Pro Bono Summit 4/4/18 Presentation of Ongoing Pro Bono Projects Pro Bono Promise

Transcription

1 Pro Bono Summit 4/4/18 Presentation of Ongoing Pro Bono Projects May it please the court. My name is Laura Golden Liff and I am the representative for the VBA Young Lawyers Division on the VBA Pro Bono Council. Today I will be discussing four initiatives that were kicked off at the last Pro Bono Summit in 2016: (1) The VBA s Pro Bono Promise, (2) Justice Server 2.0, (3) FreeLegalAnswers.org and (4) the Greater Richmond Bar Foundation s Triage project. The strides made over the past two years are impressive. I. Pro Bono Promise The Pro Bono Promise, which was introduced as an idea at the last Summit, is simple on its face it asks private firms and corporate counsel for a written commitment to adhere to their ethical obligations of Rule 6.1 to dedicate 2% of their billable time to pro bono work, and to create the internal Firm structures to make this possible. A slightly modified Promise for Corporate Counsel has the same effect. To date, 53 leading law Firms and Corporate Counsel across Virginia have made the Promise. A list of the first 52 of the Founding Firms and Corporations are found in the Court s Report at Tab D 1. (The list was printed before the 53 rd firm signed the promise). The list includes many of the Commonwealth s largest law firms as well as regional and some very small firms, from Fairfax and Prince William Counties in the North to Richmond to Tidewater to Roanoke. Several of Virginia s largest corporations are also signatories. And this is just the beginning. The idea is simple, but the effect of this Promise is profound. The Promise itself is found at Tabs D 2 and 3 and includes a commitment to a written pro bono policy and the designation of a partner to oversee pro bono work by the firm. 1

2 Creating a written pro bono policy forces the Firm to address any internal structures that can be an obstacle to its members doing pro bono work and creates the structure for tracking and rewarding pro bono work. Designating a Pro Bono Partner ensures a point of contact for providers as well as for member of the Firm and creates ownership over the Firms efforts. The overall hope of the Promise is that it will serve as another brick in helping to create a culture of pro bono service in Virginia. One of the interesting side effects of the Promise is that it is a one-way street. Once a Firm commits to adhere to Rule 6.1 and once it creates written pro bono policies and mechanisms to track and reward pro bono efforts, it is never going to uncommit to them. This means that as the list of Founders grows, so does the number of Firms and Corporations in Virginia who have institutionalized pro bono as part of their Firm culture. At some point, we believe that we will hit a tipping point where any Firm that wants to be thought of as a top tier firm in its area will understand that it needs to encourage its members to comply with Rule 6.1. The Founders list has additional benefits. The Founders can become points of contact to push cases to the programs I will be discussing today Firms in Service, Justice Server, Free Legal Answers and Triage and be a resource to law school and bar association pro bono initiatives. The leadership of the Court in authorizing voluntary pro bono reporting dovetails well with this initiative. The 53 Firms and Corporations that have already signed the Promise have committed to procedures to track pro bono hours separately from billable hours. As more Firms and companies sign on, the number of Firms with a formal process for voluntary reporting will only increase. 2

3 In recent months, the number of small firms that have signed the Promise has begun to increase. This is important because most lawyers in Virginia practice in smaller firms and formalizing pro bono efforts within this group is essential to growing a pro bono culture throughout the bar. The Virginia Trial Lawyers Association has committed to focus on pro bono efforts in the coming years and a number of its members are among the most recent signatories. As VTLA develops its pro bono initiatives, we are confident many more members will sign up. The great insight of Firms in Service that adversaries in the law are united by the common goal of equal justice for all applies with equal measure to the Firms bound by the Promise. In the coming two years, the Pro Bono Council will focus on both expanding the number and diversity of Firms and Corporations on the Founder s list. More importantly, we will begin to leverage membership on the list to increase visibility, service and collaboration between private firms on pro bono initiatives. II. Justice Server 2.0 A. What is JusticeServer? i. Justice server is a cloud based legal case management system built on a Salesforce platform that manages legal aid cases and connects these cases to volunteer attorneys, law students and paralegals in a secure Portal. ii. Legal service providers can expand their capacity to serve low income clients by creating a virtual firm of volunteer attorneys trained to handle cases in critical areas like family law, housing, domestic violence and bankruptcy. iii. Volunteer attorneys can connect to cases and useful resources with a few clicks from their computer or even their phones. 3

