Pro Bono Training Institute Case Study: Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles

LAFLA created PBTI in 2014 with two other core partners, Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County (NLSLA) and OneJustice, and launched it in 2016 using PBIF grant funds. PBTI is an online learning platform with easily accessible, high-quality trainings on legal aid issues for pro bono attorneys, undergraduate or graduate students, paralegals, social workers, and interpreters. The Institute hosts over 175 trainings on 24 topics, including high demand subjects like language access, immigration, domestic violence, and naturalization.7 

Once users register with PBTI and log in to their accounts, they can access the vast training library. PBTI modules are designed based on best practices in adult learning and online training to help users to digest the content. Each module lasts between 15-30 minutes and some include an interactive, voluntary quiz to track the users’ knowledge development and keep them engaged. Users can also retake the quizzes as often as they want to master the content. 

Legal aid organizations across the state regularly use PBTI content to support their pro bono programs and contribute training content to the library. The Institute enables law firms and allied organizations to engage with volunteer attorneys and law students in pro bono work, widening its foundation and showcasing the integral role PBTI plays in California legal aid. Another key benefit of PBTI is the opportunity for attorneys licensed to practice in California to earn their Minimum Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) credits. When attorneys complete eligible training modules, PBTI automatically issues the MCLE certificates to the individual user’s PBTI profile.

LAFLA and OneJustice identified the need for an online training platform for pro bono attorneys after conducting a thorough analysis of the current training landscape in California. At the time of LAFLA’s initial PBIF application, each of the 96 Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts (IOLTA)-funded programs conducted their own pro bono trainings.8 Having multiple IOLTA-funded programs replicate trainings on the same topics resulted in an inefficient system that diverted attorneys’ valuable time away from serving clients. 9 

The introduction of LSC’s PBIF grant program in 2014 allowed LAFLA to apply for and receive funding to create and launch PBTI to address the need for a unified pro bono training platform. The PBIF grant outlined four key objectives: 

1. Develop an online library of easily accessible, high-quality trainings on legal aid topics pertinent to providing pro bono services, utilizing best practices in adult learning and online training. 
2. Create a statewide network of legal service organizations (LSOs) that commit to using PBTI’s online library of trainings to support their pro bono programs. 
3. Create a network of law firms and other organizations using PBTI to engage their attorneys and law student volunteers in pro bono work. 
4. Plan for the long-term sustainability of PBTI.10 

LAFLA and its partners spent the first six months of the grant cycle strategizing the various aspects of the Institute, including staffing, training, research, topic selection, technology, outreach, and recruitment.11 To manage the Institute, LAFLA hired both a full-time manager and a coordinator. Both new staff members participated in training with Edge International on adult learning and online training best practices. They also conducted extensive research and participated in tutorials on the science behind adult learning strategies. To ensure this information translated to PBTI training modules, staff created the “Designing an Effective PBTI Training” guide for subject matter experts (SMEs) and trainers. The three PBTI partners also held discussions at regional pro bono meetings and conferences to identify the topics they should prioritize for their initial training and production efforts. The results included elder law, student loan discharge, immigration law, and unlawful detainer defense. These meetings and conferences also provided opportunities for conducting outreach to LSOs with subject matter expertise in specific topic areas to develop the training modules. Finally, PBTI staff developed its technological infrastructure to create interactive components within the training modules and track user analytics. Staff purchased software like Adobe Presenter and Captivate to create the interactive trainings. Additionally, PBTI staff purchased online platforms and learning management systems (LMS) like the Shareable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) Cloud, YouTube, and SurveyMonkey to store the trainings and record survey responses. The commitment of NLSLA and OneJustice to PBTI, along with an established network of LSOs, pro bono attorneys, law firms, and other organizations, allowed PBTI to develop a robust training library. This collaborative effort laid the foundation for the long-term, sustainable training platform that LAFLA and its partners envisioned.

Thanks to their extensive networking and outreach, LAFLA and its partners had a deep pool of knowledge to draw upon as they developed the trainings.12 This network included 45 legal aid, statewide, and community-based organizations committed to providing SMEs to review topical content and expert trainers to deliver the presentations. As part of this commitment, these organizations agreed to incorporate PBTI into their training programs for volunteer lawyers. The agreement contributed to PBTI’s sustainability by securing a committed user base and enhancing its acceptance as a training resource in the LSO community. 

