CH14-Q7)

Required

(a) If the director means that each person using legal services should pay for his or her own avoidable costs, what minimum fee should be charged on average for a legal service visit?

(b) If the director means that all of the people using legal services should collectively pay for the avoidable costs of the legal services program, what minimum fee should be charged on average for a visit?

(c) If the executive director wants the fee to cover the total costs of the Cairns Legal Services including avoidable and allocated costs, what minimum fee should be charged for a visit?

Martinez County Legal Services is part of a larger not-for-profit organization (Martinez County Resource Centre) that provides free legal and job placement services and houses a food bank for qualified clients. Last year's costs for 5,000 visits to legal services are presented here: Lawyer's salary $ 90,000 Part-time secretary 10,000 Miscellaneous supplies 6,000 Paralegals' salaries 68,000 Administrative costsa 35,000 Rentb 12,000 $ 221,000 A portion of the administrative costs of the Martinez County Services. These costs have been allocated to programs based upon the salary costs of the program. b A portion of the rent for the Martinez County Resource Centre. Total rent is allocated on the basis of the space occupied by each program. Expected grants for the next year from United Way and the province have been reduced due to an economic downturn. The organization's executive director is considering dropping legal services. Eliminating the legal services program will result in a savings of about $4,000 in administrative costs. The space vacated by legal services could be used by the food bank, which is presently renting quarters in another building for $8,500 a year. The executive director decided that individuals receiving legal services from the resource centre are to pay for their services, with exceptions based upon need determined on a case-by-case basis. It is not clear what the director means when he says that clients are to pay for their services