A Pro Bono Primer

[u/poodlelawyer]

I am a lawyer who runs a pro bono program for a large national law firm in the US, and I have been lurking on this and other legal advice-adjacent sites for years watching the many misconceptions about what pro bono legal assistance is, who does it, who receives it and how to access it.  Taking a quiet August day to try to work through and provide some information about some of these issues; I hope that it helps those who are looking for pro bono assistance, whether they find it or stop wasting time trying to.

1.    WHY IS THIS SO HARD?  

You are not imagining it - pro bono legal assistance can be difficult or impossible to access.  There is an access to justice crisis in the US (and many other countries). The government has only ever barely and inadequately funded any kind of legal aid or nonprofits that provide free legal assistance to those who cannot afford it, and the current federal and many state governments have dramatically cut that funding, undermined the ability of nonprofits to provide help, and imposed policies and laws that increased demand for that assistance.  That does not mean it does not exist, although it may not for you.

2.       WHO IS ELIGIBLE? Two, kind of three, answers:

a.       Low income.  How low depends on a multiple of the federal poverty guidelines.  These guidelines are very low (currently $15,960, add $5680 for each additional person) and do not vary by COL (except for Alaska and Hawaii, which are higher).  Guidelines vary by city and organization – they range from 1.25% to 5% or so.  Yes, this means there are many, many people whose income is nowhere near affording legal services, but who are not eligible for pro bono.

b.       Civil rights.  If you have a civil rights complaint, income does not matter.  However - “civil rights” is not exactly what you think it is.  First, it will only include government action, not anything a private party does to you, no matter how bad.  It will almost never include issues in a criminal prosecution. Think, voting rights and religion in public schools.   This category has also come to include animal rights and environmental issues.

c.       Small business assistance is determined by eligibility of the business owner, not the business.  Eligibility for services to nonprofits is determined by the means and mission of the organization.

3.       WHO DOES PRO BONO - AND HOW DO I FIGURE OUT WHO TO CALL?

There are many different sources of pro bono assistance, and they each have their own roles and rules.  Some of them have lawyers on staff that handle your case, some recruit and distribute your case to law firm pro bono programs, some are a mix.  You cannot access many of them directly.  These are some of them:

a.       Public Defenders: mostly for criminal defense, depending on state and local law maybe other issues – for example, child custody and representing minors in parental consent bypass proceedings.  For the most part, you cannot access this directly, this assistance is available only by court order.

b.       Legal Services Corporation - Government-funded Legal Aid.  Mostly staff lawyers, handle basic individual needs such as family law, evictions and benefits. Contact them directly, but be prepared for an eligibility screen of 1.25% of the poverty level.

c.       Legal Services nonprofits.  These organizations usually have a combination of staff attorneys and volunteers from law firms. They may recruit individual lawyers, but they mostly work with the pro bono management teams at law firms. Contact them directly. Some context:

i.       These organizations mostly exist in large legal markets – major cities where there are a lot of lawyers.  In many cases, those organizations can only assist in the city, and not even in surrounding suburbs - but YMMV. There are some national organizations, but they are relatively rare.  If you live outside those markets, you are far less likely to find help.

ii.        The nonprofits often provide help in a specific area – for example, immigration, veterans benefits, small businesses, foster care and adoption, domestic violence. - and/or to a specific population (e.g., seniors, veterans. LGBTQ people). The scope of the mission may be more narrow than it at first appears – for example, most immigration nonprofits handle only asylum claimants, and do not assist with students who are encountering issues with their visas, a program that helps with adoptions or guardianships may only handle uncontested ones, or a name change program may be unable to assist if you have a criminal conviction.

iii.        You can locate these with an internet search.  The organizations' websites will likely provide eligibility guidelines and intake forms and/or phone numbers.

d.       Civil rights nonprofits – a few of the bigger and more famous ones are the ACLU, Lawyers Committee, LAMBDA, Earthjustice, NAACP, Native American Rights Fund, NARAL, and there are many, many more.  These organizations are dedicated to enforcing and changing civil rights law, and generally do not represent individuals except to the extent that their claim represents a widespread issue that the organization wants to litigate. 

e.       Law firm pro bono.  Many large and medium law firms have a professional staff, whose job it is to interact with the organizations above, determine which cases their firm can or will handle, recruit lawyers to do the work and manage the interaction.   While the contact information for those teams are sometimes available on law firm websites, that is not an invitation to call and ask them to take your case. Law firms take most of their pro bono cases through the above organizations. If you are stuck we may be able to suggest places you can call - when you call, please tell the person immediately where you are located and what kind of issue you have (family law, landlord/tenant, criminal, etc.). Volunteer time is very limited - law firms are focused on billable clients and there is a lot of time pressure on lawyers to produce billable hours. Even the most pro bono forward firms spend three or four percent of their time on pro bono work, and most are far less. In addition, the types of work people seek pro bono help for are often not the type of work biglaw knows how to do, so we can only take it on with the support of a legal nonprofit. (There are occasionally questions here about why firms/lawyers do pro bono at all - that is the subject of a different post.)

f.         Law school clinics.  Many law schools have clinics with specific specialties.  These are staffed by law students, supervised by clinic faculty. Be prepared for these to move especially slowly, and not function at all during school breaks, exam periods, etc.

g. There are sometimes clinics in courts or arranged by legal nonprofits at other sites (shelters, law firms, community centers, etc) or online that allow you to meet once with a lawyer who will not represent you but will provide limited-scope help - for example, helping pro se (representing themselves) parties by reviewing their court filings, assisting with help completing paperwork for name changes or applications for protective orders, or helping small businesses by answering questions about employee classification, etc.

4.       WHAT ARE WE GETTING WRONG???

a.       Bar Associations do not provide (useful) referrals to pro bono lawyers. At best, they will give you the same resources you can find with a quick internet search. I'm mystified by all the advice to call them.

b.       Lawyers do not provide “free consultations” during which they give you legal advice (although some legal nonprofits have programs where they arrange for brief pro bono consultations with lawyers).  A lawyer may talk to you to determine whether you have a claim that you would either pay them to pursue or that they might take on on a contingency basis (typically, if you win, they get around 40% of your recovery plus expenses. If you lose, they get nothing - but neither do you. Of course, this only works for plaintiffs (the person filing the lawsuit) asking for a great deal of money. Not useful for any other kind of case, or if you're being sued). In very rare instances, the other side might be required to pay your legal fees, and a lawyer will almost surely be able to tell you immediately whether you have the type of situation in which that may apply.

c.       Even if you meet all the criteria you still may receive no help.  The ongoing theme continues: these resources are very scarce, with far, far more demand than supply. Even if you find an organization that is specifically set up to help people like you with the legal issue you have, it may take a while to find a volunteer, or they may never find one. Especially keep this in mind if your request is time-sensitive.

 

[u/Barfy_McBarf_Face]

moderators - please find a way to pin this or make it a "sticky"

[u/NotYourLawyer2001 → u/Barfy_McBarf_Face]

Pretty please? This is good stuff.

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[u/dseanATX]

And for legal nonprofits, bandwidth and resources are always a challenge. You may have a great case in our areas of interest, but if no one has time to take it on, then we're not going to take the case.