Discusses his role as director of Western Carolina Legal Services in Greenville, SC and before that working with Charleston Neighborhood Legal Assistance.
Oral history details
| Storyteller: | Robert Jenkins, Sr. |
|---|---|
| Interviewer: | Pritchard, Michael |
| Date of interview: | Jul 21, 1991 |
| Where relates to: | South Carolina |
| Topics: | Civil legal aid: General |
| Law type: | Civil |
| Collection: | NEJL |
| Georgetown Law Library link (possible video): | http://hdl.handle.net/10822/711859 |
| Length: | 0:55:42 |
Full text of transcript
Download PDF: TranscriptBio note
From the transcript: Mike, I was born in a small town called McClellanville, South Carolina and that is in Charleston County. I’m the seventh child of a 13 children family, born just after World War II. I basically was raised up in humble beginnings down in the Lowcountry of Charleston, South Carolina. I was educated in the public schools of the Lowcountry. Graduated from Burk ultimately went on to a higher education after the military experience, so my education really began after four years in the Air Force when I came out and matriculated at the Citadel in Charleston and then to USC Law School in Columbia, South Carolina.
Georgetown University Law Library
National Equal Justice Library Oral History Collection
Interview with Robert Jenkins
Conducted by Mike Pritchard
Interview date: June 4, 2002
Mike Pritchard: The director of the legal services program in Greenville Western Carolina legal services. Robert’s had a distinguished career in legal services and we would like to focus our interview on the expansion years in South Carolina, 1976 to 1980 but first we’ll be talking about Bob’s background. Bob will you tell us a little bit about your origins, where you came from and your early education.
Robert Jenkins: Mike, I was born in a small town called McClellanville, South Carolina and that is in Charleston County. I’m the seventh child of, of a 13 children family, f, born just after World War II. I basically was raised up in humble beginnings down in the Lowcountry of Charleston, South Carolina. I was educated in the public schools of the Lowcountry. Graduated from Burk ultimately went on to a higher education after the military experience, so my education really began after four years in the Air Force when I came out and matriculated at the Citadel in Charleston and then to USC Law School in Columbia, South Carolina.
Mike Pritchard: When people outside of South Carolina may be interested to know a little bit about the Citadel and your years there — I know it to be, it’s a military school a very strong southern tradition they, as I remember celebrate the contingent of the cadet corps that fought in the Civil War. It must have been a somewhat unique experience to be a black at the Citadel in those years.
Robert Jenkins: Well, it was because much of what the Citadel stood for, quite frankly, included the exclusion of people of color, so I was one of the earlier black individuals to attend the Citadel. It was a very challenging experience, but was a probably one of the more important experiences in my lifetime, in my professional development.
Mike Pritchard: What were your major areas of study there?
Robert Jenkins: I concentrated in political sciences and I did some background work in economics at the Citadel.
Mike Pritchard: What year did you finish USC Law School?
Robert Jenkins: Came out of USC Law School in 1975 and I immediately launched into my career with Legal Services. As a matter of fact, the clinical experience that I went through at USC Law School in and the prisons work helped to, to get me directed to Legal Services work after law school.
Mike Pritchard: What program did you begin working with when you matriculated from law school?
Robert Jenkins: I started with the Charleston Neighborhood Legal Assistance program. At that time it was a small one office program and in the Lowcountry economic neighborhood of Charleston. I was hired by the then director Cleveland Stevens, who served as the Legal Director for the program and that was late ‘75 beginning of ‘76.
Mike Pritchard: Were you a staff attorney with that office?
Robert Jenkins: I was hired as a staff attorney directly.
Mike Pritchard: Were you working in the Charleston office then?
Robert Jenkins: Well, yes I was working directly in the Charleston office and this was, as you might know from the historical development of Legal Services, that this was the, the beginning of what was known as expansion. This was the beginning of early years of Legal Services Corporation and money was being appropriated for the expansion of civil indigent Legal Services to the 46 counties in South Carolina. Up until that time only the urban cities had legal services programs. That being Charleston, Columbia, and Greenville. Those were the three nucleus bases of legal services programs before 1976.
Mike Pritchard: Would you tell us a little about what you know about those programs at that time and then maybe a little more detail about what was staffed at the Charleston program.
