Lawscape

I posted to my blog today, for the first time in years. Humor me. Poke around a bit, please.

We are in the summer slowdown, that time of the year when vacations abound and those of us still in the office get moments to look inward.

In the spring of 1997, I began work as the director of the State Bar’s Pro Bono Project. I was fretting over all the newness and strangeness of that job, of what it was or what it seemed, and which included serving as the staff liaison to what was then the Bar’s Civil Legal Aid Committee (now the Access to Justice Committee). Helping promote volunteerism among lawyers, especially OTP (“outside the perimeter”), to support access to civil justice for Georgians with low-incomes was new to me in job duties, but a clear and dear and obvious “yes” to me in philosophy.

About a month after setting up office at the State Bar, I traveled to St. Louis, MO to attend the American Bar Association Pro Bono Conference. It was the pre-Internet age, so of course to find out my “why” and “how” in this new pro bono position, I had to go to where pro bono people go, and that’s a pro bono conference.

I found my “why” and “how” and I found a life there, one larger than I could have hoped for. I found some larger-than-life mentors, too. And it all happened over chips and wine in a vast and empty meeting room at the Adams Mark hotel in downtown St. Louis.

Pre-chips and wine, I ran into fellow Georgia Bar member Guy Lescault at the conference. Guy is now the ED of the Alabama Legal Services Program. I knew Guy for a brief period before I moved to Atlanta from small-town Tifton, Georgia to take my new job. He ushered- or maybe lured- me into a meeting with some other conference attendees, 9 in all. As we passed the chips and the wine bottles (smuggled into the meeting room after conference attendees turned out the lights), Guy (then at NLADA) and Steve Scudder, an ABA Legal Services Division counsel, articulated the magical agenda and introduced me to some people who changed my life and thinking.

I was given an ultimatum, of sorts: Don’t be a director of pro bono. Use that state platform to promote access to civil justice.

I sat and listened. Mary, Joan, Julie, Nancy, and MaryAnn were enthusiastic and so persuasive. These women were at the forefront of the nascent access to justice movement. Now, years later, it’s a thing and known as the national Access to Justice Chairs with meetings of about 200 justice leaders. But back in 1997, it was just us with chips and smuggled wine, “Bar crap” politics and stories, and ideas and energy. And a Yahoo Group where Mary, Joan, Julie, Nancy, MaryAnn, Monte and I kevetched, brainstormed and passed serious and lighthearted notes about building justice communities in the early days of the Internet. Monte, my counterpart from Louisiana and a newbie as well, was also ushered into that chips and wine meeting.

We called ourselves the “Yahoo 7.” Guy and Steve could not be in the “7.” We were too dangerous, well, maybe only justice naughty.

Nancy Kleeman- that Nancy – was my counterpart at the Minnesota Bar Association. She became my mentor.

Some of us 7 are still around and are retired, in a second act or, like me, looking to pass the baton.

Lawyers for Equal Justice is a nominee for the 2017 Louis M. Brown Award and is also in the running for Brown Select (which will be presented to the Brown Award nominee that gets the most votes from the general public).

VOTING IS NOW OPEN.  Voting closes at noon CST, January 10th, 2017. We hope that you will vote, as well as encourage others to take a look at the nominees and vote for us.

You can access the Brown Select site here: http://www.americanbar.org/groups/delivery_legal_services/initiatives_awards/louis_m_brown_award_for_legal_access/2017-brown-select.html

Professor Clark Cunningham,  Professor and W. Lee Burge Chair of Law and Ethics at the Georgia State University College of Law, outlines in the current edition of the Georgia Bar Journal the new law student practice rule recently published by the Supreme Court of Georgia and the Georgia Office of Bar admissions.

Cunningham’s summary of the new practice rules is laid out here:

An entirely new student practice rule was adopted by the Georgia Supreme Court effective August 15, 2015 after a five year review process. Major changes: (1) Students are eligible after the completion of the first year of law school; (2) Client eligibility is changed from indigency to “unable financially to pay” for legal services and non-profit organizations can also be represented if their purpose “is to assist low or moderate income persons” (3) Student practice can be supervised by any member of the State Bar, thus opening up the possibility of student practice in the setting of law firm pro bono work; and (4) While the old rule only referred to “assist[ing]in proceedings” and required authorization by “the court where such authority is to be exercised” the new rule authorizes students to “advise, prepare legal instruments, appear before courts and administrative agencies and otherwise take action” on behalf of an eligible client and authorization is provided through registration with the Office of Bar Admissions.

You can read a complete analysis of the new law student practice rules here.

A few days ago, the ABA Commission on the Future of Legal Services, fresh from a major step forward in getting House of Delegates approval for their Model Regulatory Objectives, issued for comment a draft Issues Paper Concerning Legal Checkups. While, it is important to note that this is NOT ABA policy, merely a draft […]

via ABA Commission Paper on Legal Check-Ups Could Offer Opportunity to Integrate Private Providers Into ATJ Triage Movement — Richard Zorza’s Access to Justice Blog

https://player.vimeo.com/video/160391416

LSC 2016 PBI Conference – Innovations in Legal Services from Legal Services Corporation on Vimeo. In this video, Pro Bono Innovation Grants from the Legal Services Corporation are discussed in depth. The panel, Innovations in Legal Services, took place at the Pro Bono Institute’s annual conference on March 24, 2016. LSC President Jim Sandman was […]

via Pro Bono Innovation Grants from the Legal Services Corporation — ABA Center for Pro Bono Exchange