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Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
 
1998 FOIA REPORT

The Legal Services Corporation ("LSC" or "Corporation") was established as a private nonmembership nonprofit corporation by the Legal Services Corporation Act, Pub. L. 93-355 (1974), as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 2996 et seq. Section 2996(g) of Title 42 provides that the Corporation is subject to the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA"), 5 U.S.C. §; 552. This report is submitted pursuant to FOIA and relates the Corporation's FOIA activities from October 1, 1997 through September 30, 1998. See, 5 U.S.C. § 552, as amended. This report conforms to the "content outline" format set out in the Summer 1997 "Guidelines for Agency Preparation and Submission of Annual FOIA Reports' published by the United States Department of Justice, Office of Information and Privacy.

I.  Basic Information Regarding Report:
  A.  The people who are available to discuss this report are:

S. Nikki Adaway, FOIA Administrator
Legal Services Corporation
Washington, D.C. 20002-4250 (phone: 202.336.8922); or

Lane H. Nemirow, Attorney
Legal Services Corporation
750 1st St., NE, 11th Floor
Washington, D.C. 20002-4250 (phone: 202.336.8829)

  B.  These reports can be accessed from the Sidebar on this page.
  C.  A copy of this report may be obtained in paper form by mailing a request for "LSC's 1998 Annual FOIA Report" to:

S. Nikki Adaway, FOIA Administrator
Legal Services Corporation
750 1st St., NE, 11th Floor
Washington, D.C. 20002-4250

II.  How to Make a FOIA Request:
  45 CFR Part 1602 prescribes the procedures by which records of LSC are made available pursuant to FOIA. The LSC electronic/HTML link for LSC regulations concerning LSC's FOIA procedures is located at pressr/regulati/1602fin.htm#r.
  A.  FOIA requests are received by:

S. Nikki Adaway, FOIA Administrator
Legal Services Corporation
750 1st St., NE, 11th Floor
Washington, D.C. 20002-4250

  B.  The response time for FOIA requestes ranged from 5 to 20 business days.
  C.  A certain portion of requests were only partially granted because the material requested was statutorily exempt from disclosure or because the requester inadequately identified requested material.
III.  Definitions and Terms and Acronyms Used in the Report:
  As noted above, "LSC" or "Corporation" refers to the Legal Services Corporation.
IV.  Exemption 3 Statutes:
  A.  LSC has withheld information from FOIA requesters based on: Exemption 4 (Trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confidential); Exemption 5 (Deliberative process privilege and attorney work-product); and, Exemption 6 (Privacy exemption).
    1.  Information submitted by prospective grantees during the competitive grant process for funding which, if disclosed, would cause substantial harm to the competitive position of the provider has generally been withheld in accordance with Exemption 4. A limited amount of information generated by LSC attorneys in anticipation of litigation has been withheld in accordance with Exemption 5. Personal information such as names, social security numbers, home addresses and phone numbers has been withheld in accordance with Exemption 6.
    2.  None of LSC's decisions to withhold documents have been the subject of litigation during the 1998 fiscal year.
V.  Initial FOIA/PA Access Requests:
  A.  LSC received 78 initial requests.
    1.  There were no requests pending as of the end of the 1997 fiscal year.
    2.  LSC received 78 requests during the 1998 fiscal year.
    3.  LSC processed 71 requests during the 1998 fiscal year.
    4.  There was one request pending at the end of the current fiscal year.
  B.  Disposition of initial requests.
    1.  Total number of grants: 11
    2.  Total number of partial grants: 40
    3.  Total number of denials: 2
      a.  number of times each FOIA exemption was used:
        (1)  Exemption 1: 0
        (2)  Exemption 2: 0
        (3)  Exemption 3: 0
        (4)  Exemption 4: 27
        (5)  Exemption 5: 15
        (6)  Exemption 6: 0
        (7)  Exemption 7(A): 0
        (8)  Exemption 7(B): 0
        (9)  Exemption 7(C): 0
        (10)  Exemption 7(D): 0
        (11)  Exemption 7(E): 0
        (12)  Exemption 7(F): 0
        (13)  Exemption 8: 0
        (14)  Exemption 9: 0
    4.  Other reasons for nondisclosure (total) 25
      a.  no records: 19
      b.  referral: 0
      c.  request withdrawn: 2
      d.  fee-related reason: 0
      e.  records not reasonably described: 0
      f.  not a proper FOIA request for some other reason: 0
      g.  not an agency record: 4
      h.  duplicate request: 0
      i.  other (specify): 0
VI.  Appeals of Initial Denials of FOIA/PA Requests:
  A.  Number of appeals: 2
    1.  Number of appeals received during the fiscal year: 2
    2.  Number of appeals processed during the fiscal year: 2
  B.  Disposition of Appeals.
    1.  Number completely upheld: 1
    2.  Number partially reversed: 0
    3.  Number completely reversed: 1
      a.  number of times each FOIA exemption was used (counting each exemption once per appeal)
        (1)  Exemption 1: 0
        (2)  Exemption 2: 0
        (3)  Exemption 3: 0
        (4)  Exemption 4: 0
        (5)  Exemption 5: 1
        (6)  Exemption 6: 0
        (7)  Exemption 7(A): 0
        (8)  Exemption 7(B): 0
        (9)  Exemption 7(C): 0
        (10)  Exemption 7(D): 0
        (11)  Exemption 7(E): 0
        (12)  Exemption 7(F): 0
        (13)  Exemption 8: 0
        (14)  Exemption 9: 0
    4.  Other reasons for nondisclosure (total): 0
      a.  no records: 0
      b.  referrals: 0
      c.  request withdrawn: 0
      d.  fee-related reason: 0
      e.  records not reasonably described: 0
      f.  not a proper FOIA request for some other reason: 0
      g.  not an agency record: 4
      h.  duplicate request: 0
      i.  other (specify): 0
VII.  Compliance with Time Limits/ Status of Pending Requests:
  A.  Median processing time for requests processed during the year is 11 business days. Due to the small volume of requests received by the Corporation, a multi-track processing system has not been implemented.
  B.  Status of Pending Requests
    1.  One request was pending at of the end of the 1998 fiscal year
    2.  The request was pending for 3 business days and a final response was issued on October 6, 1998.
VIII.  Comparisons with Previous Year(s):
  This optional section has been omitted due to changes in LSC record keeping and staff.
IX.  Costs/FOIA Staffing:
  A.  Staffing levels.
    1.  Number of full-time FOIA personnel: 1
    2.  Number of personnel with part-time or occasional FOIA duties: 3
    3.  Total number of LSC personnel: 4
  B.  Total costs (including staff and all resources).
    1.  FOIA processing (including appeals): $36,348 Please note that due to changes in LSC record keeping and staff the FOIA processing cost is an estimated figure.
    2.  Litigation related activities (estimates): $0.0
    3.  Total costs: $36,348
    4.  Comparison with previous years. This optional section has been omitted due to changes in LSC record keeping and staff.
  C.  Statement of additional resources needed for FOIA compliance. This optional section has been omitted due to changes in LSC record keeping and staff.
X.  Fees:
  A.  Total amount of fees collected by LSC for processing FOIA requests during the 1998 fiscal year: $396.31
  B.  Percentage of total cost: 1% XI. FOIA Regulations (Including Fee Schedule): pressr/regulati/1602fin.htm#f.

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