do you want to just give us a brief timeline of how you came here and how long you've been here, what offices you've been in and primarily what type of work you've done while you've been here? A. Sure. I got out of law school in 1974, and for a couple of summers before I got out of law school I worked at Neighborhood Legal Services in Hartford. It's an organization that was set up to receive legal services corporation funding. When that first started around 1970, and after I graduated, I worked for a while for Neighborhood Legal Services and went to Waterbury. Waterbury was in Waterbury Legal Aid and reference service. It was an independent organization that not only provided legal assistance, but also acted as the local bar's reference service, so we referred cases to the private bar. While I was at Waterbury, all of the programs outside New Haven and Hartford merged into what became Connecticut Legal Services. Then I moved to the New 3 Britain office of Connecticut Legal Services, primarily because the housing court system was starting as a pilot project in Hartford and New Britain. Q. And was that what you were interested in, primarily? A. That's what I had been doing in Waterbury -- Q. Okay. A. -- was landlord/tenant work. Q. Okay. A. So very shortly after the housing court started in New Britain, I went there. Q. Okay. A. And I went back to Neighborhood Legal Services. Neighborhood Legal Services closed in 1997, because there were actually two programs in Hartford, the Legal Aid Society of Hartford and Neighborhood Legal Services, and there was pressure from funders to just fund one Hartford organization rather than two; and then those of us who were left at Neighborhood Legal Services came over to what is now Greater Hartford Legal Aid. Q. So was there some sort of -- how did you find out originally when you came out of law school about this program, and how did you actually get started, you know? Did you know someone that had worked there or -- 4 A. I took a civil procedure course in law school, and my instructor was Bill Briggs (ph) who had worked at Neighborhood Legal Services, and I think he had mentioned the organization. Q. Okay. ________+. And what type of work have you primarily done? A. It's been primarily landlord/tenant. Q. Okay. A. Although before the merger, which created Connecticut Legal Services, most of the programs, including Waterbury, were doing a wide variety of work, and people were really generalists rather than specialists, so they would take almost any kind of civil case that walked in the door. Q. Okay. A. So one of the cases I did in Waterbury was a jury trial of a malicious prosecution case, something which we would never do today. Q. Right. Okay. So how has the -- how has your work changed over the years, would you say? A. I was -- well, on the specialization has been a big change. Q. Okay. A. You know, allowing people to concentrate on the corner areas of legal aid. 5 Q. So do you specialize now in mostly housing stuff? A. Yes. Q. Okay. A. Landlord/tenant. You know, technology has been a huge change, you know, allowing people to become connected with not just folks in Connecticut doing legal services work, but also nationally. Q. Okay. A. You know, information that, you know, might have taken weeks and several trips to the law library to gather you can get almost instantly. Q. Right. Who are some of your mentors or colleagues that really had an influence on you over the years working for legal services? A. Well, one of the first people who did housing work for legal services was Frank Dineen in New Haven. He's being doing it for a long, long time, and is still doing it. He splits his time now between New Haven and Yale Law School. The first person I worked for Neighborhood Legal Services was Mitch Pearlman who became the first executive director of the Freedom of Information Commission. Q. Okay. Do you want to talk to us a little bit about any of your clients in particular or any cases 6 that really stand out to you that really had an impact on you or had an impact on legal services in Connecticut, generally, and any clients in particular, any stories that really stand out to you? A. There were two cases that Judge Maloney, now deceased, decided while I was at Neighborhood Legal Services in 1985 -- actually within a couple weeks of each other, one was a smoke detector case. It was an infamous pro se landlord named Stanley Tucker who had gone to Yale Law School -- not Yale Law School but Yale undergrad, was terrorizing tenants in Hartford and Torrington where he had property. Q. He was well-known. A. He was very well-known. He actually sued me personally. Q. Really? A. Yes. Q. After this case? A. It was after the case. His theory was the Stockholm syndrome. I don't know whether you've heard of that, but there was a bank robbery in Stockholm that became a hostage situation. The hostages started identifying with the bank robbers. Q. Right. A. And so his theory was that I had somehow 7 convinced my clients to stop