1 INTERVIEWEE: SYDNEY T. SCHULMAN INTERVIEW DATE: APRIL 8TH, 2014 TRANSCRIBER: DEBORAH COHEN-ROJAS TRANSCRIPTION DATE: MAY 17, 2021 2 MR. JANES: Good afternoon. My name is Norman Janes, and I have the pleasure of interviewing Sidney Schulman, Syd Schulman. Today is the 8th day of April in 2014, and this interview is part of the Connecticut Bar Foundation's James W. Cooper Fellows History of Legal Services in Connecticut Project. So, Syd, thanks very much. We really appreciate your time. And I want to begin with telling -- if you can, briefly outline your history in Legal Aid and what you've done since then. MR. SCHULMAN: Well, as we do anything briefly is really suspect, but -- MR. JANES: You can do it. MR. SCHULMAN: -- I'll try. I got out of the Air Force in October 1966, and I came back to Hartford, and I wanted to see my father so I could try and get an office free. And I practiced law for about two months and then decided to go see an old friend of mine named Howard Orenstein that I went to college -- well, I went to law school with him, actually. And when I went there, he said, you know, we've hired three lawyers. Well, him and two others. He said, would you like to come work at Legal Services? And I said, what's that? So then he explained to me about it being the Office of Economic Opportunity, federally funded program, so forth and so on. And he had been working at Legal Aid -- there was a Legal Aid in Hartford, also. This was a brand-new organization named Legal Services, Inc. It was under the auspices of the CAAs agencies, the community renewal team, and later broke 3 independent of that. But at that point, it was part of it. And it was himself -- and he was called the senior attorney and director of field operations because Bill Graham, who was the first African-American judge, I think, in the history of Connecticut, who was the head of Legal Aid, was technically the part-time -- part-time CEO -- MR. JANES: Uh-huh. MR. SCHULMAN: -- the part-time program director. MR. JANES: This is the Legal Aid Society of Hartford, right? MR. SCHULMAN: Yeah. MR. JANES: Right. MR. SCHULMAN: Bill Graham was the Legal Aid Society of Hartford, and he technically was the part-time executive director of Legal Services, and Howard was full-time. Howard had worked for him, and Howard was full-time as -- whatever, senior attorney, director, field operations. And he had already hired a guy named Brian Hollander and also got him Stu Rosen. And so they were looking for a fourth. They were four attorneys. And Howard said, do you think you can work for a friend? You know, because that's difficult sometimes. And I said, oh, sure. You know, Howard and I have always been very close. And I said that's fine. So I started in December 1966. I had too many of my sole-lawyer practice after two months. MR. JANES: There you go. MR. SCHULMAN: And when I went in, we were thrown right into the war, as you say, because, first of all, Brian Hollander was on his way to -- going to Washington. And I think it was the 4 following June, in '68 -- I mean, maybe '67 or maybe '68, to argue the case -- the seminal case of Thompson versus Shapiro, State Supreme Court, the welfare residency rule. MR. JANES: Yes. MR. SCHULMAN: And Stu Rosen later abandoned us and went to the Treasury Department. Although he was a great guy. He did a good job. And one of the first things that happened in Legal Services, December 1966, was we were approached by a group of tenants in what was then known as Russell Court, which is in the heart of the slums of Hartford at that time and -- because of problems with their landlord. And so in December '66 to January '67, Howard and I went out with a couple of -- some of the neighborhood -- we had a neighborhood community, you know, under CRT, the neighborhood centers. MR. JANES: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. MR. SCHULMAN: And we went out and formed what I think was one of the first tenant associations in the country, and it was patterned after one in Chicago. And then in January of 1967, we signed one of the first tenants' agreements with the landlord to fix up the place or we were going to pull a rent strike. And unfortunately, one night there was a lot of pounding down in the basement -- we don't know by who -- but, all of a sudden, the next day, all of the water pipes burst. MR. JANES: Oh. MR. SCHULMAN: And the city of Hartford came in and said 5 everybody has to be out of here instantly because -- and it was January. And we said no, because they -- those days, they -- you can't just take and put them in a hotel, like you do now, so they would be out on the street. And we said get together and find a place for them or they stay where they are because, as bad as it is, you know, without heat and stuff -- it's a roof over the head. And so the -- the director of housing of the City of Hartford came and stood in the doorway and said everybody's going. And Howard and I went