Robert Jenkins: Well, most of the details would mirror each other. They were typically a low budget store front offices that were funded primarily through low -yield funds, very little funds came into South Carolina at that time. The staff attorneys members were small we had paralegals the offices were basically runned on a terms of servicing their clients an open door policy, anybody that walked into the office there was no real structure to the concept of servicing volumes of people. Typically, the case loads were very heavy; an inordinate amount of cases. There was no specialization as far as the staff was concerned. Their specialization was basically, it just evolved, it was not a situation where it was well thought out. Basically responding to crises in people’s lives. Putting bandages on hurts that they were feeling in their financial affairs and the affairs of their families. I guess and, you know, that can typically describe a program in Charleston, a program in Columbia and a program in Greenville very high volume service related demands, under staffed employees to respond to those demands and very little to speak about in terms of our accommodations, our offices, and their locations.
Mike Pritchard: Did you — you said the director of your program at that time was Cleveland Stevens?
Robert Jenkins: Yes, I did.
Mike Pritchard: Will you tell me a little bit about him and what background he brought to this work?
Robert Jenkins: Well, basically you know, I didn’t know Steve Cleveland before he came to Legal Service. I knew he had done a lot of work in Public Defender work before he came on with Legal Services. He basically was responsible for, in my judgment, in my information, he was responsible for the development of the initial funding applications through Legal Services Corporation for expansion monies that covers the entire grant from Marion back down to Beaufort Counties and Jasper Counties.
Mike Pritchard: Was there any discussion within the program of, how many counties you were going to serve or what your potential service area might ultimately be?
Robert Jenkins: Not so much in the program. There was discussions between the directors of the different programs and as to what that, what the expansion was going to be. When I came on in 1976 at least for the Charleston program the monies for the ten counties had already been applied for and appropriated, so later on we got into the further expansion of the Columbia and the Greenville program and much of the discussions that took place centered around basically those decisions were made by the Chairman of the Boards of those three respective programs and, and the director.
Mike Pritchard: Who was that chairman of the Charleston program at that time?
Robert Jenkins: His name was Mr. Gerald Kinard(ph). He was a local influential private lawyer in Charleston. At that time I would also have to say that being fairly new to Legal Services, I really didn’t really understand what was going on while it was going on. I was basically learning to be a lawyer, a poverty lawyer and we did not get into the formal exchanges that took place at the board level. But, within a very short period of time my role as a staff attorney in the Charleston office mushroomed into many different things as a result of the effort that that would have to be taken to establish the branch offices in the other counties. I was called upon to work with the director to engage in the conversation that needed to take place in places such as King Street, Georgetown, Conway, Beaufort, Colleton. Engaging in the public discussions that have to take place, preceding any establishment of programs in those areas. We have to interact with the Bar Associations in those locations and the communities themselves and I learned quickly that their expectations of what Legal Services would be about in many ways contradicted each other. I’m talking about the lawyer population and the general community population in those areas.
Mike Pritchard: Would you talk a little bit about that dichotomy of the expectations of the Bar versus the client community?
Robert Jenkins: Well, my sense was that the client saw this as an opportunity to really have access to justice. So, that was a hopeful thing for them to feel that, you know, their needs would be satisfied through a delivery system which will, would allow them to have access to lawyers. And, then on the other hand the private bar in general was somewhat apprehensive about the focus of legal services and whether or not legal services lawyers and legal services programs would ultimately negatively impact upon their economic practice. By that I mean, that they were afraid that by legal services coming into a community it would take their livelihoods away from them. And so it’s that dichotomy, it’s that dichotomy that set the framework for a lot of, very contentious discussion, public discussions and otherwise.
Mike Pritchard: Do you remember any personalities involved in those discussions?
Robert Jenkins: Oh, yeah, I remember a lot of the local personalities in those discussions for instance, up in King Street area, typically you would have a couple of leaders who, if they were not formally recognized as leaders, they were leaders of the community. In King Street there was a gentleman by the name of Demorie(ph) and there was another gentleman by the name of George, George Scott, I believe that’s his name. These individuals were, one was an undertaker, and the other was influential in the education of the department up there. And, typically those people that spoke out at these meetings for just the recognized leaders of the low income people that they professed to represent.
Mike Pritchard:. What sort of delegation from, say, Neighborhood Legal Assistance would go up to one of these meetings, typically?
Robert Jenkins: Typically they had the director, a member of the board, a couple members of the staff couple staff lawyers. In addition to that Legal Services Corporation, through its regional office, of which was then headed by, I believe, Bucky Askew and Clint Lyons was his deputy at that time. They played a pivotal role in coming down either them or their staff to facilitate some of the, to be the facilitators of the discussions, the public comment discussions that would take place and they would usually serve as a supplemental to any direction that come from the director of our program.