4 B. Quick History i. The Core Team of Central Virginia Legal Aid (CVLAS), Greater Richmond Bar Foundation (GRBF) and Legal Aid Justice Center (LAJC), launched JUSTICESERVER in Central Virginia in 2012 with funding from Virginia Law Foundation, Capital One, Dominion and Firms In Service Richmond. ii. In 2014, the project captured national attention and demand for export. Thus, through competitive grant processes, the Core Team secured major grants from Legal Services Corporation, the Salesforce Foundation's Force for Change and again the Virginia Law Foundation for the creation of JusticeServer 2.0. iii. In 2017, JusticeServer 2.0 launched in central Virginia with new User capabilities, including dynamic mapping of pro bono needs, subscription options for volunteers and improved design. iv. Currently, JusticeServer 2.0 is in its final development to bridge the system to all legal aids interested in accessing the statewide portal at to add clinic scheduling and pro bono coordinator functions. The projected completion September C. How it has changed the pro bono service arena? i. JusticeServer has connected hundreds more volunteers to the legal aid entities in central Virginia (over 1000 registered). ii. JusticeServer has cleared backlogs of cases in central Virginia and connected tens of thousands of low income people to pro bono attorneys. iii. The system has expanded the law school clinic capacity at UVA and University of Richmond Law's Carrico Center by creating a space for private attorneys and law students to work the case together and have supervisors check in on the case progress. 4

5 iv. JusticeServer utilizes the reporting capabilities of the Salesforce system to give legal aid easy snapshots of critical needs, case statuses, case closings and clients served. v. Increased efficiency of staff and volunteers means more people served. D. Next Steps i. Completion of Phase 2 in Virginia for complete statewide system. ii. Export product to other states for use. iii. Best Practices and technology improvements will be shared among states through the product management of TECHBRIDGE, a nonprofit organization with a mission to empower nonprofits with technology for tackling the root causes of poverty. III. Free Legal Answers.org Virginia Free Legal Answers (Virginia.freelegalanswers.org) is part of an initiative undertaken by the ABA Pro Bono Committee to build and maintain a fifty-state interactive website to provide online pro bono assistance to low-income citizens. The Virginia State Bar special committee on Access to Legal Services spearheaded the adoption of the website here in Virginia and our state s site officially launched on August 22, To be eligible for assistance through the website, client users must have a household income of less than 250% of the federal poverty level and may not have liquid assets exceeding $10,000 in value (this includes checking and savings account balances, as well as the value of any stocks or bonds). The legal aid income limit is 125% of the federal poverty level so this online service is unique in that it is providing pro bono legal assistance to modest-means individuals who are above legal aid s income guidelines but are still unable to afford an attorney. If a client is ineligible, the site does have a page directing the general public to other 5

6 resources (for example, the court system s self-help page and valegalaid.org which offers a wide variety of legal information on various civil legal topics). Eligible client users post a request for legal advice on the site and licensed Virginia lawyers review the questions and are free to select and respond based on applicable Virginia and/or federal law. If an attorney chooses to respond, they are asked to post a reply within one to three days of accepting the question or by the legal deadline indicated by the client, whichever is sooner. The client can followup with an attorney on each question as many times as the attorney and client choose to do so, but the attorney can direct the client to post a new question if the follow up inquiry is determined by the lawyer to be beyond the scope of the original post. Users are limited to three civil questions per year; criminal questions are not eligible for the site. In addition to being an accessible resource for Virginian s low-income population at a time when the demand and need for online services is ever increasing, the site is also an easy and convenient way for Virginia attorneys to perform pro bono service. Attorneys can log in, review, and answer questions day or night, from anywhere with a secure internet connection. For this reason the service is colloquially referred to as arm chair pro bono, or pro bono in your slippers. Attorneys are in control; they pick the questions they feel comfortable answering. Volunteer lawyers can designate specific legal categories of interest which results in an notification sent to their inbox when a relevant legal question is posted. There is no need for lawyers to anticipate their availability since they get to choose when to log in and engage in service. They also do not have to fear getting locked into a long-term commitment because the client and attorney agree up front to a limited-scope engagement, which specifically excludes representation in court. 6