and stood in the doorway, said everybody's not going. So if you want, we'll get -- we have the team -- MR. JANES: [Clearing throat]. MR. SCHULMAN: -- down. We said, they can -- you can watch them dragging the people out by their hair. Well, the City of Hartford backed off and let the people in, and ultimately people got resettled. The place went vacant, ultimately got torn down and was -- was a mess. MR. JANES: Wow. Wow. No court action involved on this? Was there really sort of a -- a -- a real community action by the folks in the -- MR. SCHULMAN: Absolutely. MR. JANES: Yeah. That's great. And did they come to you and say can you help us out with this? MR. SCHULMAN: Yeah. MR. JANES: I can't -- so -- MR. SCHULMAN: Well, they didn't come with the idea of a tenant -- 6 MR. JANES: No, no. MR. SCHULMAN: That was Howard's idea. MR. JANES: Right. MR. SCHULMAN: But they just came and said we're dealing with rats and roaches and so forth, and the landlord won't do anything, we don't have -- our bathrooms don't work. And so -- MR. JANES: I -- where I wanted to go with that was to -- it suggests that you really, even in that short time, had built a good rapport with folks in the neighborhood that you were trying to represent. MR. SCHULMAN: Well, yeah. It wasn't me. It was the idea that -- the concept that enabled Legal Services, as with all the other Legal Services, was to be down in the neighborhoods, be with the people because previously Legal Aid had been downtown -- MR. JANES: [Clearing throat.] MR. SCHULMAN: -- it was very threatening to some people to have to go downtown to some offices. And we were right in the heart of the neighborhood. Our first office was on Pliny Street next to the old jail in Hartford. And then we moved to Center Street and Albany Avenue. So when people came in, we were close by. MR. JANES: Yeah, yeah. MR. SCHULMAN: And we were 24/7, you know, in those days. Now Legal Aid is totally different. It's more like we were. But in those days, Legal Aid -- you had to make an appointment. Attorneys went home at five o'clock. We were 24/7. 7 MR. JANES: There was somebody in the office all the time or -- MR. SCHULMAN: Oh, no. We had phones. We had phones. MR. JANES: Okay. MR. SCHULMAN: No cell phones in those days. MR. JANES: Right. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. MR. SCHULMAN: But, you know, any time somebody called, everybody had our numbers at home and would call at two o'clock in the morning, whatever, you got up and went out. MR. JANES: Wow. And were you doing criminal cases at this time? MR. SCHULMAN: Yes. MR. JANES: Yes? Okay. You were doing criminal cases. MR. SCHULMAN: We were doing criminal cases. We were working about a hundred hours a week. And we were doing criminal cases, and then at a certain point -- I think it was two years later or three years later, OEO came down and said you can't do criminal work anymore. MR. JANES: Right. MR. SCHULMAN: And so what happened was we recruited a group from Aetna Insurance Company and -- volunteer lawyers who worked for Aetna, who said that they would come down to our office to see criminal clients at night. And they would go to the -- Aetna permitted them going to the courts. And the reason I mention that is there's some very distinguished graduates of that program. A guy by the name of John Williams, who practices in New Haven now -- MR. JANES: Okay. MR. SCHULMAN: -- and Ed Hennessy in Hartford and John Murphy in Hartford, Robinson & Cole, and several others -- Jimmy Wade. 8 MR. JANES: Uh-huh. They were all working for Aetna and -- MR. SCHULMAN: Well -- MR. JANES: -- or just Aetna just organized it? MR. SCHULMAN: Aetna and Robinson & Cole. MR. JANES: I see. All right. MR. SCHULMAN: Jim Wade, John Murphy, and Ed Hennessy were Robinson & Cole. And we finally -- because John Williams had short hair, gray flannel suit -- [laughter] -- you know, he ____ that way now. And John and I have remained friendly over all these years. MR. JANES: Wow. That's great. So you were coming into this green, obviously. MR. SCHULMAN: Yeah. MR. JANES: What kind of training or preparation did you have? MR. SCHULMAN: I had about 98.6 body temperature. MR. JANES: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay. MR. SCHULMAN: That's about it, you know. But, you know, I had a law degree, and a lot of it's common sense. MR. JANES: Yeah. MR. SCHULMAN: I guess I was -- by nature I was sort of a rabble-rouser and community organizer anyway. And I had spent a lot of -- well, there's one little thing. I had spent an number of years as a musician, a professional musician, as I was going through school. MR. JANES: Uh-huh. MR. SCHULMAN: And so I spent a lot of my time in the jazz clubs in Hartford. I spent a lot of my time with people in the north end of Hartford in what would be known as the slums, 9 but they were friends of mine -- MR. JANES: Yeah. MR. SCHULMAN: -- and we played music together and that kind of thing. So I