Mike Pritchard: Do you remember any specific staff members who were at different meetings?
Robert Jenkins: Well, in Charleston there was certainly Charlie Robertson, Bob Gilliard(ph) Cook (ph) Meyers(ph), Jimmy Dimitrie(ph).
Mike Pritchard: These where folks —
Robert Jenkins: These were Neighborhood Legal Services. They were staff lawyers. Typically, we were able — we were fortunate, I think, in many ways because many of us in that initial crew were from Charleston, or natives of Charleston and — or native of the area and, therefore, many of the people that we got to interface with, we had known them before, or they had known us in some way and there was another dynamics that took place right on the beginning of expansion. The director that was in place, Steven Clevelands (ph) was being replaced by a new director who would be coming from Georgia I believe, Augusta, Georgia and that, that led to some difficulty in terms of dealing with expansion while you’re dealing with —
Mike Pritchard: Who was the new director?
Robert Jenkins: Mr. Steve ?Gregor?, I believe, he was a management attorney out of the Georgia Legal Services program. The board hired him on the early end –the tail end of the beginning of expansion. Cleveland Stevens had initiated most of the upfront contact with the community groups in those locations and most folk knew him but they didn’t know Steven ?Gregor? because he was new to the area and that led, that made the challenge of expansion even more challenging from a standpoint of just the dynamics of that evolving. Here we have a stranger, so to speak, coming in from another legal services program, Cleveland Stevens was a known quantity, and must of — whatever expectations the community folks had been developed with him. We had a change of leadership during that process. I believe that, that really, that single factor accounts more for anything for me to have been brought into the process because with the new director coming on, he was certainly looking to people on the staff that he can rely on and could related to the local constituency and continue the expansion process.
Mike Pritchard: Was this in ‘76?
Robert Jenkins: This was in, latter part of ‘76, early ‘77.
Mike Pritchard: What was the, was the rational for that change of leadership shared with the staff or was there an awareness of the staff _________+ made that decision?
Robert Jenkins: Well, I think there was a decision that they had come to mutually between the board and the director. The staff, quite frankly, was kept out of the know on that. And I thought that possibly led to some further apprehension among the staff members. But, that was a very — these things coming together at this critical time made a difficult task under normal circumstances even more difficult with the very young staff of lawyers that were practicing no more than one to two years, as I indicated earlier, many of whom were from the Charleston, South Carolina area. _____ not really gotten their feet on the ground in terms of practice of poverty law, not the mention about expansion areas that they had not served before.
Mike Pritchard: _____+ offices actually opened in these new areas such as King Street or Georgetown?
Robert Jenkins: To my recollection the latter part of 1977 that was when we started expansion. We initially started opening offices in Georgetown and then we placed an office in King Street, South Carolina in Williamsburg County and, then the third office that we opened up was in Conway. That’s in Horry County, and we used basically the Horry County office as a nucleus base office of the development of the expansion of legal services to the Northern area of the _____. We immediately began to think about the office facilities the, organization of the office, the recruitment that would be necessary for the staff that we would want to recruit and it called for a lot of forethought and a lot of planning with regard to each of these things, in addition to maintaining the regular communications and with the community at that time. Because we knew early on that we were going to evolve into expansion and that we would not be able to open the doors today and be functional the next day.
Mike Pritchard: Where did the staff of these offices typically come from?
Robert Jenkins: Typically, we recruited for the most part from our major law schools in the northeast and in the basically from the northeastern schools. That primarily had the law school curricula’s that that resulted in a lot of law students coming out having and empathy to doing poverty law work. There’s one law school in South Carolina which is the University of South Carolina and that served as the basis, pool, in South Carolina for any poverty lawyers in the future.
Mike Pritchard: Rob, do you want a break for a drink of water or did you just want to continue on?
Robert Jenkins: No, that’s fine.
Mike Pritchard: OK. In terms of the management of those offices, was the younger attorneys serving as managing attorneys or how did that work as far as in terms of obtaining people to provide leadership for those offices?
