One Great Idea: Wendy Beetlestone, Philadelphia Bar Foundation
Her one great idea: Locating all the city’s legal services for the needy in one building.
"My one great idea for Philadelphia is a civil justice center where all of the ... organizations that provide legal services to the needy are in one building.
"If you think about it, each one of these organizations has a separate IT structure, a separate HR function, separate conference rooms. Imagine the money that you can save. If you save that money, you can buy more lawyers, and therefore you can serve more clients.
"From ... simply the cost efficiency perspective, it's huge. But also imagine having all those truly amazing lawyers who right now serve in legal-services organizations in one place. The intellectual synergies that will occur there are amazing.
"Then you think about it from the perspective of the clients. Let's say you are a client—a woman who is just about to be kicked out of her house, whose husband is beating her, whose children have special education issues. Those are four separate issues that you have to deal with. Right now, you have to go to four separate organizations. If you have everyone in one place, it's so much better and so much more efficient."
Response to Last Week's Idea
Poll: Would you shop at an outdoor fashion market featuring local designers?
Yes. 72.3%
No. 27.7%
Ideas can be e-mailed to onegreatidea@phillynews.com
The Inquirer and Philly.com have launched a 45-week project to inspire Philadelphians to suggest great ideas for the city and region.
In our "One Great Idea" project, we're asking well-known and less-known people of our region to tell us their single great idea to change Philadelphia. These video interviews will run on Philly.com each Tuesday and The Inquirer's Wednesday commentary pages.
Post comments, vote on this idea, or share your one great idea at www.philly.com/OneGreatIdea, or write to inquirer.letters@phillynews.com