was very comfortable being in the neighborhoods. MR. JANES: And what were the nature of the cases? Again, just very earliest periods, what kinds of cases were you guys working on? MR. SCHULMAN: Well, it was just everything. I mean, one of my first cases -- we didn't have individual offices on Pliny Street, so there was no client confidentiality. Howard had an office, and the rest of us were in desks lined up, one on top of the other. And the first desk was one secretary, and the next desk was another secretary, and then there was the three lawyers, Brian, Stuart, and I. And, you know, I remember one lady came in who also worked with me as a client for many years. And she was extremely frightened because a boyfriend -- her ex-boyfriend had threatened her. And he would -- I won't go into a description, but he -- it was -- I -- you know, I'm a fairly passive person. It was making my stomach turn. And so I said, well, don't worry about it, I'll send him a letter. So I sent him a letter. And I basically said in the letter don't bother her or else. Words that lawyers say, right? MR. JANES: Yeah. MR. SCHULMAN: One day, this guy comes walking in the office to talk to the secretary. And I looked at him, and this -- you know, to me he looked about eight feet tall. I'm sure he was 10 only six-something, but he looked about eight feet tall. Big, you know. And he came -- he came back. And so she comes back. She says So-and-So wants to talk to you. And it's the boyfriend, her ex-boyfriend. So I said okay, send him back. So as he starts to come back, I start loosening up my tie and start, you know, loosening my belt. I figured this is it, we're going to have problems. He comes back, and he says, "Attorney Schulman?" And I say, "Yeah." "I don't want no trouble." [Laughter] And he totally folded. And, you know, he apologized, and he says he's not going to bother her anymore, and he went away. MR. JANES: Right, right. MR. SCHULMAN: So we had -- we had consumer cases. Stuart Rosen created what we call ___ interrogatories. And we had -- we had people selling people in the neighborhood bad stoves, bad beds, bad this, bad that, the secondhand used appliances. MR. JANES: Yeah. MR. SCHULMAN: And then they would get into a credit company, the credit company would come around our clients, and so we had what we called ___ interrogatories, which were about -- if I remember right, about 150 or 180 interrogatories directed towards consumer fraud and the connection between the credit companies and the used-appliance owners, that kind of thing. MR. JANES: Yeah, yeah. MR. SCHULMAN: So we did everything. And then a specialty of mine became nonprofit organizations. So -- and I just kind of worked my way through it. But in -- right after the 11 Nelson court thing that I just described to you, we had a group come to us that wanted to form and create a better South Arsenal neighborhood area. South Arsenal was one of the first community agencies -- it was -- community outfits for a community renewal team. So Howard had this idea to create a private, nonprofit 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization in order to do things like if they want to create a school. And so it was called the SAND Corporation. Well, I did the incorporation, and I advised the group forming it. And the -- we created one of the first in the country of a 501(c)(3) neighborhood organization, which then led to what was known as the SAND Everywhere School in Hartford. It was a community school, open doors and stuff. And from then on, I went to incorporate most of the other neighborhood centers to 501(c)(3). MR. JANES: Okay. So just again, so we have a little chronology, how long did you then work for Legal Aid? MR. SCHULMAN: I left in May 1st, 1974. MR. JANES: Okay. So you were there 10 years? MR. SCHULMAN: Seven and a half. MR. JANES: Yeah. Okay. Okay. And tell us briefly, what's your -- what's been your life work since then? MR. SCHULMAN: Well, when I left, I had the idea of creating a public-interest law firm. Legal Services was changing, as you know. Remember, the Feds were getting out of the game -- MR. JANES: Yeah. MR. SCHULMAN: -- you know, the funding was being cut. Programs 12 were going down the tubes. They were combining all kinds of things. And I had an opportunity because two of the people -- one I represented, La Casa Puerto Rico in Hartford, which I had done a 501(c)(3) for, they were getting a lot of money. And so they said we can give you a small retainer. And then I -- there was a Latino businessman named (?John Socco?), who had a spacecraft manufacturing company down below New Haven. And he needed a corporate counsel, so he said that he would give me a small retainer. Well, with that, maybe I could make it work. So I thought of doing a public-interest law firm. Well, as it turned out, I went into private practice. And we were able to do public-interest work, but I was not able to be what I consider a public-interest