Robert Jenkins: Well, the approach was to try to develop the offices on a gradual basis. We wanted to develop a lot of expertise and a lot of leadership coming out of primarily the Charleston location as a training, as a nucleus of expert attorneys there in terms of litigation as well as developing managers and then leading out from that assigning individual management attorney roles for the branch offices and continuing to make good recruitment decisions in terms of bringing in new lawyers. In addition to just using the centralized approach to the development of expertise and leadership, we also relied on programs in the southeast such as Georgia Legal Services to, who had gone through the experience in advance of us to supply us with resource persons that could come in and help us think through some of the approaches to substitute skill development in our programs and also we were able to call upon the regional office in Atlanta to help with the identification of technical expert that would come in and work with us in thinking through and think together the plan of action that would lead to, not only the staffing, but the planning that needed to go into developing a legal services branch office.
Mike Pritchard: In terms of who would be on site; did folks move out of the Charleston office to manage and work in these offices or was it more that individuals were hired into these offices and then brought into Charleston or to these other resources for training?
Robert Jenkins: What happened is initially in many of the offices we basically used a local staff, we, almost like a satellite arrangement whereby we had certain sites in each of our locations. We would use clerical staff from those communities. We would have lawyers from Charleston circuit riding through those counties on a regular basis. I found myself doing circuit riding in addition to, in addition to the work and my responsibilities in Charleston, in the Charleston office. Quite frankly, I was really going through an experience that I didn’t really understand the importance of until after the fact. I was young, I was eager, I just know that what we were doing would ultimately lead to something better for the communities that we had aspired to serve. I personally did not get into all of the political debates that took place around whether or not we were going to locate this office here or there. I was really focusing on really the practical side of getting this program in place. The director and certain members of the board dealt with much of the politics they had to deal with in terms of dealing with the local Bar and dealing with the so called leaders of the community we were going to serve.
Mike Pritchard: What was your sense of the feedback you got? How well did Steve Grandburg (ph) deal with this?
Robert Jenkins: I thought that he did, I thought that he did an excellent job and under very difficult circumstances. I thought that he was very ingenious in terms of coming in and, looking to the indigenous staff members that he found there and to utilize them in ways that could create the kind of trust connection that was necessary for those communities that we were, were going to. And, I thought that he did an excellent job in that. And, I think that he did an excellent job in setting the basis for ultimately having a decent recruitment plan and having the foresight to know that you do not develop a legal services program, or any law firm over night, and that, and that you have to give good planning to before you apply or make any decisions about expenditures of monies. I thought he did an excellent job in that. I thought he took, he had the foresight to know that, in the long run, it would possibly would be economically better to, to own the buildings that we, that we would occupy for services. He took advantage of that. I believe all of the branch offices in the Charleston programs are owned by the program. That decision in itself has probably paid off much more in the later years to come in terms of creating the stability, the structural stability that would be necessary to keep us whole through, that would, ultimately, be a period of retrenchment later on after the initial expansion. And, then to have a presence, a visible presence, in those communities that the community connected with and to relate to, I thought he did an excellent job in regard to that and under very, dealing with a very difficult challenging proposition under a unique situation with him coming into to the leadership position.
Mike Pritchard: As a director who is now purchasing buildings in this, and these much more restricted both financially and regulatory-wise times from Washington, I could certainly validate your judgment on that. Those were the times to buy buildings. In terms of the expansion of the program, looking at the state now I think — I often wonder why we have six programs rather than three because if you look at the state geographically you can, and politically to some degree, you really can divide it into the coastal areas and the Piedmont area and then the upper part of the state; Spartanburg, Greenville. To the extent that you were aware of it or knew about it, what led to the fact to, that say, Neighborhood Legal Services stopped at the coast and didn’t expand up into the Florence area which is similarly, in terms of economics and demographics, to the Williamsburg and that area.
Robert Jenkins: I believe it is the natural result of the sphere of influences that flowed out of the initial three programs that were in place in the first instance. Charleston, out on the coast, really having an intention to spread out to the point that it felt it could operate in politically, given the leadership that was in place at that time, and certainly I believe that was, so possibly to a lesser extent that was probably one of the primary reasons why that was true in all of the programs in Greenville and in Columbia. Once you, there’s a geographical sphere of political influence as far as the Board’s concerned and the directors that were involved at that time and they basically felt that the areas they could operate in comfortably, knowing what they knew about the process of expansion and all that goes with it. The unknown quantity that would be in mind of those people that they would have to influence. As I say there’s a — in legal services there’s a concept in many of these counties ______+. There were certainly apprehensions in the Bar, the private Bar about it. And, whatever appreciation for it in the client community, I don’t know if that appreciation was at a level that it should be, in terms of, beyond a few individuals that understood what was going to happen and the basic client that would ultimately receive our benefit was not really engaged in any of the discussions that took place. In terms of whether or not a Legal Services Program was going to be located in one county versus another. So, it’s just a combination of the geographical sphere of the influence of those that were in leadership positions in those three programs more than anything else. And, then, in addition to that any, of the dynamics that flowed through the, the ____+ that was in place at that time certainly they had influence on the ultimate shape of expansion as they interfaced with the leaders of those different programs.
