Pro Bono Innovation Fund Grants 2017

In 2017, we awarded the Pro Bono Innovation Fund grants to 15 organizations to support innovations in pro bono legal services.

California

California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc.

  • Project Term: 24 months (October 2017 - September 2019)
  • Grant Amount: $232,525
  • Grant Type: Transformation

California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc. (CRLA) will transform its pro bono program by assessing and improving internal processes, as well as expanding its external partnerships to strengthen the program’s impact. As an initial step, CRLA will conduct a pro bono inventory and in-person visits with all of its 16 field offices. It will then develop and implement data and systems to track pro bono improvements, including a data visualization module, and a training campaign focused on staff.  These improvements will be augmented by development of a pilot pro bono clinic in collaboration with OneJustice that will be staffed by private bar volunteers. CRLA will also research and conduct four site visits to legal aid organizations with effective pro bono programs to adopt innovations and replicate best practices. The grant will result in a high quality pro bono program that will achieve lasting benefits for CRLA’s client communities.  

Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles

  • Project Term: 24 months (October 2017 - September 2019)
  • Grant Amount: $176,379
  • Grant Type: Sustainability

The Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA), Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County (NLSLA), and OneJustice will expand their statewide partnership on the Pro Bono Training Institute (PBTI)—an online forum that offers on-demand trainings—by redesigning and adding to the library of universal, engaging, and easily accessible pro bono trainings and resources. The project will also significantly expand the evaluation and data collection of PBTI users and trainers to better understand how online learning and the project is increasing the quality and amount pro bono in California.

Colorado

Colorado Legal Services

  • Project Term: 24 months (October 2017 - September 2019)
  • Grant Amount: $132,416
  • Grant Type: Sustainability

Colorado Legal Services (CLS) will explore ways to expand its innovative clinic initiative, developed through a 2014 Pro Bono Innovation Fund grant. Previously, CLS developed five model clinics that used technology to allow metropolitan attorneys to serve low-income clients in some of the most remote, rural parts of the state. These clinics demonstrate a variety of ways to serve clients with different types of legal problems, using technology matched to the specific clinic model and region of the state being served. Through this new project, CLS will seek out appropriate clinic modifications to expand existing clinics to serve additional rural communities and to replicate clinic models in other underserved rural communities. It will incorporate a new element in two existing clinics: document preparation using non-attorney volunteers. Law students and paralegals will be recruited, trained, and supervised to assist in the initial drafting of court documents for family law and record sealing and expungement cases. The Sustainability Grant will also allow CLS to conduct a more thorough evaluation and data collection from its clinics, including measurement of the actual outcomes achieved for clinic clients.

Florida

Bay Area Legal Services, Inc.

  • Project Term: 24 months (October 2017 - September 2019)
  • Grant Amount: $307,573
  • Grant Type: Project

Bay Area Legal Services, in partnership with the Real Property Probate and Trust Law (RPPTL) Section of the Florida Bar, will collaborate on proactive disaster preparedness by training pro bono volunteers to assist low-income communities on clearing title to their homes so they are eligible for FEMA and many other forms of disaster-related relief. Without disaster assistance, entire communities can be devastated. Under this grant, the “No Place Like Home” project will be piloted with Bay Area Legal Services and four other legal aid organizations: Legal Aid of Manasota, Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County, Legal Aid Service of Broward County, and Legal Services of North Florida. The project, a collaboration between the largest section of a state bar and legal aid, will ultimately provide a replicable blueprint for the entire state and for other states to follow.

Louisiana

Southeast Louisiana Legal Services Corporation

  • Project Term: 24 months (October 2017 - September 2019)
  • Grant Amount: $250,515
  • Grant Type: Transformation

Southeast Louisiana Legal Services (SLLS) will enhance its myriad, unconnected pro bono efforts by centralizing its volunteer lawyers program and assessing how the organization engages in pro bono activities. More specifically, the project will streamline its entire volunteer engagement process, starting with recruitment that sets an increase in new volunteers from targeted areas. Additionally, SLLS will revamp online resources for volunteers and the way that volunteer hours and resources are tracked. SLLS plans to add a full-time team manager and pro bono coordinator for this transformation effort to build strong pro bono administration that will enhance pro bono in southeast Louisiana.

Massachusetts

Community Legal Aid, Inc.