law firm because you can't make money -- MR. JANES: Yeah, yeah. MR. SCHULMAN: -- and I had a family to support. So we did do things after that. I did a case against the City of Hartford to get Latinos in the fire department. They had only two in the entire history of the Hartford Fire Department. And a little boy had very tragically died because nobody spoke Spanish. And the -- so I got to do some stuff like that. And the -- we had started, Legal Services, a case called Cintron versus Vaughn, which was -- MR. JANES: Remind me what that was. MR. SCHULMAN: The case against the Hartford Police Department 13 for inadequate protection of citizens, excessive use of force by the police, and discrimination from promotion and hiring. That was started in 1969 or '70 -- '69, I think -- by Attorney (?Ray Morrison?), who was with our office. And then, in 1973, I negotiated a consent decree in that case. So all -- after I went into private practice, we followed along with that. And that was resurrected as recently as 2004. And we started the -- they amended the agreement with the City of Hartford in 2010. So I've been able to do some things like that, but, you know, pretty much my practice is workers' comp, personal injury, trial work, and a smatter of other things. MR. JANES: But you were also involved in prisoners' legal services, too. MR. SCHULMAN: Yeah. In 1995, the State put out an RFP for workers and inmates in matters involving terms and conditions of confinement. And so we responded. We got the grant in November, and -- not the grant, the contract. And we renegotiated it and responded RFP since then and have continued to serve in that regard. We used to do everything for inmates, but, again, they interpreted a case -- the U.S. Supreme Court case of Bowzer versus Smith. I mean, it only has to do with the terms and conditions of confinement and not everything else, so they cut out everything else. Now that's all we do. MR. JANES: Okay. Okay. But that's in the nature of the public interest, so you haven't gone too far from -- MR. SCHULMAN: Yeah. That's -- we have an office down the street 14 that -- MR. JANES: Okay. I just wanted to make sure the record was clear on that. When you're -- you know, your conscience is clear so that you can be in private practice but still have a -- MR. SCHULMAN: Oh, yeah. MR. JANES: -- public interest. Absolutely. Well, let's go back, then, to the Legal Services time. And tell me -- one of the questions we have been talking to folks about is the reaction of the local private bar to establish some of these Legal Aid programs. What was the experience in Hartford? MR. SCHULMAN: Well, we had a board of directors that included members of the private bar. In fact, the president of our board of directors was Jon Newman in the Second Circuit Court. And he's retired -- MR. JANES: Yeah. MR. SCHULMAN: -- the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, you know. And we had neighborhood people on the board. A gentleman by the name of -- an attorney by the name of Ed Kenyon was representing, I think, the Bar Association on our board. There were a lot of people that were opposed to Legal Services forming and performing because they didn't want -- you know, they -- mostly they were people who had cases against our clients. MR. JANES: Yes. MR. SCHULMAN: And, you know, our clients were unrepresented. They were easy pickings. But I have to say that some of the 15 larger firms were very much in favor of it. They recognized the need for people to have representation as much as rich people have representation. And they -- we used to get criticized a lot, Legal Services, for bringing test cases. And one thing I -- that did not make a lot of sense is that, if you're criticizing us -- if we're losing the test cases, you can criticize us -- MR. JANES: Yeah. MR. SCHULMAN: -- but if we're winning the test cases, that must mean we're right. MR. JANES: Yeah, right. MR. SCHULMAN: So how can you criticize us for being right? MR. JANES: Right. Right. When we interviewed Howard Orenstein, he talked about the Shapiro case that -- the -- whatever it is. I forgot. MR. SCHULMAN: Thompson. MR. JANES: Thompson versus Shapiro, right, and mentioned that he had organized the -- I think it was 28 lawyers from the private bar to help work with that case. MR. SCHULMAN: Right. MR. JANES: And I think that that's quite different than the experience in some of the other jurisdictions in Connecticut. MR. SCHULMAN: Well, Howard, number one, is one of the most creative individuals I've ever met. As a matter of fact, a law student wrote a paper called "Human Potpourri" that I always tease him about because he was always coming out with these creative things that most of us have never heard of, even though we went to law school. And he was very -- but 16 the difference is he was very good about following up with them, and he's very persuasive and very respected by members of the Bar. MR. JANES: