Spring 2017

Pro Bono

Pro Bono: From the Chair

George (Buck) T. Lewis, Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service, Professor Douglas Blaze, and Professor Brad Morgan

On January 5, 2017, the National Law Journal reported that the law school class of 2016 performed more than 2.2 million hours of pro bono while they were law students. The National Law Journal valued that time at more than $52 million dollars. This information was compiled by the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) and it is the first time that a nationwide student pro bono survey has been conducted.

Pro Bono

Why Courts Benefit from Partnerships with Pro Bono Legal Services

By Carolyn Gold

For the past 10 years, San Francisco Superior Court has partnered with two nonprofit organizations to provide self-represented litigants in unlawful detainers an “attorney of the day” at their mandatory settlement conferences. Prior to this project, called the Housing Negotiation Project, self-represented litigants (mostly tenant defendants) had to negotiate directly with the landlord attorney at their settlement conferences.

IOLTA

IOLTA: From the Chair

By Hon. James S. Hill, Commission on Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts

The IOLTA community has long been a stalwart supporter of robust funding for the Legal Services Corporation. Recent events have confirmed our need to remain vigilant on this front.

IOLTA

Grantee Spotlight | Speaking for the Best Interests of the Child

By Anne Woods

In 2016, 6,900 children in Kansas were residents in temporary and sometimes permanent foster care. What happens next to these children involves a long process. Each child will most likely already have a caseworker from the Kansas Department of Children and Family Services.

IOLTA

Cy Pres Awards, Legal Aid and Access to Justice

By Bob Glaves and Meredith McBurney

Cy pres awards, which in the class action context most often arise from undistributed residual funds in the case, have become an important source of funding for legal aid and access to justice over the past decade. And appropriately so, as the one common denominator in all class action cases is that they are fundamentally about access to justice, a principle that increasingly is recognized by state supreme courts and legislatures and a host of state and federal courts around the country.

IOLTA

News and Notes

Virgin Islands converts to mandatory IOLTA program and information on summer 2017 IOLTA Workshops

Legal Delivery

LRIS: From the Chair

By C. Elisia Frazier, Standing Committee on Lawyer Referral and Information Services

Fellow Standing Committee Members and LRS program colleagues, It is with heartfelt gratitude for our accomplishments together that I write my final column as Chair of the ABA Standing Committee for Lawyer Referral and Information Service.

Legal Delivery

A Case Study from Cincinnati LRS

By Jamie Shiverdecker

As an LRS Director, I am constantly focused on everything involving the LRS consumer. What marketing efforts cause a client to call? How was their experience? Did the client hire the referred attorney?

Legal Delivery

Flat Fee Offerings: One Year Later

By Seth Chavez

It’s been just over one year since the Los Angeles County Bar Association Lawyer Referral Service introduced specific flat flee offerings into the LRS model. Here, without a rule book, innovation can be bumpy, but it also has significant rewards.