“We have an access to justice crisis because there are too many low- and middle-income people who cannot get the legal help they need,” said North Carolina Supreme Court Associate Justice Richard Dietz who is the current chair of the Equal Access to Justice Commission. “Pro bono is just one part of the solution.”
Dietz cited a 2021 Assessment of Civil Legal Needs in NC report that estimated 86% of the legal needs of low-income residents in civil matters go unmet. There is only one legal aid attorney available for every 8,000 North Carolinians eligible for legal services.
Family law, eviction, and domestic violence are the most prevalent civil cases handled by legal aid organizations and pro bono lawyers.
In 2017, the General Assembly repealed the Access to Civil Justice Act, cutting around $1.6 million for local legal assistance offices like Legal Aid. However, the aftermath of Hurricane Florence in 2018, Tropical Storm Fred in 2021, and COVID ratcheted up the demand for free legal services.
LANC’S Limited Resources
Legal Aid of North Carolina (LANC) is the largest of the nonprofit legal aid organizations in the state. Pisgah Legal Services and the Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy are among the other significant providers of free legal services.
LANC is the third-largest law firm in the state. It can handle 65,000 cases a year.
“Due to our limited resources and the overwhelming need for our help, our staff advocates largely focus on our client’s most critical legal needs, especially eviction and domestic violence,” said Allison Constance, director of pro bono programs for LANC. “As a result, our staff often can’t help our clients with other legal needs, like housing conditions and child custody, even though those are incredibly important issues. Pro bono volunteers step in to fill this void, taking important cases that our staff simply doesn’t have the bandwidth to tackle.”
Imposter Syndrome
One reason some attorneys are reluctant to sign up to become pro bono attorneys is what’s called, “impostor syndrome.”
“Lawyers don’t want to feel out of their comfort zone. They don’t want to mess up and hurt somebody,” said Sylvia Novinsky, director of the Pro Bono Resource Center, a program of the Equal Access to Justice Commission. For example, she explained that a construction lawyer doesn’t want to volunteer to do pro bono work and then be given a family law case.
“While some of our pro bono opportunities require volunteers to have relevant experience, we usually work with volunteers with little to no experience in the relevant practice area, said Constance. “We provide free CLEs, training videos, guides, handbooks, templates, mentorship from experienced Legal Aid NC attorneys and more.”
Pro Bono Go
In 2017, then-SCONC Justice Mark Martin was speaking at a conference of NC lawyers when he asked them to raise their hands if they were doing pro bono work. “I expected 90%; it was only 10%,” recalled Martin. “It wasn’t that lawyers didn’t want to help; it was a matter that they didn’t know how they could help.”
Earlier this year, the North Carolina Pro Bono Resource Center introduced the “how.” It’s a groundbreaking app called Pro Bono Go. All the state’s leading civil legal aid and public interest organizations can place listings on the site. “It’s an online hub where attorneys can find pro bono needs specific to their practice area or interest,” reads its website. “[It’s] North Carolina civil justice community’s one-stop shop for pro bono opportunities.”
“[Pro Bono Go] is exactly the direction we need to be going,” said Martin. “The impact is going to be exponential in terms of even being able to create a better platform for expedited connecting needs with available lawyers.”
“It’s the first time that pro bono opportunities from all the legal aid providers and advocacy groups around the state all appear on one platform. To me, this is the key feature for volunteers because instead of being offered a single pro bono project in a sort of ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ approach, volunteers can see the whole range of different opportunities and choose one that really speaks to them,” said Dietz.
One of the major pipelines providing pro bono attorneys is the NC Bar Foundation, the charitable arm of the NCBA. “We operate five pro bono programs: 4ALL – Lawyers on Call, Entrepreneurs Assistance Program, NC Free Legal Answers, Patent Pro Bono Program, and Wills for Heroes,” said NCBF Director of Programs Alex Rogers.
During the annual 4ALL Lawyers on Call event this past March, 6,999 calls were answered by 345 attorneys and 97 paralegals from locations across the state.
Driver’s License Restoration
The largest of the Pro Bono Resource Center programs is driver’s license restoration.
Since 2020, the center has sent 6,000 driver’s license restoration advice letters. Most clients have “failure to appear” or “failure to pay” suspensions, which causes an indefinite loss of their driving privileges. “If a driver gets a letter from the DMV that their license is suspended, it’s pretty confusing. We get those DMV records and decode them,” said Meghan Martie Restorative Justice Project director. “Then pro bono volunteers help draft advice letters which provide some steps clients can take on their own to end their suspension.”
The center also has a new phase to this project. “We have started a project where we’re using pro bono attorneys to individually represent clients, to ask the court to waive their fines and fees due to an inability to pay,” said Martie. “We are looking for pro bono attorneys in every county for that portion of the project.”
Seeking Scalability
Justice Dietz said the NC Equal Access to Justice Commission is looking for ways to scale programs that are working, such as the Wake County Legal Support Center in the Courthouse. “It assists self-represented litigants in navigating the justice system. It has helped thousands of people and has been an enormous success. We are now taking what we’ve learned in Wake County and offering it as a model to other counties, with a long-term goal of having similar centers available throughout the state,” said Dietz.
The commission is also finding success with mid-size and large firms that designate one employee to recruit volunteers from within the firm.
“The Law Office of James Scott Farrin Firm encourages attorneys to do pro bono work,” said La Donna Williams, who chairs the Farrin firm’s social service committee. Last year, over 200 hours of pro bono work were provided by the firm’s attorneys. “The firm believes in giving back to the communities we serve. To further encourage volunteer work, we provide four hours of paid volunteer time off every six months.”
“Legal Aid of North Carolina’s Innovation Lab, launched last year, is leveraging technology and innovative approaches,” said Scheree M. Gilchrist, LANC’s chief innovation officer. “Our Pro Bono Go platform, our mobile legal services unit, LANCMobile, and a new virtual Legal Information Assistant (LIA) are enhancing accessibility and scalability, ensuring more clients receive the crucial legal assistance they need.”
Good for Your Soul
“We are a self-regulating profession that should be focused on ensuring equal access to justice. We do our best by supporting legal aid and offering our time to help with pro bono. As an attorney, they’re going to have a better snapshot from a third-party perspective because they’re helping with the critical issue for our society, and they’re going to feel the satisfaction and their own life of helping people that need civil legal services,” said Martin.
“Our immediate goal is to have enough pro bono resources and training available, and enough awareness about those resources, that every attorney who wants to meet or exceed that 50-hour [a year] goal can find pro bono opportunities that are rewarding to them and that motivate them to continue volunteering to help those in need,” said Dietz.
“I think the reality is that people don’t even know their life problems are also legal problems, but they don’t want to take care of them because they don’t have the time, they don’t have the money, or they don’t trust the legal system,” Novinsky said. “I think pro bono helps break down those barriers, but we don’t have enough lawyers.
“Volunteering makes you happy. It’s good for your soul.”