paying the rent to which he was entitled, therefore he was entitled to collect the rent from me. Q. Interesting theory. A. Interesting theory. Courts did not agree. Q. I could imagine. A. But one of the cases that we had with Mr. Tucker was a rent collection case, and shortly before that was brought, there was a fire in Hartford in which three people were killed, and there was a little story in the newspaper. The fire chief said, you know, they really shouldn't have died because there should have been smoke detectors in the apartment, and those are required by law. Q. Right. A. Well, I didn't know those were required by law. I don't think many people did. So when he sued Jose Lopez for back rent, I felt the defense that he had violated landlord's obligation under Connecticut law to comply with all health and safety codes. Q. Right. A. And we had someone from the fire department who came in and testified to the perhaps true story about the person who's giving a smoke detector as a present for Christmas and there's a fire and the 8 unwrapped smoke detector goes off. Q. Right. A. And the family is saved. So Judge Maloney ruled in small claims case that no rent was due. He wrote a decision which virtually never happens now in small claims cases. The decision got publicized. He got reported in Connecticut Law Journal, which is highly unusual for a small claims case. Q. Right. A. People started buying smoke detectors. Q. So you really think that ad obviously had a big influence then? A. Right. Q. Right. A. Right. And the second case was something I had sort of kept in my back pocket for a while. There was a person I worked with in Waterbury who you may be interviewing at some point named Raphael Podolsky. Q. Yes, I will be. A. Okay. So I actually took over Raphie's spot in Waterbury when he started doing legislative advocacy. Q. Okay. A. One of the cases he had -- it was a case called Brown versus Banking Center where there had been 9 a foreclosure by the bank and the sheriff had turned up at the tenant's door with a writ of ejectment to put them out. The tenant having received absolutely no notice that there was a foreclosure case going on and that they may be subject to being put out and was a 24 notice -- 24-hour notice to get out. Q. Wow. A. Okay. That case never got fully litigated because the premises burnt. Q. Okay. A. Okay. So that same situation arose in Hartford. It was happening all over. It was a case called Hite versus Field. Q. Were there actually statutes in place at that point in time that had notice requirements -- A. Well -- no. Q. -- and they just weren't following them? A. No, no, no. Q. Nothing? A. There was no notice required. Q. No notice requirements. Okay. A. Right. So we filed a case saying remember due process? Q. Right. A. Notice opportunity to be heard. 10 Q. Uh-huh. A. And we filed an action for declaratory judgment against the sheriff. There were sheriffs then instead of marshals against the court clerk who issued the writ of ejecting and against the bank. Q. Okay. A. And Judge Maloney ruled that, yes, due process does require that tenants get notice and opportunity to be heard before they can be removed in a foreclosure case. And in this case the tenants were not even named in the case. And the bank's theory had been basically that the tenant should be checking -- a month and month tenant should be checking the land records at every month to see if there's a Lis Pendens filed on the property. Q. Okay. A. Judge said that's not a very reasonable requirement. Q. Of course. So was it just a reasonable time period? What was the -- A. No. They had to change the statute because the statute -- it's 4922 -- is declared unconstitutional. Q. Okay. A. So they said, no, you -- if you want to 11 put the tenant out after foreclosure, you got to name the tenant and give them an opportunity to appear in court, present any defenses they may have, and they now have some defenses because of some federal legislation related to the foreclosure crisis, and you just can't summarily _________ writ of ejectment and _______. Q. You might have said this, but when was this case? A. 1985. Q. Okay. So it's had a big impact moving forward after that. A. Right, right. Q. And so what was it like working with these clients in the foreclosure cases? Any stories in particular about actually the clients, you know, coming and talking to you and that type of thing? A. Well, I mean, the foreclosure case, I mean, they were just completely bewildered because it is not atypical in a foreclosure case that the tenant is continuing to pay the landlord. If the tenant somehow finds out about the foreclosure case, landlord may say don't worry your pretty little head. You know, I'm working this out with the bank, you know, keep paying me. Q. Correct. 