Virtual Training: The New ABA Standards for the Provision of Civil Legal Aid

Sponsored by:
the ABA Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defense
and Management Information Exchange

6.0 MCLE Credit Hours have been requested, including 1.25 hour of Ethics and 1.75 hours of Law Office Management.

For sixty years, the ABA Standards for the Provision of Civil Legal Aid have provided guidance to the nation's legal aid organizations on best practices for the delivery of legal services to their clients. The Standards recently underwent a year-long revision and redrafting process, resulting in a newly adopted set of Standards that reflect today's legal aid practice. This six-hour training is designed for legal aid organization leaders, managers, staff, funders, and board members to learn how the Standards have been revised to better support the provision of high-quality legal services and to ensure that legal aid organizations are managed effectively. The training, led by experienced legal aid leaders, utilizes a series of real-world hypotheticals and breakout sessions to allow participants to examine the new Standards in depth, and an ethics-focused portion of the program demonstrates how the new Standards provide guidance under evolving ethics rules.

Materials:

Review the New Standards Online >>>

Download the Standards >>>

Read about the changes to the Standards, from MIE Journal >>>

Agenda:

Part 1 [CC] - The New ABA Standards for the Provision of Civil Legal Aid

Understanding How the Standards Apply 

Attendees of this interactive session were led through a series of hypotheticals based on real-world issues arising in a civil legal aid practice by a panel of highly experienced legal aid organization leaders. Through the analysis of how the Standards are applied in these varying circumstances, attendees developed an understanding of how the Standards guide their responses to such situations, thereby providing a foundation for the delivery of high-quality legal services to clients.

Speakers:

Jayme Cassidy, Chief Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Professional Development Officer & Pro Bono Advocacy Director, Legal Services of Greater Miami, Inc., Miami, FL

Merf Ehman, Executive Director, Columbia Legal Services, Seattle, WA

Angela Tripp, Director, Michigan Legal Help (MLH) Program, Ypsilanti, MI

Colleen Cotter, Executive Director, The Legal Aid Society of Cleveland, Cleveland, OH

CLE:

The ABA will seek 3 hours of CLE credit in 60-minute states and 3.6 hours of CLE credit for this program in 50-minute states. Credit hours are estimated and are subject to each state’s approval and credit rounding rules. Please visit the website www.americanbar.org/mcle for general information on CLE at the ABA. 

Part 2 [CC] - The New ABA Standards for the Provision of Civil Legal Aid

Ethical Practice under the Standards (Ethics)

This session, led by an experienced legal ethics counsel, examined the new Standards in light of the current ABA Rules of Professional Conduct and other ethical rules and opinions in order to provide attendees with an understanding of how the Standards and ethical rules intersect. Attendees came away from this program knowledgeable about the ways in which ethical issues may arise in a legal aid practice and how they may be resolved through the application of the Standards.

Speakers:

Mary McDermott, Lead Senior Counsel, ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility, Chicago, IL

Jenny Mittelman, Deputy General Counsel, State Bar of Georgia, Atlanta, GA

Toby J. Rothschild, Of Counsel, OneJustice, San Francisco, CA

Applying the New Standards in Your Organization (Law Office Management)

Attendees were broken out into groups, and each group was led through a structured, in-depth analysis of a specific section of the new Standards. By analyzing its assigned section and addressing a series of questions about how to implement the new Standards, including how to overcome any barriers to implementation, the group produced a matrix of steps that may be taken to implement the new Standards within the attendees’ own legal aid organizations. Following the individual group discussions and interactions, the results of all of the groups’ work were shared with all attendees.

Speakers:

Jayme Cassidy, Chief Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Professional Development Officer & Pro Bono Advocacy Director, Legal Services of Greater Miami, Inc., Miami, FL

Merf Ehman, Executive Director, Columbia Legal Services, Seattle, WA

Angela Tripp, Director, Michigan Legal Help (MLH) Program, Ypsilanti, MI

Colleen Cotter, Executive Director, The Legal Aid Society of Cleveland, Cleveland, OH

CLE:

The ABA will seek 3 hours of CLE credit in 60-minute states (including 1.25 hours of Ethics credit and 1.75 hours of Law Office Management) and 3.6 hours of CLE credit for this program in 50-minute states (including 1.50 hours of Ethics credit and 2.10 hours of Law Office Management). Credit hours are estimated and are subject to each state’s approval and credit rounding rules. Please visit the website www.americanbar.org/mcle for general information on CLE at the ABA.