So what were the offices -- well, I'm sorry. You already described the office where you didn't have separate offices. You were all sitting in a bullpen. Yeah, right. And was that typical or did you move up in -- MR. SCHULMAN: Oh, yeah. No. We had to move up. We -- we wound up -- we had an office in what was called the South Green office, which is where Walgreens drugstore is now, at Park and Washington. That was our south-end office. And we -- we were upstairs. And then we had an office on Barber Street in Hartford and one on Center Street in Hartford. MR. JANES: Uh-huh. Yeah. MR. SCHULMAN: And again, one -- I'm sorry -- and one on Center Street and then one on Albany Avenue. So, of course, we had private offices. They weren't very well -- MR. JANES: Right. MR. SCHULMAN: -- furnished, but they were private offices. MR. JANES: And what about the reaction from the city? Was it -- was the city supportive of this or -- MR. SCHULMAN: Not initially. You know, when I started, the city counsel was all essentially middle-aged white Caucasian, and some with very, very conservative views. And so -- and since we sued the city all the time -- MR. JANES: Yeah, that's right. MR. SCHULMAN: -- they weren't very happy with us. [Laughter] 17 But gradually, over a period of time, you know, this all changed. And I like to think that some were -- some of it was due to the actions of Legal Services because it might have changed, but it wouldn't have changed anywhere near as quickly as it did. MR. JANES: Right. MR. SCHULMAN: And one of the things that made it change was the Model Cities program. MR. JANES: Uh-huh. MR. SCHULMAN: Do you remember the Model Cities program? MR. JANES: I do, yeah. MR. SCHULMAN: We became, my understanding is, the first city in the United States where almost, but -- not a hundred percent, but 92 percent, I think it was, of the Model Cities money went directly to a Model Neighborhoods, Incorporated, which was one of our -- it was ___+ -- it was a neighborhood organization with only neighborhood people on it, instead of to the city to do roads and whatever else they did. MR. JANES: Yeah, yeah. Wow. And then you had helped set up that -- the Model Cities -- MR. SCHULMAN: Yeah. I did the incorporation tax exemption. MR. JANES: Yeah, right. MR. SCHULMAN: But the beauty of it was that the neighborhood people came in and ran their own show, and they hired an executive director. It was their choice. They decided what programs that Model Cities money would be used for -- MR. JANES: Wow. MR. SCHULMAN: -- as opposed to the city councils. 18 MR. JANES: Yeah, yeah. MR. SCHULMAN: -- saying, oh, we're going to inject this program into the neighborhoods. The city kept a small portion, about 8 percent for their use. MR. JANES: Yeah, right. And that -- that, too, that really is remarkable because lots of other places, you're absolutely right, it was the other way around. The city just took that money for, you know, ordinary city services and didn't get it for the neighborhoods where it was supposed to go. MR. SCHULMAN: Yeah. Remember, a lot of this was due to the neighborhood people who organized it. MR. JANES: Yeah, right. MR. SCHULMAN: And, you know, the days when -- one time, when we released -- what was it -- rats or cockroaches in the city hall at the counsel meeting -- MR. JANES: [Laughter] MR. SCHULMAN: -- and, you know, protests -- MR. JANES: You got to tell us about that. This is some of your clients doing that? MR. SCHULMAN: Well, yeah. I mean, you know -- of course, unbeknownst to their lawyers, sure. But, you know, the neighborhood organizing, getting people to unite, getting together, was, for me, even more enjoyable than going to court and -- because I felt there was real power emanating from the neighborhoods themselves. MR. JANES: Yeah. MR. SCHULMAN: And really, they were -- we had some very, very vocal people. We had a group called Welfare Recipients, the 19 people -- mainly a lady called Isabel Blake. MR. JANES: I remember that name, sure. MR. SCHULMAN: And they were all -- they were all strong people in their own right, articulate. Muriel Johnson was the head of our Council of 12, as we called it, which was three representatives from each of four neighborhood areas, which created the Model Cities thing that we did. And ___ Russell, who was -- who I'm still very close with today, was one of the representatives, and Maggie Alston, who still lives on Whethersfield Avenue in Hartford now. And so unfortunately some have passed away, but it was a hard life back then. MR. JANES: Yeah, yeah. MR. SCHULMAN: We had the riots, and that's another whole story. MR. JANES: That was in the '60s, the -- MR. SCHULMAN: Well, and I came in '66. The riots started around '69, so -- MR. JANES: Yeah, yeah. MR. SCHULMAN: And Howard left in December of '67, I believe. And that's when I became senior attorney, director of field operations. And then December '68 or January '69, I became the