His distressed client pleaded guilty as charged, and is now serving 10 years in the Washington state prison system.

Mr. Gore dismissed this matter too, saying voters did not care what clients his advisers had served in the past.

The clients served are at or below 125 percent of the federal poverty level threshold, an income of $27,938 a year for a family of four.

"Mainstream agencies whose clients serve the general population are not likely to jump on the bandwagon."

Under the old system, with one-on-one shifts over a 12-hour day, the clients Ms. Griffin now serves typically cost the state about $44,000 a year.

The more clients served, the faster the law firm grows.

In client-server technology, individual users, or clients, are "served" over a network by a central machine that acts as a common repository of information and programs.

"The state money is literally the lifeline to keep our offices running and our clients served."

Defense lawyers have some influence over where their clients serve prison time, legal experts said.

It is not a full-featured music player program such as Amarok, but its clients can serve such role.