Legal Aid Society of Cleveland loses AT&T phone service, claims critical cases jeopardized

CLEVELAND - For more than six days numerous phone lines at the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland have been unusually quite.

Legal Aid is an agency that helps thousands of people who can't afford an attorney every year. But last week, Legal Aid reports its AT&T phone service was suddenly interrupted on Dec. 14.

Legal Aid depends on its phone lines to take in hundreds of calls and dozens of new cases every week, however attorneys claim without direct phone service, critical case work is in jeopardy.

"We're trying to prevent foreclosures, prevent wrongful evictions, and help domestic violence victims," said Legal Aid Executive Director Colleen Cotter. "Our staff has been using their cell phones."

NewsChannel5 contacted AT&T headquarters about the Legal Aid phone service problems on Monday.

AT&T reports the problem was caused by a "change in billing status," and that phone service was partially restored on Friday after all calls were forwarded to another Legal Aid phone system.

However, Legal Aid claims forwarding hundreds of phone calls to a secondary system with just four lines has caused a flood of calls to back-up at their agency. 

"They're rolling calls into an office that has four lines, we can't even do intake on that line, said supervising attorney Margaret Terry. "It ties-up the lines, and attorneys can't get out."

Legal Aid claims the problems were caused when it received a bill form AT&T that wasn't theirs. Legal Aid reports AT&T admitted the billing error, and sent in a termination notice on that account.

However, Legal Aid Executive Director Colleen Cotter claims AT&T also sent in a termination notice for Legal Aid's entire phone system.

"We're current on our bills, we didn't ask for our phone system to be terminated," said Cotter. "They just terminated it, it should be something that is pretty easy to fix.

But AT&T reports it is not an easy repair, in some cases it's a re-assembly that can take weeks.  

AT&T responded by telling NewsChannel5 its team is hoping to have complete phone services restored to Legal Aid of Cleveland on Wednesday.

AT&T issued the following statement to the 5 On Your Side Troubleshooter Unit at 3:45:

"It is extremely important to us that our customers have a good experience, and we regret the difficulty this situation has created for Legal Aid's Cleveland office."

"We have put a dedicated team in place that is entirely focused on restoring service for Legal Aid, and doing so as immediately as possible."

"The restore work is well underway and we expect it to be completed today." "Reassembling Legal Aid's package of services is a complex process but it's being expedited as much as humanly possible."

The NewsChannel5 Troubleshooter unit will keep you updated.

Meanwhile, residents like Tamblyn Stanley, who rely on Legal Aid's free services, were forced to visit the offices in-person.

"You can't call and talk to anybody to find out," said Stanley. "You have to understand the needs of the public, it's not just about business or making money, if there is something you need to do to make the phone service better, then you should do it."