LAFLA and its partners focused on keeping the modules uniform and straightforward to keep the development process as efficient as possible. Each module included a video recording of a PowerPoint presentation from an expert trainer and a short, interactive quiz at the end. After receiving the PowerPoint drafts from the trainers, PBTI staff reviewed and adjusted the slide decks for overall flow, timing, accessibility, and learning best practices. 

Once the content met the training best practices, staff shared the presentations with SMEs for feedback. After the trainers incorporated the feedback, they recorded their assigned modules using a designated PBTI PowerPoint template to maintain brand uniformity. This process allowed PBTI to successfully develop 66 training modules covering 14 topics by the time its first PBIF grant ended in 2017. 

Additional PBIF grants in 2016 and 2017 allowed the Institute to expand its SME and partner networks and develop additional PBTI trainings:

1. Language Access Pro Bono Training (2016). LAFLA’s second PBIF grant addressed a specific need in the legal aid community: increasing pro bono case acceptance for individuals with limited English proficiency (LEP). PBTI identified this need during its first PBIF grant when it surveyed its network of LSOs seeking input on training topics for PBTI. LAFLA worked with the Language Access Accountability Committee (LAAC) to develop four sets of language access training modules for pro bono attorneys, legal aid interpreters, and other interested advocates. 
   1. The first training set comprised ten modules for interpreters and LEP advocates seeking to develop and maintain language access training programs in their LSOs. 
   2. The second training set included nine modules for pro bono attorneys and other volunteers on how to work effectively with interpreters and LEP clients, covering topics such as ethics, bias, and cultural competency
   3. The third training set included nine modules focused on providing guidance and resources to interpreters working with pro bono attorneys, such as language and interpreting skills, legal aid topics, and ethics.
   4. The fourth and final set of trainings focused on language-specific terminology on four separate legal aid topics: family law, unlawful detainers, immigration, and re-entry. Each module had multiple translations, resulting in 18 total modules in this final set.
2. Pro Bono Training Institute (2017). The third PBIF grant awarded to LAFLA provided an additional three years of broad, programmatic support to the Institute, allowing it to continue growing and expanding. PBTI staff, partners, and SMEs developed 42 additional trainings and updated 30 existing modules, growing the library to over 170 trainings by the end of the three-year grant cycle. 
   1. The new PBTI trainings included modules on cultural humility, disaster relief, law student intern training, immigration, asylum, and domestic violence. 
   2. The Institute also saw significant diversification in the types of organizations accessing the trainings. When the Institute launched in 2016, only 112 law firms, LSOs, and law schools used the platform. However, by the end of the 2017 PBIF grant, this number expanded to 846 total organizations in September 2020, including private corporations, universities, and in-house counsel. 

To ensure the program responded appropriately to the pressing needs of the legal aid community, PBTI staff identified which organizations used the Institute for its trainings most frequently and invited them to participate in a qualitative survey to gain more insight into what the platform could improve. The survey also included questions about which other topics they needed trainings on. LAFLA and its partners used this feedback to create a list of future trainings and prioritize the topics listed in the survey responses. 

Without conducting outreach and building a foundation of partnerships from the outset of the first PBIF grant, LAFLA, NLSLA, and OneJustice could not have delivered such a robust training platform for California’s legal community.

At the end of the 2014 PBIF grant in 2017, LAFLA and its partners committed to sustaining PBTI in several ways: 1) adhering to its original mission of providing free training to pro bono attorneys in California, 2) incorporating PBTI into their core operations, and 3) transitioning to more efficient technology platforms. This commitment reflected the increased demand for additional PBTI trainings and the need for continued maintenance of the web platform.13 The most crucial decision regarding the Institute’s sustainability concerned its mission to provide free online, on-demand legal aid trainings. LAFLA, NLSLA, and OneJustice considered soliciting donations and sponsorships on the platform’s website or charging for the free Continuing Legal Education (CLE) credits it offered. However, they determined they could best achieve sustainability if each partner absorbed their respective project costs into their core operational budgets. This strategy also prevented staff time shifting away from developing training to focusing on fundraising, which would hinder PBTI’s core mission. 

Operationalizing PBTI meant that each partner needed to maintain its core project staff. LAFLA maintained the same staffing structure with a training coordinator and an experienced attorney managing PBTI. Additionally, OneJustice promoted its dedicated project coordinator to a managerial role. NLSLA committed to strategizing with LAFLA and OneJustice on future PBTI-related initiatives and securing long-term funding from non-LSC sources to help maintain the partners’ staffing. However, NLSLA stepped down from its core partner role at the end of the 2017 PBIF grant due to its staffing and financial capacity. 