executive director. MR. JANES: Yeah. And I remember the -- those riots because some of them started when I was still in law school. I graduated in '68 from law school, and some of that was going on when I was in law school. What was the role of Legal Services in that -- did you have -- MR. SCHULMAN: In the riots? MR. JANES: Yeah, yeah. I mean, did they come to you for help 20 and -- MR. SCHULMAN: Remember a judge by the name of Max Savitt? MR. JANES: Sure. MR. SCHULMAN: Well, he created -- you know, when we had the riots, part of them started because -- and that's what, by the way, gave rise in 1969 to the initiation of the Cintron versus Vaughn case, because there was a -- there was a whole bunch of people at South Green and Hartford and -- mostly Latino. And the police were there. And allegedly, there were a couple of Molotov cocktails or something coming out of the crowd, which was very disputed. Nobody ever found any evidence of them. But the bottom line was that there were two Latino cops, Puerto Rican cops. And what happened is they released the dogs on the crowd. The dogs unfortunately can't tell the difference between somebody who's threatening, somebody who's not. And when everybody is just there compressed in -- they took the stomach out of one of the guys -- MR. JANES: Oh. MR. SCHULMAN: -- and that was part of the unnecessary force obligations. The two Puerto Rican offices were told to tell people to get out of there, and they did, and some left. But they were so disgusted, they both quit the force, one of them by the name of Jose Garay and the other one -- I'm trying to remember his name. Anyway, he wound up on the city council in Hartford years later. (?Hady Ocaro?), he wound up on the city council in Hartford. 21 And, you know, it was just one thing right after another in those days. So to say you're working a hundred hours a week, you know, wasn't really descriptive at all. MR. JANES: Yeah. But were you involved in negotiating on behalf of some of these people in the city? Did the folks in the neighborhood who came to you for those kind of help? MR. SCHULMAN: Oh, yeah. We were very tight with all the groups. MR. JANES: Right. MR. SCHULMAN: And people used to -- they developed confidence in Legal Services. They would come for their lawyers -- MR. JANES: Yeah. MR. SCHULMAN: -- and they considered us their lawyers. MR. JANES: Yeah. MR. SCHULMAN: So maybe somebody -- we did a consumer case, where they'd come in and say how they got arrested, or they would come in and say, you know, how they got hurt or a policeman did this or whatever and -- or the sort of conditions that they -- they would come and talk about the conditions that they were living in, and, in particular, slumlords that were involved. So we were taking action against slumlords, we were defending evictions, we were bringing affirmative cases against slumlords. We were organizing tenants. Organizing seemed to consume at least 60 percent of our time, and we were negotiating with the city on a lot of this stuff. So we were right in the heart of the whole thing. For instance, there was a -- one thing that -- I spoke -- this is an embarrassing story, but I'm gonna tell you. We had a 22 welfare rights demonstration at Bushnell Park, and there was this big stadium, a podium kind of thing -- MR. JANES: Uh-huh. MR. SCHULMAN: -- you know, stage. MR. JANES: Yeah. MR. SCHULMAN: And I had -- I had -- I used to have a long beard down to here and longer hair. And so they -- everybody started screaming and doing the other things that you do at demonstrations. And somebody said to me, "Syd, we want you to get up and say something." And I said, "Hey, no problem, I've always had a big mouth." So I grabbed the railing, you know, to -- instead of walking up the stairs like a normal person, I grabbed the railing and go -- [indicating] -- to spring up into it, and my pants ripped. MR. JANES: [Laughter] MR. SCHULMAN: I just kind of scrunched it in and got up and said my piece and got up out of there and changed my pants. MR. JANES: [Laughter] Well, so who -- from that era or later, but who were mentors for you, and who were, really, the most memorable colleagues that you had? MR. SCHULMAN: As a lawyer? Howard. MR. JANES: Howard? MR. SCHULMAN: There's no question about it. I would say -- well, there was one other guy that was a mentor to me, actually, before that when I was in law school, and then later on I talked with him. His name was Alex Goldfarb. And Alex was a partner with Janes Kinsella. And I worked with 23 him for a year when I was in law school. And Jim later became a probate court judge. Alex -- I don't know what the __ was. He became the corporation counsel in the City of Hartford. He was absolutely brilliant. And I think he got one B in law school, the rest As. And he would do things to burn people just to see the reaction. But he was a brilliant, brilliant lawyer. Do you remember the Culombe and Taborsky "Mad