Bar Reporter
Pro Bono Practice Committee
September 2006
Deborah H. O’Shea, Program Coordinator

In 2005, the OCBA Volunteer Lawyer Project attorneys provided a total of 950 hours of free legal services to the poor in our community. A total of 1,920 people were helped who urgently needed to obtain legal assistance, but lacked the financial resources to obtain it.

In a breakdown of programs; our twenty Tel-Law attorney volunteers dedicated more than 100 hours of their valuable time to answer legal questions from 530 callers and then made appropriate referrals. In Landlord Tenant Court our 31 attorney volunteers worked with 638 clients who were facing summary convictions, so they hopefully might remain in their residence for a longer period of time. In the three Neighborhood Talk to a Lawyer program sites 30 attorneys gave more than 260 hours of time, one evening a week, and sorted out the questions and legal matter problems of walk-ins. These sites are targeted to reach the poor and allow them to meet on-on-one with an attorney. The OCBA Pro Se Divorce Clinic works to address the unmet need of those people who wish to seek an uncontested divorce and have who have no assets. In 2005 124 clients qualified from the intake and financial screening process, to be admitted into one of the three pro se divorce clinic sessions that are held each year. Eight attorneys, assisted by 18 Legal Assistants, and SU College of Law students, provided the educational sessions which outlined for the client the paperwork procedures for the filing and serving of their divorce papers. Add to this impact, the Elder Law Fair, which reached and educated 411 people in 2005. This major collaborative event, takes six months of development time, and has become a firmly established offering to seniors. It is held at the NYS Fair Grounds. New to 2005 was an Unemployment Insurance Benefit program initiated by Blitman & King, LLP and Hiscock LAS.

The Pro Bono Practice Committee is justifiably proud of these core projects. To further enhance the volunteer support to these programs, the Recruitment Sub-Committee of the VLP had a 2005 goal to recruit law firms to adopt specific OCBA VLP projects. Integral to the recruitment process was a law firm training program for Landlord Tenant Court. With revised intake, defenses and procedures as well as OCBA staff support, attorney volunteers could comfortably undertake a new professional experience. In 2005, the culmination of the collaborative efforts between the Committee and the SU College of Law and the Volunteer Lawyer Project saw the hiring of a SU Law student as a Research Assistant to the program. The Long Range Planning Committee has used all the 2005 evaluation statistics, plus the new recruitment process and the new training procedures, to look to establishing future programs.

These enumerated Volunteer Lawyer Project programs and the number of volunteer attorney hours committed, is a true testimony to the private bar and its support of their mission to inspire excellence in the legal profession. The dedication and the vision of the Pro Bono Practice Committee, the OCBA members and the volunteer attorneys, to connect with the problems of the poor, should be roundly congratulated.