Mike Pritchard: Can you think of any specific examples of –
Robert Jenkins: Well, I believe that –
Mike Pritchard: — represented –
Robert Jenkins: — there is a fourth judicial circuit that’s in South Carolina that’s not a staff ___ program, it’s not a staff-fueled program. I believe the fact that the fourth judicial circuit is a _____ program is a direct result of intentional result of decisions by a combination of what those people felt was good for them ____+, and, possibly the influence of senators in this county.
Mike Pritchard: Let’s catch up with your career a little bit. In the years in these years and the years after what was happening with you at Neighborhood Legal Systems up to when you moved to the Greenville program?
Robert Jenkins: I spent three and a half years with Neighborhood Legal Services, all of which were, there were lots of things going on in my professional life. I was just dealing with things, in terms of the program, that I would think normally under normal circumstances, I would not have to deal with until later on. Between 19 –, the latter part of 1979, there was a leadership change in the Charleston program. Steven Grandburg(ph) was the director of that program. And that, ____+ again, a situation where I would be looked to be the leader for the program, I was the interim director. There’s a lot of political consternation over Mr. Grandburg(ph) leaving the program. So, that program —
Mike Pritchard: What were the basic issues of his leaving?
Robert Jenkins: The basic issue was whether or not he was appropriately let go ___+. Whether or not that was the best thing for that program at that time. The program was in the midst of a difficult transition, expansion under his leadership and other things that were put into place and the — as a result of whatever disagreements between himself and the primary officers of that Board led to him leaving, under the circumstances, in my judgment, not in the best interest of that program. ______+
Mike Pritchard: Expand a little bit on what led you to move to Greenville rather than to stay in Charleston, or, I don’t know, did you apply for the directorship there on a permanent basis or —
Robert Jenkins: I, I, I had the opportunity —
Mike Pritchard: You don’t have to answer that. (Laughs)
Robert Jenkins: No, I had the opportunity to apply for the directorship ____+, I was asked to do so. I chose not to do so intentionally because I didn’t feel comfortable that I could deal with the politics that had developed in that program and to exercise the forthright independent leadership necessary to see expansion ___+. So, the situation in Greenville presented itself to me at that time, I think I would have a better opportunity to come into a program that absolutely needed exceptional leadership for its expansion. I had had experience through the Charleston experience and I deliberately, I chose to relocate to Greenville. And, Greenville was, was a three county-based program ____+.
Mike Pritchard: What year was that?
Robert Jenkins: That was in 1979. So, within a year from 1980 to 1981, we expanded our program to an eight-county based program, covering the entire third congressional district and the one county in the fourth congressional district. That involved my going back through similar planning approaches ____+ with the communities ______+ in Charleston with the local population _____+. Ultimately, they put in place branch offices in Anderson County and ___ Greenville. We were servicing an eight county area representing 81,000 plus clients. I had to go back through the same methodical approach to recruitment and letting that process evolve ______+. And, just at the conclusion of the ________+. Immediately after that, it was almost like a contradiction. There was a brief period of ________+ utilized for expansion to areas that otherwise would not have legal services. It bridged right over to 1981 when there was significant cut-backs in terms of funding. So it was almost like a cruel hoax that we had to manage or to deal with something or manage something that you ultimately didn’t really have any control over. _______+
Mike Pritchard: Last week I had an opportunity to review some of the statistics from that period of time. Like our program, you lost a third of your staff. Can you share with us a little bit of how that retrenchment process went and then I want to come back and revisit the expansion process a little bit more.