Another way PBTI partners sustained the Institute as part of their regular operations was by incorporating it as a one-stop shop for their individual pro bono training initiatives. LAFLA’s Expungement and Naturalization clinics use PBTI trainings to prepare new pro bono volunteers. NLSLA continues to use the PBTI Disaster Relief course in its clinics to assist low-income Californians affected by wildfires. OneJustice also incorporated relevant trainings into its Justice Bus clinics for naturalization, expungement, immigration, and other topics. 

PBTI staff also sought to increase the efficiency and availability of its training by transitioning video platforms from SCORM Cloud to YouTube because of the ever-growing costs associated with the former. Because PBTI’s continued growth and acceptance by the California legal community was a great success, LAFLA regularly exceeded SCORM’s monthly registration allotment, resulting in additional per-user costs that ranged from $50 to $350, depending on the number of new users. YouTube allowed LAFLA to create a free host account with unlimited user access. 

The efforts that LAFLA, NLSLA, and OneJustice contributed to operationalizing the Institute in their programs and services have continued to sustain PBTI over the years and build on its success.

Since its inception in 2016, PBTI has greatly expanded the reach and impact of pro bono legal aid services in California and beyond. LAFLA, NLSLA, and OneJustice worked closely with trainers and partners to continue developing training modules, expanding pro bono and partner networks, and increasing its impact by responding to community needs.14 

LAFLA’s Pro Bono Director, Phong Wong, credits its strong partnerships with local and statewide organizations and trainers with the Institute’s successful launch and sustainment. LAFLA and its partners recruited SMEs and attorneys from over 45 different LSOs to serve as trainers during the initial training development phase. These collaborations created early buy-in and commitment from their partners and laid the groundwork for rapidly expanding PBTI’s user base. As a result, PBTI launched with 43 training modules ready and available for its inaugural users. 

By the end of the first PBIF grant in 2017, PBTI created 66 training modules in collaboration with 47 partner organizations. The training library grew steadily to hold 176 training modules in January 2024, with additional modules in development. LAFLA also began using the number of individual users as a metric for success in 2020. Between January 2020 and October 2023, PBTI’s user base increased from just under 5,000 users to over 9,500. 

The Institute also saw significant diversification in the types of organizations accessing the trainings. When the Institute launched in 2016, only 112 law firms, LSOs, and law schools used the platform. This number expanded to 846 organizations in September 2020, including private corporations, universities, and in-house counsel. What surprised Wong was the variety of national and global organizations that embraced PBTI as a reliable training source for its attorneys and advocates. Corporations like Disney, Apple, and Chevron leveraged the Institute to help their in-house counsel achieve their CLE credits. Many LSOs across the U.S. also used PBTI trainings and recommended them to fellow legal aid attorneys and organizations. 

Another factor that Wong identifies as a major contributor to the Institute’s sustainability and impact is its commitment to providing free training for pro bono attorneys, students, and other legal professionals. PBTI’s adherence to this mission impacted the California legal aid and pro bono communities by saving attorneys, advocates, and interpreters the time and money they would otherwise spend on training. 

To ensure the training remained free, LAFLA identified additional grant funding to cover operational and staffing costs. These funds included:

1. Through various grants, the program developed PBTI disaster trainings for pro bono attorneys seeking to help disaster victims. 
2. LAFLA incorporated training costs into the State Bar HP Small Claims grant in 2021 to develop small claims trainings to train pro bono attorneys to assist self-represented litigants with various small claim needs. 
3. LAFLA applied for and received a fourth PBIF grant in 2022 to develop PBTI modules focused on veteran legal aid issues for pro bono attorneys. 
4. The Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles’s “We Are L.A.” program awarded LAFLA a grant in 2023 to help create and update housing-focused PBTI trainings for pro bono attorneys.15

LAFLA will continue to build on these successes by identifying additional funding sources to develop more PBTI trainings for California's legal aid and pro bono communities and beyond.

Since receiving the first PBIF grant in 2014 to develop and launch the Institute, LAFLA, NLSLA, and OneJustice have experienced and overcome challenges to technology and staffing.16 One of the most significant challenges LAFLA faced throughout the project involved identifying which technology and software platforms would sustain the Institute’s platform. Additionally, LAFLA initially underestimated the cost and time of building the platform and the recurring software and maintenance costs. 