7 Virginia Free Legal Answers is not a substitute for full representation by a lawyer, but it is increasing the availability of legal resources and legal information to low-income Virginians by providing users with convenient, 24 hours a day, 365 days per year access to lawyers who can answer their legal questions. As of March 29, 2018, there are 1041 eligible client users on the site and 282 registered attorneys signed up to answer their legal questions. The Virginia Free Legal Answers volunteer attorneys have answered 872 of 923 questions asked, which represents a 94% attorney response rate. Given this impressive level of volunteer engagement, Virginia is consistently ranked as having the highest or second highest attorney response rate in the country. As of last week, Virginia Free Legal Answers attorneys have provided an estimated 300 hours of pro bono service through the site. 23 distinguished attorneys have answered more than ten questions, and four extraordinary volunteers have answered more than 50 questions on the site. With renewed promotional, recruiting, and training initiatives, we have every reason to believe the interest in and use of this online resource will continue to grow and serve additional low-income Virginians. IV. GRBF Triage projects In 1964, with the creation of the federal Office of Economic Opportunity, Congress dedicated some funds to provide professional lawyers to aid impoverished people with their civil legal needs. The president of the American Bar Association at the time, future U. S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr. was a driving forces behind the initiative, noting that the pro bono investment of the private bar was also an imperative to make civil justice work. Justice Powell famously observed that while the quality of American lawyers was formidable, the 7

8 distribution of private legal services was spotty if one could not pay. The OEC started smoothing this societal weakness. In 1974, Congress authorized the Legal Services Corporation, and public funding of civil legal aid expanded. With the gradual disinvestment in LSC funding since the 1980 s, however, the justice gap has arisen, with a growing number of Americans being unable to pay for the high cost of private counsel. Because of the recent economic recession and more years of budget reductions, studies confirm that by 2013, 80% of the civil legal needs of the poor were unmet. With its caseload up, and staffing down, LSC-funded Legal Aid agencies have been forced to restrict client intake, and provide more advice-andreferral work than actual attorney representation. This has resulted in a dramatic rise in self-represented litigants, and a decline in the quality of legal outcomes for those unable to pay for retained lawyers. Staffing reduction at Legal Aid meant limitations on the ability of those agencies to reach and train pro bono lawyers. As a consequence, many regions have experienced challenges to the process of preparing pro bono attorneys to affiliate. In 2017, the Greater Richmond Bar Foundation began planning for a new public / private paradigm. Along with the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society and Legal Aid Justice Center, the GRBF worked to organize pro bono lawyers to manage in the private sector ten areas of legal services for low income clients. These are practice areas such as consumer auto disputes, bankruptcy matters, and wage and social security claims matters sufficiently infrequent to make them non-core at Legal Aid (compared to the family law, public benefits and other more central services.) This new project came to be known as Triage. The goal of the Triage effort is to widen the front door of Legal Aid by building a ring of private legal assistance behind Legal Aid. In order for the overall resources of Legal Aid to expand, the private sector has to supply, manage, 8

9 and own the provision of these second-ring services. Triage is thus a management system to provide to all the lawyers who have a mandate under Rule 6.1 to provide pro bono services and that is ALL PRACTICING LAWYERS with a comprehensive, local organizational structure within which to do so. The Triage pilot will be perfected in Central Virginia in the next two years, with the hope in time to expand it statewide thereafter. 9