Robert Jenkins: OK. Well, like I say, basically you have to manage retrenchment very carefully. We gauged our decisions – we just contracted ourselves. _______+ And, so what we did was, we ____ retrenchment through, in the same way we did in the early years of circuit riding. Some of our offices were covered by ____ from other offices. We serviced the Anderson office through the Greenville office with some of the Greenville staff. And, we just covered it the best we could. Until we could formulate some sense of how we would deal with the ____ in the future. ______+ Keep us looking to the future in terms of how we were going to be developing and maintaining ourselves through _____. Very intentional, _____+
Mike Pritchard: I want to jump back in time with a couple of questions before we wrap up. One it seems to me that when you came to the point of making your decision to leave Charleston knowing that you and the deep commitment to serving the community from which you came, I always wonder and wanted to ask you why didn’t you stay in the Charleston area and go into politics? I would think that with your resume and looking to leadership there you would have done quite well in that undertaking. Why did you choose to be in an institution that stands on the outside and sort of corrects power and keeps the system honest rather than maybe moving more inside the system at that point in time in your career?
Robert Jenkins: It may not have come out early on in our discussion, but I had personal intentions from the beginning to utilize my professional expertise to serve the population which _______+ . I intentionally ________+ to benefit the low income population in South Carolina. There’s no other opportunity _________+ but Legal Services provided a very _____ way for me to do that. I believe that the institution of Legal Services provided me an opportunity that I would possibly would not have otherwise to give the type of attention that I could to _______+ to that population that I came from. I didn’t see that I could do that in any other institution in South Carolina. I think that if I had gotten into politics I really would not have been able to give the time that I have been able to give and to gain the information and the expertise that I have been able to respond to some of the needs that are in the poverty population of South Carolina. So, I intentionally wanted to stay with Legal Services work that we do.
Mike Pritchard: One final question. In describing the expansion in Greenville, you talked about using the Charleston model. Were there any differences you instituted there taken from your experience in Charleston. The things that were that you could say were different in terms of that expansion effort versus what you’d experienced when you were in the Lowcountry.
Robert Jenkins: Well, I, I, I did I really evolved much more than in Charleston. I also was very, very careful in terms of my initial staffing, very deliberate, very slow in terms of bringing these things about. I purposely engaged in what I call community advisory groups in each location up in the Greenville area and I really tried to, tried to — I think the Charleston experience is typical of the experiences of most legal services in the southeast. We were basically developing a program tops down. When money became available and we were trying to develop a program after the fact. When really what was the natural way for that to develop was that either should have been developed first in the local areas that we were developing in. We should have developed a little more ownership from those communities. Without regard to the fact, well, there’s money available now for civil legal services so we should put something in place. I think we would probably have involved more people, more of the community people in that process and I did do that. I had an opportunity to do that in Greenville as opposed to my experience down in Charleston. And get them _____ as to the vision of what the program was going to be all about beyond just the fact that well, we have expansion money available for a local area so we’re going to put a program in place. A little bit more time, I think, I spent with talking through, you know, just what the program is going to do and the focus of the program that’s going to be delivered. I think that I was better equipped to deal with that having had the Charleston experience up in Greenville and that has, that really has paid off large dividends in the future years that I’ve been there and this is my 13th year with the Greenville program.
Mike Pritchard: Is there anything that I’ve left out that we need to say about the expansion years in South Carolina?
Robert Jenkins: I will just say this. I thought it was very, it was a very challenging time. It was a very critical time when you look back on it because if you, and I know you know South Carolina, much of what was done in those crucial years, in terms of the service delivery, concept of the locations, there in place now in South Carolina in most of the programs and apparently they are working. So, those were very critical years wherein the decisions that were made have affected people up to now. They affected you and your role and in your program, they’re affecting me in my role and my program. And they’re certainly affecting the clients that we serve and as it relates to the level of clients that we can serve and the focus of our goal. I think it also has had an impact in terms of our relationship with the Bar, in general, the institutional Bar. I think that some of the decisions that were made at that point in time has led us to a point now. I believe there is a genuine partnership; so to speak, that I didn’t think otherwise would come about. Those were very critical times and I think that in the history of legal services in the southeast and in South Carolina I think that those years will continue to be reflected back on in terms looking to where we are as a critical point in the development of civil indigent legal services in the state of South Carolina and I am very happy to have been a part of that. And, I’m confident that much of that groundwork, that frame of reference will serve the programs in the state well into the 22nd Century.
Mike Pritchard: Thanks a lot Bob. This has been very enlightening now particularly for me. I didn’t experience South Carolina in those years. I obvious you have a great deal to tell us about that. I will note for the record that Bob Jenkins should do a interview on the retrenchment years and developing alternative sources of fund raising where he has also shown a lot of leadership.
Robert Jenkins: Thank you.
END