To address technology-related obstacles, LAFLA focused on researching and using low-cost options, focusing on efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and user-friendliness:

• Microsoft PowerPoint allowed PBTI staff to create templates, edit individual slides, and provide training best practices for trainers in the notes.
• Recording training voiceovers by telephone enabled staff to work with trainers statewide instead of just in person with local trainers.
• As previously discussed, LAFLA encountered higher costs associated with SCORM Cloud as its LMS system since PBTI regularly exceeded its monthly new user allowance. By switching to YouTube, PBTI received free host accounts and unlimited new user registration

Staffing also presented LAFLA with multiple challenges relating to hiring and attrition from the project's onset, which delayed training development, data collection, and outreach to partners. LAFLA hired a first-year attorney to manage the Institute, who left the organization after a year. After evaluating the work required to manage the program, Pro Bono Director Phong Wong determined that an experienced attorney would provide more effective peer-to-peer feedback on training content. Hiring a legal aid attorney to manage a training program instead of working directly with clients also proved challenging; however, LAFLA filled this position during the 2017 PBIF grant, and training production is at full capacity again. 

Additional capacity-related challenges presented themselves when OneJustice’s PBTI project associate left the position midway in 2017. This departure reduced PBTI’s ability to conduct outreach to LSOs and collect project-related data. To overcome this obstacle, the core partners focused on balancing the workload across each organization and cross-trained staff so they had the relevant knowledge and skills to support other programmatic areas. For example, NLSLA’s project staff learned how to assist with transferring trainings from SCORM Cloud to YouTube when PBTI changed LMS systems. LAFLA’s PBTI training associate also learned how to handle OneJustice’s project tasks to bridge the workflow gap. 

While these challenges may have delayed the Institute’s deliverables, the solutions LAFLA and its partners implemented to overcome them resulted in a stronger overall program.

Pro Bono Director Phong Wong shared valuable takeaways from her years overseeing PBTI and other pro bono projects.17

1. Focus on the Mission: As LAFLA and its partners sought to incorporate PBTI into their core operations, they explored several ways to generate financial support from the legal community. These options included selling advertising space to private law firms and law schools, obtaining financial sponsorships and donations, charging yearly subscription fees to firms and for-profit organizations, and charging fees for CLE credits. However, the core partners agreed that splitting staff time between producing trainings and fundraising would hinder the Institute’s mission of providing free legal aid training to the field. Thus, they prioritized the mission by absorbing the costs of operating PBTI into each of their organization’s budgets. 
2. Respond to the Legal Community’s Needs: Wong attributes PBTI’s continual growth to its readiness to meet the legal community’s training needs. Organizations and legal experts approached PBTI regularly with requests for training on additional topics. In addition to making the requests, these legal partners often assisted in developing the content by conducting training or providing feedback on the content. By allowing the legal community to participate in content production based on their needs, PBTI rapidly expanded the production of new training content. 
3. Leverage Statewide Expertise: From its inception, PBTI sought to leverage legal expertise statewide to make the trainings relevant regardless of location. Maintaining a statewide network of legal SMEs and trainers allowed LAFLA to deepen its connection and presence in California’s legal community. Wong noted that without having a statewide focus, replicating the Institute as a training platform would prove difficult for organizations with a much narrower focus.

In addition to her key takeaways, Wong shared replicable practices for LSC grantees seeking to improve their training programs:

1. Implement Training Best Practices: While many LSOs focus on the technical aspects of training development, LAFLA readily promotes training quality as equally, if not more important. LAFLA created the training best practices manual “Designing an Effective PBTI Training” for its trainers to inform their content development. The manual covers audience types, lecture lengths, learning objectives, content interactivity, and reference materials. 
2. Use PBTI Trainings in Other States: The PBTI trainings can serve as a template for LSC grantees to create their own training modules for pro bono programs. LSC grantees in other states can choose the lessons that best fit their needs and customize the modules for online or in-person clinics using their relevant laws, restrictions, and processes.
3. Check It Out: LAFLA shared the best practices guide, PowerPoint template, and style guide trainers use for all PBTI trainings to universalize the content. LSC grantees looking to develop similar training are welcome to adapt these resources for their own purposes.