Dog" Killers? MR. JANES: Sure. MR. SCHULMAN: And Taborsky -- there's an article about him in the paper, the last person executed in the electric chair. MR. JANES: Right. MR. SCHULMAN: And Culombe had the mentality of a nine-year-old, and Alex represented him and got past the death penalty. And Culombe later, years later, got out of jail. And so Alex -- from the legal standpoint, Alex and Howard are -- I would say were the two mentors that I had. MR. JANES: Yeah. So you've talked about a number of the cases that you were involved in. Are there any others that are really particularly memorable and sort of stories that really demonstrated what you guys were doing in those early days? MR. SCHULMAN: Well, let me see. Yeah. One that -- well, if you're talking about way back then -- MR. JANES: Yeah. MR. SCHULMAN: -- as opposed to now? MR. JANES: Yeah, yeah. The earliest days, right. MR. SCHULMAN: Basically, I think the most memorable stuff for 24 me -- I already mentioned the Cintron versus Vaughn case. The fire department case, where we got Latinos on the fire department for the first time. The community organizations, the Model Cities program. Yeah. I think that's most of them. I probably have some others. MR. JANES: Was this -- all of those kinds of things that you talk about obviously had some benefit, not just to the individual clients you might be working with, but, really, for the whole community. And yet you talked about doing divorces and consumer cases and those kinds of things. Was there -- in those days, were you aware of sort of a conflict between spending your time on representing and helping individuals versus trying to do things that were going to be more systemic? MR. SCHULMAN: Well, yeah. One thing I want to mention is the Reginald Heber Smith program. And when I was director of Legal Services, the Reginald Heber Smith program was to send lawyers from -- I don't want to say fancy or good law schools, you know, Ivy League-types to the Legal Services, spend some time helping the poor, which I thought was fine -- MR. JANES: Yeah. MR. SCHULMAN: -- but originally it came down that they were to do the test cases. We were serving the divorce and the consumerism and so forth, and they were the brilliant minds, you know, and they would do that. I thought that was a crock. MR. JANES: Huh. MR. SCHULMAN: And I had a little tussle with that, with the 25 program and some of the lawyers initially, because it was my insistence that they take a load of cases when they came down, that they take the consumer cases, that they take the housing cases, they take the family cases. Might be not a whole load, but some, half a load, because I felt they had to meet the people, they had to go out to their homes -- which we did consistently, which other lawyers didn't do. We went out to their homes, we sat with them, we had coffee with them, we had meals with them, we went to meetings with them. And we -- I felt that they had to really get to know people, that otherwise they're elitist. And you can't -- you can't just come in and say I want to solve all your problems, don't worry, go away and I'll tell you when to come to court. And so I insisted on it. And I think the lawyers who participated were some good lawyers, and I think they did a wonderful job for the community. As far as our other lawyers, I said that doesn't mean they're going to do the test cases. Our lawyers are going to do the test cases, also. But test cases, to me, were one thing. Community organization was equal -- MR. JANES: Yeah. MR. SCHULMAN: -- because, as I pointed out before, groups of people gathered together to accomplish wonderful things in negotiation, you know, either without going to court or after going to court. MR. JANES: Yeah. MR. SCHULMAN: So I didn't see the run-of-the-mill case, if you will. The criticism of Legal Aid in those days was they only 26 did the run-of-the-mill case and helped one person -- MR. JANES: Right. MR. SCHULMAN: -- but I think that that changed in Legal Aid. That certainly changed with all the __ programs. MR. JANES: Yeah, yeah. And just to make sure we're clear that -- after neighborhood Legal Services started with the federal funding, the Legal Aid Society continued -- MR. SCHULMAN: Oh, yeah. MR. JANES: -- as a separate organization in Hartford, and it was much later that it was -- MR. SCHULMAN: And New Haven, I guess, LA pretty much ran everything. MR. JANES: Yeah. MR. SCHULMAN: LA was the only ___ legal system, but the only program, I think, in the state of Connecticut when Legal Services of Hartford started. And later on, ___ started and then Middletown, and -- well, Middlesex, I should say. MR. JANES: Yeah, yeah. MR. SCHULMAN: In fact, Kevin Kane, now the State's attorney for Connecticut, ran the Middlesex branch. MR. JANES: Right, right. MR. SCHULMAN: And we used to have a Legal Services directors committee, and we used to meet in New Haven, also, and -- to talk about common problems in the world of Legal Services programs. And there was one in New Britain. MR. JANES: Right, and in Fairfield County, as well. MR. SCHULMAN: In Fairfield, yeah. MR. JANES: Right. Right. 