Dear Members of
the Onondaga County Bar Association:
In conjunction
with my Co-Chair, Bob Smith, I write to you
in my capacity as Co-Chair of the Fifth
Judicial District Pro Bono Action Now
program, whose goal is to increase Pro Bono
legal services for poor people throughout
the district through the cooperative efforts
of judges, lawyers, bar associations and
legal services providers.
While all of
your Pro Bono efforts are a tribute to and
honors our profession, our Program has set
criteria for what it considers to be Pro
Bono in that we want to increase civil
legal services to low-income clients.
In addition to the personal satisfaction one
can gain from providing Pro Bono services,
our Program is able to provide 1 CLE credit
for every 5 hours of Pro Bono you perform so
long as there was some income screening and
the client(s) qualifies for our Program.
[Linked below]
is a brief survey from our Program. We
need to know what Pro Bono you may have
contributed since April, 2006. I also
ask for your input to assist us in
developing our Program. Please take a
few moments to complete the survey. I
would really appreciate your cooperation in
communicating with the Program staff via
email, as it helps us keep our
administrative costs low and increases the
efficient use of staff time.
We ask that you
email the completed survey to us, using the
"Email to Program" button. If you are
truly uncomfortable in communicating with
that method, you could print out the survey
and mail or fax it to the Program staff at
the address shown at the bottom of the
survey.
We have recently
created a new email address,
staff@5thDistrictProBono.org, to help
identify email from our Program and to make
it easier for volunteers to reach us.
We appreciate your cooperation in
communicating with the Program staff via
email so that they do not need to call or
write to you. We will also be
launching our new website in November, and
welcome your input regarding this valuable
new resource.
Thank you for
your continued pro bono contributions to our
community.
Hon. James C.
Tormey, III
District Administrative Judge
