There's a certain kind of law firm every ambitious law student dreams about. In New York it's Sullivan and Cromwell. In Los Angeles it's O'Melveny and Myers. And in San Diego it's either Gray, Cary, Ames and Frye, or Luce, Forward, Hamilton and Scripps. A firm like Gray-Cary boasts as clients Copley Newspapers, Union Bank, and American Airlines. A firm like Gray-Cary can charge their clients $200 an hour and get it.

But what law firm does the middle income San Diego call when he gets caught driving drunk, smoking dope, or going bankrupt? According to Mr. Jim Webb, a partner in what used to be the Advocates of San Diego, a firm aimed just at the middle-income San Diegan, choosing a good firm for a big corporation is no problem — an executive finds out from socializing, his country club friends — but choosing a lawyer for a middle income person is like pinning the tail on a donkey in the dark.

"We lawyers have a monopoly. And we've been doing a good job serving the big clients — the big firms and corporations. We've been doing a fair job with the really poor. The Legal Aid Society — that's funded by the federal government — takes care of those with under $5000 a year incomes. But the average San Diegan? We've been doing a miserable job for him."

Jim Webb ought to know, at least about the fancy law firms. He used to be part of what was San Diego's biggest law firm before it split up — Higgs, Jennings, Fletcher and Mack. Thin-faced, topped with wavy, black hair, Jim Webb exudes the kind of univocal professionalism of a Pete Wilson. Few pleasantries, no wasted words. A typical lawyer for a big, expensive firm. Undergraduate work here in San Diego, law school at Berkley. Then, in January of last year, he and several other lawyers started the "nonprofit" corporation called Advocates of An Diego.

The idea was to provide legal prepaid coverage like medical insurance (payments as low as $1.50 per month), take on cases for reduced fees or no fees at all, and take on public interest cases (class action cases, police brutality, etc.)

Advocates would do all this by cutting costs ("Lawyers are so inefficient. You can easily cut costs") and cutting salaries. It's easy to see some of the ways Jim Webb has cut costs. For one thing, the firm (no longer called Advocates but Webb, Welles, Isaac and Freedman sits on India Street between a B-rated restaurant and the old Filippi's Pizza. The plain, white plaster walls take the place of the lush law office wood paneling. And old wooden doors, painted bright red or blue, lying across stacks of bricks take the place of the big lawyer's desks. Pictures are taped to the walls with masking tape. One wonders how much of this poverty look is pretention. (At least there are no psychedelic posters.)

Salaries were kept to an average of $12,000 a year, says Webb. The "nonprofit" status was obtained by Advocates because over half of its cases were "public interest" cases — the cases taken were almost no payment was expected.

Advocates as a corporation had as its trustees some of the biggest names in San Diego law. one of them, Roger Ruffin, although referred to by the L.A. Times as "San Diego's hippie judge" and discovered at a benefit party for the now defunct radical San Diego Street Journal when the police busted it, commanded wide respect for his scholarly opinions as a Superior Court judge here.

Nevertheless, even before Advocates opened their doors for practice, they came under fire from the local chapter of the American Bar Association The initial charge brought by local ABA chairman Robert Steiner to the State Bar was the Advocates' use of the name Advocates Inc. Then other charges were tacked on: breaking the Code of Ethics of the ABA, advertising, soliciting business, "But the real thing we were being charged with was cutting price s... they couldn't come out and say that."

Graph from the Advocates' brochure

Steiner, in the local ABA magazine Dicta published the parts of the Advocates' brochure (pictured).

And letters to Dicta by other lawyers charged Advocates with misleading advertising. One letter said that the San Diego Bar Association Fee Schedule guoted was only a recommended charge, not an actual charge.

Webb belittles that claim, saying that though some lawyers charge less than the schedule, the schedule represents averages fees. Webb says this can be proven. All one has to do is see the fees which are set by the divorce courts, and study the fees which are published in bankruptcy notices. Looking at those, Webb claims, proves that listing of the ABA fee schedule was not misleading.

Did this ABA pressure kill the Advocates? Not at all, Webb asserts. "The name was changed because we found there wasn't any advantage to being a nonprofit organization. We want to become more political, and we couldn't do it in nonprofit status. Now we've joined a statewide law firm. One of our partners is liberal Democrat Assemblyman Meade of Oakland." Webb himself is currently running for city attorney.

"And," Webb confides, "The rumor is that the ANA complaint will be dropped. We were never given any guidance by the ABA. We were never willfully breaking the law.... Why, now we get lots of cases referred to us by other lawyers. One lawyer who came up to me a year ago and told me he thought we were repulsive has since written a letter of apology."

In some ways the practice has not worked according to expectations. Webb, Welles, Isaac, and Freedman are doing less private interest cases than they expected and many more "public interest" cases. (They had expected it to be half one and half the other.) But the public interest work is bringing more money than they thought it would. "This Sierra Club case, for example," Webb touches a manila folder, "we're going to get something out of it." The prepaid legal "insurance" has caught on with a few groups, but mainly those with whom the firm is aligned politically. The professors' union at San Diego State, a few homeowners' groups.

It is hard to say just how successful the firm is financially. Although there were rumors that the firm's secretaries were being asked to take credit instead of checks last December, and although the number of lawyers in the firm has dropped from eight to six. Webb insists that they are going to expand. "We should double in the next year."

Even if they don't make a lot of money, the unique nature of the firm is at least very interesting. Interesting because it is one of only two such firms in the country (the other is in Washington, D.C.) And interesting because the idea of cutting costs and handling a larger number of cases is basically a free market concept that looks ironic with a firm of liberal Democrats.