  • Project Term: 24 months (October 2017 - September 2019)
  • Grant Amount: $194,298
  • Grant Type: Sustainability

Community Legal Aid (CLA) will continue its Advocacy for a Healthy Community Medical Legal Partnership that has developed resources and the capacity to engage pro bono legal assistance for low-income patients at the UMass Memorial Medical Center (UMMMC) in Worcester, Massachusetts, the largest healthcare provider in central Massachusetts. Through their initial 2015 Pro Bono Innovation Fund grant, Community Legal Aid established a strong medical legal partnership that was fully supported by UMMMC, as well as the private bar.  With the assistance of volunteer attorneys, the project assisted 176 families with health harming legal needs such as housing instability, safety concerns, financial insecurity and healthcare challenges.  With the Sustainability Grant, Community Legal Aid will expand pro bono assistance into education and employment cases and increase the number of clients assisted by pro bono volunteers.  The project will also engage an evaluation team from UMass Medical School to study the extent to which low-income clients’ benefits and cost savings can be attributed to legal aid and pro bono efforts.  

Volunteer Lawyers Project of the Boston Bar Association

  • Project Term: 24 months (October 2017 - September 2019)
  • Grant Amount: $295,822
  • Grant Type: Project

The Volunteer Lawyers Project of the Boston Bar Association’s (VLP’s) Economic Fairness Project will create an innovative partnership—as well as a model for collaboration—between state attorneys general, the legal aid community, and the private bar that will assist low-income victims of wage theft and debt collection abuse. The grant will support coordinated efforts to provide more assistance to clients on these issues by training volunteers to provide effective, same-day court-based legal representation. The project will also create materials to better educate low-income clients about their legal rights and ensure they pursue relief. VLP is partnering with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office to collect, analyze, and measure data to show the increased rate of court appearances by individuals served by the project. This will develop the foundation for an evidence-based model that may be replicated by other legal aid organizations. 

Missouri

Legal Aid of Western Missouri

  • Project Term: 24 months (October 2017 - September 2019)
  • Grant Amount: $190,420
  • Grant Type: Sustainability

Legal Aid of Western Missouri’s (LAWMO) Adopt-a-Neighborhood Project (AAN) uses volunteer attorneys from Kansas City’s biggest law firms to provide free legal services in targeted urban neighborhoods to support residents and empower neighborhood organizations. The Sustainability Grant will expand AAN to two new neighborhoods with new law firm partners. After ANN was started in 2015, seven private law firms signed on—consisting of more than 50 pro bono attorneys—and opened more than 115 LSC-eligible cases. These cases represent more than 3,000 hours of pro bono legal assistance. In addition to the planned expansion, LAWMO also plans to improve its data collection and continuing legal education (CLE) offerings for pro bono volunteers and it plans to conduct an evaluation of the impact of the project on the new neighborhoods. In tandem with this grant, the organization received a $70,000 grant from the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City.

New Jersey

Legal Services of Northwest Jersey

  • Project Term: 24 months (October 2017 - September 2019)
  • Grant Amount: $299,501
  • Grant Type: Transformation

Legal Services of Northwest Jersey (LSNWJ) will expand its capacity to provide high- quality legal services and access to justice that meets the most pressing needs of their client community by fully integrating pro bono into their advocacy and client delivery structure.  LSNWJ will perform a comprehensive inventory of its current pro bono program and seek input from stakeholders on how it can transform its pro bono program. Along with the inventory, each substantive law team will determine where pro bono resources may be used most effectively.  By the end of the grant, the pro bono program will be fully integrated into LSNWJ’s organizational structure to advance strategic goals, reflect best practices and innovation in pro bono delivery, resulting in an increase—by 80 percent—in the number volunteers who are actively engaged and supported by the program.

Northeast New Jersey Legal Services Corporation

  • Project Term: 24 months (October 2017 - September 2019)
  • Grant Amount: $342,034
  • Grant Type: Project

The Northeast New Jersey Legal Services Corporation’s (NNJLS’s) Pro Bono Innovation Project will build an inclusive team of pro bono attorneys and other professionals who possess the language and cultural competency to deliver quality direct legal services and community legal education for documented immigrants on the path to U.S. citizenship.  These pro bono attorneys will staff new immigration related volunteer projects that will create efficiencies in the delivery of service and maximize impact for clients: the Self-Declaration Project, in which volunteers assist petitioners in drafting their self-declaration; the New American Families Project, in which volunteers will delivery community legal education on immigration issues; and the Naturalization Clinic Project, in which volunteers will assist clients prepare citizenship paperwork.  The volunteer attorneys and new projects will expand the organization’s capacity to accommodate an increased demand for immigration services while strengthening its long-term ability to provide client-centered legal services, in all practice areas, in a highly diverse service area.

