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Legal office to reduce retiree services

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Larry W. Carpenter Jr.
  • 92nd Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
FAIRCHILD AIR FORCE BASE, Wash. --  The 92nd Air Refueling Wing legal office has temporarily reduced the legal services provided to the retiree community at Fairchild.

Through Program Budget Decision 720 and operational deployments, legal office manning has been reduced by more than 50 percent. To compensate, legal assistance and will services are now offered to active-duty deployers only.

"Not only do we have paralegals deployed but we also have attorneys deployed ... so we're short on the lawyer and paralegal manning situation in the office," said Tech. Sgt. Ronnie Flores, 92nd ARW NCOIC of legal assistance and preventive law.

According to Air Force Instruction 51-504, which outlines who's entitled to legal assistance, retirees fall into a non-mission related legal service category, and therefore efforts and resources had to be directed toward the active-duty force.

"Active-duty dependents fall into the non-mission related category, but we're still providing services to them because a lot of their services and consultations are in direct support of the member," said Sergeant Flores.

Although some of the services have been temporarily suspended for retirees, there are still notary services available Monday thru Friday, and power-of-attorney services for general and special powers of attorney. The only type of power of attorney that will be unavailable is the durable power of attorney for health care, which goes into affect once a person becomes incapacitated.

Another service provided by the legal office is tax assistance. Sergeant Flores will be spearheading the base tax program this year, which provides tax assistance to the members of Team Fairchild. The tax assistance program should begin toward the end of January and will be available to retirees requiring simple returns.

The legal office plans to reinstate services once manning levels increase.

"We're projecting to resume the services next year; we just don't have a timeframe in mind yet," said Sergeant Flores. "We have to get our manning numbers back up to support it."

In the meantime, retirees needing legal support have a few options. Those with internet access can go to the Washington State Bar Association at www.wsba.org which acts like a directory service that can help link them to a paid attorney to meet their specific needs. The site will provide a list of current attorneys who are barred in the State of Washington.

The legal offices also suggests going by word of mouth - asking others what lawyers in the area have provided good service - and building a list of possible lawyers and calling them personally to ask what kind of services they offer, how long they have been practicing and how much they charge.

"It's important to ask the right questions, such as if there is a free consultation," said Sergeant Flores. "Some attorneys will have a free initial consultation and maybe they can take advantage of that."

Everyone at the legal office is doing their best to get the mission accomplished while their counterparts assist in the war effort and look forward to being able to offer the temporarily suspended services to the retired members of Team Fairchild as soon as possible.