12 A. Even though the landlord may have legally lost ________. Q. Okay. So what was the reaction of the private bar to legal aid in reaction of the judiciary? Do you have any recollection of, you know, any -- was it sort of a hostile reaction or supportive reaction in the beginning and -- how did it change over time? A. I would say, you know, the reaction I saw it was mixed. Q. Okay. A. You know, in Waterbury we were performing the service for the private bar and we were doing these referrals for fee-generating cases. So if there was a relationship between our office and the private bar that was generally good, but, you know, before the creation of the housing court you would go in to, you know, the GA court, the lowest level court, and the eviction case could have been squeezed in in between, you know, some minor criminal offenses or paternity case, youthful offender case. Q. Uh-huh. A. And judges had very little expertise and, you know. Q. Do you think the judges in the beginning were receptive to having legal aid ________+ attorneys 13 before them, or do you think that that's changed over time and they've become more receptive to that? A. I think they've definitely become more receptive. You know, I think judges, in general, would rather deal with an attorney than a pro se. Q. Correct. A. But, you know, you ________ the judge would say, you know, just got one question for you, Counselor. Did she pay the rent? Q. What about attorneys around the state? Do you think that they've -- do you think that they have respect for legal aid attorneys in the beginning or do you think that that's grown over time? A. I think it's generally grown over time. Q. Okay. A. And you still have some people who are very hostile, you know _______. Q. Any in particular stories that you can recall where you found like, you know, an attorney or someone who was being sort of hostile or put a negative view or -- A. Well, you know, there's some attorneys to this day who will say legal aid ________+. Q. Correct. So what's the -- what impact did funding and the program structure have on your work? Talk 14 a little bit about, you know, the funding and how the program structure's changed over time. A. Well, I mean, the funding is always in flux, you know. In the Reagan era there was a concerted effort to zero out the legal services corporation funding. Q. Right. A. And that, you know, it's remained fairly static. When the neighborhood legal services folded around the same time, because of all the restrictions attached to legal services corporation funding, they created a separate organization just to take the legal services funding, called Statewide Legal Services. Q. Right. A. And the other organizations were forced -- it turned out to be a good thing, you know, to look for other sources of funding, you know, whether it was, you know, United Way or funding now set up through the Connecticut Bar Foundation, the IOLTA program, you know. Part of the impetus for doing that was people seeing the writing on the wall that legal services corporation funding could disappear altogether. It certainly wasn't to grow a lot. Q. Right. And so how have you seen the program structure change? 15 A. What do you mean by structure? Q. Weren't there a number of different -- like there's been a big shrinkage in number of offices around the state over time. A. That's true. Legal Aid Society at Hartford at one point had an office in Bristol. When Neighborhood Legal Services first started, there were two or three, you know, small offices in Hartford. Q. Right. A. And for a lot of reasons programs inside that really wasn't sustainable, that it was much more efficient to have larger offices rather than, you know, having just one or two attorneys, you know, by themselves in a smaller office. Q. Right. A. Having more people together, I think, makes the work better because people, you know, you can, you know, go next door and, you know, talk about problems and try to solve them together. Q. Right. So what has been the impact in your legal career of your experiences working for legal services? I mean, so you've been here for how many years now? A. When you say here -- Q. Well, working for -- 16 A. I mean, I worked for legal services since I got out of law school. Q. Right. A. Which is 1974. Q. Okay. So what -- you know, what impact has, you know, all these experiences had on your life, in general? I mean, have you enjoyed working for, you know, legal services over the years, and why have you stayed here over the years? A. Well, you know, it's an opportunity to make an impact that you wouldn't necessarily have some other place. Q. For example, some people go to legal services for a couple years and then they go into private practice or something like that. So how come you stayed here for -- over the years since you got out of law school until now? A. Because I enjoy the work. Private practice really didn't have any appeal for me. Q. Okay. A. And I didn't want to deal with the business end. Q. Okay. So you really like just working with the clients and not having to worry about -- A. Right. 17 Q. Worry about that stuff. A. Uh-huh. Q. Okay. Great. Anything else you would like to tell us or -- A. Thank you for doing this. Q. Thank you.