Legal Aid for Seniors Is Their Strong Suit : Law: Volunteer attorneys for local agency dispense advice to elderly clients and provide a little muscle when needed. And it’s free.

One older client on welfare had been sweet-talked into buying a $3,000 recliner she could never afford.

Another client, a 65-year-old woman with a business in her Thousand Oaks home, paid a fly-by-night operation $1,000 for a special phone line the company never installed.

And the federal government informed a third client, a 70-year-old Oxnard resident, that he was entitled to $125 a month in extra Social Security benefits. But a year and a half later, the government claimed the increase had been a mistake and demanded that the man return more than $2,000 he had already spent.

Older and often on a fixed income, these and many other Ventura County seniors could never hire a private attorney to help them go after crooks, fend off creditors or navigate the federal bureaucracy. So more than 1,200 residents every year turn to Grey Law of Ventura County Inc.--the local branch of a free legal assistance organization for the state’s 60-plus generation.

“Many [seniors] have never had to deal with the legal system all their life,” said Mike Williams, Grey Law’s director and one of the organization’s two paid staff attorneys. “We make the legal process easier for senior citizens. We do what other attorneys really don’t touch.”

Grey Law attorneys helped the woman return the deluxe lounger, and managed to recover the money lost on the home business phone line. Williams said attorneys even persuaded Uncle Sam to let the Oxnard man keep the extra Social Security payments.

But the nonprofit agency has its limitations--especially when it comes to helping seniors who are the targets of elaborate scams.

“I have talked to too many people who have spent at least $5,000 expecting their new Cadillac Coupe de Ville to be delivered, and all they receive is a box of vitamins and a cosmetic kit,” Williams said. “We write [the businesses] a letter. They change their P.O. box.”

With a $105,000 budget funded mainly with state and federal funds, Grey Law does not have the money to go to trial for its clients. The 10 part-time lawyers on Grey Law’s roster volunteer their services when they can take time off from their paid jobs. Attorneys say Grey Law work can be fairly mundane--drafting letters to stop creditors from harassing seniors or representing clients at Social Security hearings.

But with a stable of lawyers familiar with issues that affect the elderly, Grey Law, many say, fills a critical need.

“Ventura seniors really do feel that they are their attorneys,” said county Supervisor Susan K. Lacey, who has referred numerous constituents to Grey Law. “They know what they are doing, and they can cut to what it is that seniors need.”

What Bethel Ralston needed was someone who knew the law after a Ventura doctor’s office in January refused to let the 68-year-old Ojai resident’s specially trained dog accompany her inside.

After the incident, Ralston, who is partially deaf and said she travels everywhere with her dog, Bix, waited several weeks until she called Grey Law. After she did, attorney Deborah Sutherland fired off a letter to the doctor, discussing the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Suffering from an ear infection, Ralston was finally able to see one of the few ear, nose and throat specialists in the area who accepts Medi-Cal.

“Attorneys have a little more pull than the average citizen,” said Ralston, a retired receptionist. “They get in doors in which sometimes we can’t. I knew the law was on my side.”

Sylvia Scapa, a retired biochemist, first contacted Grey Law when she moved to Ojai from Atlanta a decade ago. After Scapa’s landlord in Georgia had sent a collection agency after her, claiming she owed him for carpet cleaning, Williams wrote a letter.

“And you know what? The thing stopped,” said Scapa, 85, who has used Grey Law’s services several times since. “I don’t have any money to pay for a lawyer. It was a terrific gift when I found out about Grey Law.”

Not everyone shares Scapa’s enthusiasm. Williams said one Ventura County senior became irate when Grey Law declined to represent him in a medical malpractice small-claims action. Lawyers cannot represent clients in small-claims court, Williams said.

Sutherland said not all Grey Law clients are pleased with the outcome of their cases.

“There have been people who had expectations we couldn’t meet,” Sutherland said.

And Grey Law has some enemies, Williams said.

“Collection agencies hate us and insurance agencies are not really fond of us,” Williams said. “We tell them to go pound sand, and we get away with it.”

Now in its 16th year, Grey Law moved last month from Valentine Road in Ventura to its new location on Maple Court near the San Buenaventura Mall.

The organization got its start in an old house on North Fir Street in Ventura in September, 1979. Doug Daily, one of five law students who founded the original Grey Law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles in January, 1979, decided to open a branch in Ventura County, where he grew up.

Over the years, Grey Law’s budget has climbed and dipped like a roller coaster. The organization lost one staff attorney to funding cuts in 1991. But Williams said that money from the state Department of Aging and from the federal Older Americans Act largely shields Grey Law from funding problems facing other nonprofit legal aid organizations.

Williams predicts Grey Law attorneys will continue to routinely visit about 15 senior centers in Ventura County, dispensing advice on social service programs and lending their legal muscle when necessary, for a long time to come.

“A lot of times, we don’t really do more than the consumer does,” said Linda Conner, Grey Law’s other staff attorney. “We just have better letterhead.”