Faculty:

Jayme Cassidy is the Chief Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Professional Development Officer & Pro Bono Advocacy Director at Legal Services of Greater Miami, Inc. Jayme trains, develops and implements strategies and procedures to advance organizational change, foster a positive and inclusive work environment, and ensures that diversity, equity, and inclusion considerations are incorporated in Legal Services’ decision-making processes. She manages the attorneys’ professional development, evaluation, and training. She implements Legal Services’ Pro Bono Unit by creating and managing pro bono advocacy projects and promoting the delivery of high-quality legal services by volunteer lawyers, law students, paralegals and other professionals.

As Executive Director of Columbia Legal Services, Merf Ehman is facilitating organization-wide efforts to prioritize advocacy that supports community-led social justice movements that transform racialized systems and eradicate racism.

Angela Tripp is the Director of the Michigan Legal Help (MLH) Program, which is responsible for the statewide website for self-represented litigants (MichiganLegalHelp.org) and twenty-one affiliated Self-Help Centers around the state.  In 2020, MLH saw nearly 3.5 million visits, and nearly 153,000 people used its resources to complete legal forms.  Ms. Tripp has led the development and growth of MLH from its inception in 2011.  Prior to that, she was a staff and managing attorney in the Lansing office of Legal Services of South Central Michigan.  Ms. Tripp is also the Co-Managing Attorney of the Michigan Poverty Law Program, the state support program in Michigan, and Co-Director of Michigan Statewide Advocacy Services, which manages five statewide programs (including MLH and MPLP).  Ms. Tripp holds a J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law in Boston and a B.A. from the University of Cincinnati.

Colleen Cotter has been the executive director of the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland since 2005. Cleveland Legal Aid provides civil legal assistance to 8,000 clients each year, focusing on safety and health, education and economic stability, shelter, and ensuring government agencies and the justice system are accountable and accessible. She serves as president of the board of directors of the Saint Luke’s Foundation and president of the United Way of Greater Cleveland Council of Agency Executives. Colleen worked for Indiana Legal Services and Pine Tree Legal Assistance in Maine as a Skadden Fellow. She clerked for the Honorable Cornelia Kennedy of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Colleen received her JD, summa cum laude, from Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington and her BA, cum laude, from the University of Notre Dame.

Mary McDermott is Lead Senior Counsel at the American Bar Association where she staffs the Center Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility. As the former General Counsel to the Illinois State Bar Association and staff lawyer at the Illinois Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts, Mary has more than 30 years experience working on lawyer ethics.

Jenny Mittelman is Deputy General Counsel for the State Bar of Georgia, where she provides ethics advice and prosecutes disciplinary cases. Ms. Mittelman went to work in the Office of the General Counsel of the State Bar in 1989 after working for the Atlanta Legal Aid Society. A native of Richmond, Virginia, Ms. Mittelman is a graduate of the University of Virginia and Emory University School of Law. Ms. Mittelman is occasionally an adjunct professor at Georgia State University School of Law, teaching Professional Responsibility.

Toby J. Rothschild is Of Counsel to OneJustice, providing ethics training and counselling to legal services programs in California. He retired after serving as the General Counsel of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles for 13 years. Prior to that, he was the executive director of the Legal Aid Foundation of Long Beach for 28 years and Interim Executive Director of LAFLA. He graduated from UCLA School of Law in 1969 and has worked at legal aid programs since graduation. He has been the president of the Long Beach Bar Association and was Vice Chair of the California Commission on Access to Justice. Toby served as a member of the State Bar Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct, a member of the California Lawyers Association and Orange County Bar Ethics Committees, and as Chair of the Professional Responsibility and Ethics Committee of the Los Angeles County Bar. He was liaison on access to justice issues to the first commission which drafted the proposed new California Rules of Professional Responsibility and was a member and vice chair of the second Rule Revision Commission. He also has served as a member of the State Bar Judicial Nominees Evaluation Commission. He served as co-vice chair of the State Bar Task Force on Access Through Innovations in Legal Services and is a member of the State Bar Closing the Justice Gap Working Group.