SIU Law provides free legal services for qualified older constituents

Leo Buscaglia once famously wrote, “Too often, we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” Southern Illinois University Law School has seemingly adopted this practice through its elder law clinic. 

The Daily Egyptian had the opportunity to sit with professor of Law Rebecca O’Neil, head of the clinic as SIU law celebrates its 50th anniversary. Legal clinics have been around all that time. Some years later, the elder law clinic was formed. Since its inception, the clinic has serviced many clients within Southern Illinois with little to no requirements.

O’Neil said, “The clients must be 60 or older and live in one of the Southern 13 counties. So it’s not income contingent at all. It’s age contingent.”

Prospective clients needing legal services would call an 800 intake number and discuss their needs with an elder law clinic staff member. 

O’Neil has worked for the law school for 31 years. When she first began working in the elder law clinic, there were a total of four attorneys that managed the clinic. Today, O’Neil is on her own.

As you can imagine, there are tons of clients who take advantage of free legal services.

“It really depends on what county I’m going to. I’ll probably interview eight to 10 people in a busy county in one day,” O’Neil said. “In smaller counties, it’s just two or three in more rural counties.”

The elder law clinic also has a requirement of its own. Each year it must complete a total of150 cases. However, the clinic meets that requirement in about two months. 

“Client intake started last week and we had, like, 61 new cases in a matter of three days,” O’Neil said. 

It is a weighty workload, and O’Neil relies heavily on the help of law students to assist her. Today, there are eight students working under her direction. Some are paid, and others earn experiential learning credit to satisfy their degree requirements before graduation. 

Shelly Page, Director of Experiential Learning, said, “One of the things SIU Law prides itself on and has been quite successful at achieving is graduating practice-ready law students. Our experiential learning program seeks to capitalize on that and continue this grand tradition.”

Karson Pruemer, a third-year law student, discussed some benefits of working in the elder law clinic.

“Getting one-on-one contact with the community and feeling at home here in Carbondale,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to help people in need that wouldn’t be able to afford legal services otherwise.” 

Some of the most requested services clients need are wills and powers of attorney documents. 

O’Neil said, “We do hundreds and hundreds of them every semester. Once you have done a few, it’s fairly easy to complete once you understand the client’s specific needs.” 

O’Neil is passionate about elder law and has even forced spousal impoverishment rules to change through her efforts. She recalled a time when she represented a person who had been institutionalized in a mental health facility, and the spouse at home couldn’t afford to pay for the care. In the past, the rules would force the community spouse to use all of their assets and income to pay for the institutionalized spouse‘s stay. But in this instance, O’Neil didn’t back down.

“They were going to impoverish the spouse,” she said. “So I challenged it and they changed the rules. They changed the whole policy, which now makes a difference in hundreds of people’s lives in the state.”

O’Neil said she hopes the law school will continue hosting the elder law clinic. 

“We’ve been a very integral part of society for so many years, and the community is very dependent on us,” she said.

Staff reporter Mannie Henderson can be reached at [email protected]

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