27 MR. SCHULMAN: So, you know, it was -- it was a time I'll never forget. MR. JANES: Yeah. So what's the lesson that -- or what -- what would you like history to remember, again, about that period of time and -- both from your experience and for the experience of the office? What's the message that you want posterity to know and remember? MR. SCHULMAN: Posterity or the future? MR. JANES: Well, what lessons could the future learn by the experiences that you and the others had in that early time? MR. SCHULMAN: One of the things I like to think that, with all due respect to the riots and everything else, that people are going to solve their problems one way or the other. And it's human nature. MR. JANES: Yeah. MR. SCHULMAN: And as a matter of fact, when I try to go to select a jury, one of the questions that I ask people is do they feel that too many cases are being brought to court. And a lot of people say, yeah, people run into court for every little thing. And then I say, what do you think of the alternative? And they stop and think for a minute, and they say, well, the alternative is taking things in your own hands and fight about it. So I would like to think that one thing that we did is show that problems of community, problems of poor people, problems of people who are discriminated against, can be resolved in court without resorting to violence. But that presumes that lawyers are going to be permitted -- that 28 they're going to want to take the cases. And they're either going to take it voluntarily, like we have now, where a lot of lawyers do tremendous pro bono work -- but is that enough? I don't really think so. MR. JANES: Yeah. Uh-huh. MR. SCHULMAN: And, you know, Connecticut Legal Services is handicapped by money and by -- you know, you can't take every case that walks in the door. MR. JANES: Yeah, yeah. MR. SCHULMAN: So somehow there's got to be -- I think one thing that taught us was there's got to be a way to get Legal Services down to the people who need it. And Legal Aid is overburdened. They have to limit what they do or they can't -- and one thing we don't want to do is do everything and not do anything well. MR. JANES: Yeah, that's right. MR. SCHULMAN: So I don't know what the solution is, but ___ obviously, put more money in -- MR. JANES: There you go. MR. SCHULMAN: -- to go back to Legal Services. MR. JANES: Right. Right. Well, I think that that covers the questions I had. But is there anything else that you'd like to say or tell us about or remember that would go on this tape? MR. SCHULMAN: Well, I think the -- one of the most important things -- I think I may have said this, and, if I did, stop me, but -- you want to hear me repeat -- MR. JANES: Okay. You don't have to tell me, but go ahead. 29 MR. SCHULMAN: I think that one of the things is that lawyers tend to feel that they're so professional, that and know more than the person that comes in. And I think there's a tremendous insight that lawyers can get from the people they serve, and I'm not sure that's recognized all the time. And I think particularly, in terms of the neighborhoods, everybody seems to be running around and saying that they know what's the best thing in development, in housing, and everything for people in the neighborhoods. But I see consumer cases in here now, and I think, you know, we actually lived our lives with the people in the neighborhoods. And I think we -- every one of the lawyers that I know that have participated, with the exception of one or two, gained tremendous insight from it and wanted to be very successful practitioners because they carried that perception that they got from the neighborhood people with them. And so whatever efforts they had -- for instance, the next lawyer that was hired was (?Stu Shimmelman?), who became a judge. And he is retired now, I think, but he was down in New London a lot. And I just think you can't -- and I'm talking with Kevin Kane about this. You can't walk away from Legal Services and not have been tremendously affected psychologically. MR. JANES: Right. You will be interested to know that, when we talk to Howard Orenstein, he said something very similar to what you just said. MR. SCHULMAN: Really? 30 MR. JANES: About, you know, the necessity to really understand the clients and that you learn from the clients, that you are not the teacher of the clients, the clients are teaching. MR. SCHULMAN: We've always sort of had a similar mind-set. MR. JANES: Right, right, right. I find that very interesting. Well, again, Syd, thank you very much for your time. MR. SCHULMAN: My pleasure. MR. JANES: Thank you for the work you've done all these years and you continue to do. We really appreciate it. MR. SCHULMAN: Thank you. MR. JANES: You're welcome. Thank you.