New York

Legal Aid Society of Mid-New York, Inc.

  • Project Term: 24 months (October 2017 - September 2019)
  • Grant Amount: $272,758
  • Grant Type: Project

Legal Aid Society of Mid-New York (LASMNY) will create a pro bono eviction defense program in the town and village courts in Broome County through the Town and Village Attorney of the Hour Program (T&V Program), modeled after their Binghamton City Court’s Attorney of the Hour Eviction Defense Program (City Court Program), which has been operating since 2012. Through the expansion of the program, LASMNY will start providing same-day pro bono representation in courthouses where almost all tenants still appear pro se against landlords and their attorneys. In addition, LASMNY proposes to staff the existing City Court Program with a rental housing counselor who will meet with tenants after their court appearances to provide counseling, referrals, and follow-up services. LASMNY will monitor this assistance and collect data over the grant period to measure the impact of such housing support services on overall housing stability for clients served through the project.

Legal Services NYC

  • Project Term: 24 months (October 2017 - September 2019)
  • Grant Amount: $351,387
  • Grant Type: Project

Legal Services NYC (LSNYC) will join forces with a global law firm and corporate partners to provide essential legal assistance to hundreds of low-income veterans through a project called Military Mondays. As part of the project, LSNYC and pro bono attorneys will fight for disability benefits, safe and affordable housing, and fair child support for veterans through a combination of monthly legal clinics and ongoing representation.  Military Mondays will serve as a model for engaging significant numbers of new pro bono volunteers from corporations and law firms on behalf of veterans and other low-income people around the country. To facilitate replication, LSNYC will create a “start-up kit” for other legal aid organizations that are interested in creating their own Military Mondays initiative. 

Ohio

The Legal Aid Society of Cleveland

  • Project Term: 24 months (October 2017 - September 2019)
  • Grant Amount: $165,525
  • Grant Type: Sustainability

The Legal Aid Society of Cleveland will expand its ACT 2 project which focused on increasing access to justice for low income individuals by engaging late-career and retired attorneys in pro bono work.  In their initial Pro Bono Innovation Grant, ACT 2 volunteers served 812 clients through more than 3,900 hours of service.  ACT 2 volunteers perform a variety of impactful pro bono roles, including as in-house volunteers working alongside staff, in traditional pro bono roles at clinics or through individual cases, and as mentors to Legal Aid Society of Cleveland staff. With Sustainability funding, The Legal Aid Society of Cleveland will serve 1,500 clients and engage 50 additional volunteers, as well as target specific underserved urban and rural communities.

Virginia

Legal Services of Northern Virginia, Inc.

  • Project Term: 24 months (October 2017 - September 2019)
  • Grant Amount: $290,283
  • Grant Type: Project

Legal Services of Northern Virginia’s (LSNV’s) Veterans Law Pro Bono Project will provide legal assistance to low-income veterans in need of discharge upgrades and disability compensation. LSNV is known in the community for its committed service on traditional poverty law issues, but this pro bono project will emphasize and enhance its work with veterans. The program will engage in a coordinated outreach campaign to the veteran community and enlist the help of law firm and corporate pro bono attorneys to successfully serve this demographic.

Washington

Northwest Justice Project

  • Project Term: 24 months (October 2017 - September 2019)
  • Grant Amount: $298,564
  • Grant Type: Project

The Northwest Justice Project’s (NJP’s) Enhanced Services Project—modeled after Atlanta Legal Aid Society’s successful Pro Bono Innovation Fund project by the same name—will provide new capacity to follow up with clients who received legal advice from NJP and support them in executing the advice. NJP will partner with large firms in Seattle to engage volunteers to follow-up with clients who received advice on NJP’s statewide advice line to provide additional assistance to ensure clients follow-through on the advice provided by NJP staff. Throughout the project, results will be studied by an external evaluator so NJP can make internal improvements to their pro bono program and advice line, and to address external barriers facing self-represented litigants.