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Q&A
Council member probes SBS's referral system and accountability measures
1:36:05
·
4 min
Council Member Williams questions SBS about their referral system for legal assistance and the accountability measures in place for their partnerships with legal service providers.
- SBS has formal partnerships with legal service providers, including signed MOU agreements.
- There is coordination to ensure referred cases are handled, and SBS receives reports on the cases, though attorney-client communication remains privileged.
- SBS confirms when services are provided and tracks the categories of assistance (e.g., entity formation, contract review) that partners are able to help with.
- Council Member Williams emphasizes the importance of having a clear feedback loop and accountability measures to ensure the effectiveness of the referral system.
- SBS acknowledges the need for a definite referral process when their partners cannot assist, committing to share this feedback with their teams.
Nantasha Williams
1:36:05
How do you hold these partners accountable if there's, I don't know, there's like no real accountability metric?
1:36:50
Yeah, I mean I don't think I'm asking you to like disclose client lawyer information, I'm just saying if you refer a hundred people to Legal Aid Society, how are you ensuring that 20 of those people were actually helped?
1:37:09
How do you like what is what is the relationship?
1:37:12
Cause how I how I heard it, I'm like oh well maybe they have like a little kind of effort and maybe you know they're like funding this initiative in some way and there's like a feedback metric around like support, but it kind of I don't know, it seems official but not.
1:37:32
Like it seems like official like oh yes, we will refer people to you but that's it.
1:37:36
Like what is the what is the like what is the feedback loop back to the agency?
1:37:50
So what do they say?
1:37:50
Do they give you details outside of what they can disclose like this you know we were able to help this client period or do they like what how do they report back to you?
1:38:09
Tell me the categories.
1:38:25
connection Yeah, it's also misleading to say like you have like legal assistance programs if you're not if you're just simply referring people and like hoping for the best, you know what I mean?
1:38:33
Like you can't say you have this program if it's not something that you are actually tracking and like there's levels of accountability.
1:38:42
But it seems like there is Yes.
1:38:44
The way that you were talking
1:38:48
Apologize.
1:38:48
Was a little confusing.
1:38:50
I didn't even mean to do this line of questioning around this but I was like kind of a little little confused by some of your responses, so that's why I'm just trying to get clarity.
1:39:20
Which is more helpful.
1:39:22
So you have that contract with the entity to help for that specific effort, but then you have a referral system that is also quite official, that does have a feedback loop to help with another range of things.
1:39:38
Okay, the only thing I'll just add before I just get off this topic because I did not mean to go on this rant, I thought I was gonna be like done in two seconds but is you said that they may refer people and I just commentary really not a question like it would be helpful like if we did, if you did have some serious conversations with the other attorney legal entities that are helping on the referral basis to actually like make a referral outside of what they can do, if they can because you said they may make a referral which means that they may or they may not, didn't seem definite.
1:40:21
So I think it would just be helpful if you're referring people to these legal entities and for these legal entities if they cannot assist, that they tangibly refer them somewhere else.
Haris Khan
1:36:14
So these are Chair Williams, these are thank you for this line of questioning.
1:36:19
These are formal partnerships.
1:36:20
So we've got signed MOU agreements with these partners.
1:36:23
There's a lot of work on coordination to make sure that the cases that we're referring happen.
1:36:28
We also get reports from them on the cases that are happening.
1:36:31
Obviously, actual service, the attorney client communication is privileged, but that's the level of coordination with MOUs signed.
1:36:41
And we do encourage people to come to the expo is just one example of how they've agreed to provide one on one consultations on-site for any New Yorker that comes.
1:37:41
There is a feedback loop.
1:37:42
They confirm when a service is provided.
1:37:45
So and that's how we know we've served dozens of New Yorkers, hundreds of New Yorkers with entity
1:38:03
So so they report back to us and they let us know which of the categories that they're able to assist with they were able to
1:38:10
Formation, contract review.
1:38:12
So it's items like that that are covered.
1:38:16
And they do and so as we find out, we have a feedback loop, Trevor Williams, it would be problematic.
1:38:21
I think you're absolutely right if we're making blanket referrals and there's no
1:38:49
Absolutely apologize.
1:38:59
So there definitely is a feedback loop, so we apologize if we convey that there isn't a feedback loop.
1:39:04
100% we get information back from the partners that we work with if the service is completed, if the service was provided, but I also want to clarify maybe there could have been confusion on the commercial lease assistance program, which is a contract that we hold with a vendor and that's a more in-depth service.
1:40:35
Definitely point taken and we'll share that with the teams that work deeply and closely with these legal service providers and providing free legal consultations on a variety of products.
Kitty Chan
1:38:09
Like what?
Oswald Feliz
1:38:47
Right.