Celebrating National Pro Bono Week
By Members of the North Carolina access to justice community are putting the focus on pro bono as part of the National Pro Bono Week Celebration. The annual celebration has been celebrated in conjunction with the American Bar Association’s National Celebration of Pro Bono: Moving Forward in a Post-Pandemic World (this year’s theme) and is held from October 25 through October 31, 2021. The National Pro Bono Week Celebration focuses the nation’s attention on increased need for pro bono services and celebrates the outstanding work of lawyers who volunteer their services throughout the year.
During Pro Bono Week, North Carolina legal aid programs, bar associations, law firms, law schools, and others will celebrate pro bono by recognizing volunteers, offering training, providing pro bono legal services at clinics, hosting events to raise money for legal aid, and raising awareness of the need for pro bono. For more information about events in your area, visit https://www.probono.net/celebrateprobono/.
There are many ways to get involved in pro bono service in our state. North Carolina legal services organizations including Legal Aid of NC, Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy and Pisgah Legal Services coordinate pro bono case referrals and provide volunteer training, support and malpractice insurance coverage for pro bono practice. The NC Bar Foundation and NC Pro Bono Resource Center both coordinate pro bono projects that engage attorneys, paralegals and law students in pro bono service. Sections, Divisions and Committees of the NC Bar Association coordinate pro bono initiatives that allow members to serve within their areas of practice. Find pro bono opportunities here: https://ncprobono.org/opportunities/.
Why Pro Bono Work?
The overall access to justice gap in the United States, per 2017 statistics, is roughly 86% of the civil legal problems reported by low-income Americans who received inadequate or no legal help.
There is only one legal aid attorney for every 8,000 low-income people in North Carolina. There is one private attorney for every 367 North Carolinians. The North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts records provided that more than 1.7 million civil legal cases (or 340,761 per year) were litigated from 2015 through 2019. Additionally, in 2018, there were more than 2 million North Carolinians who were eligible for services of legal aid. While at least 71% of low-income families will experience one civil legal problem per year and of those civil legal needs, 86% of those will go unmet due to limited resources for civil legal aid providers.
Who Can Perform Pro Bono Work?
In 2010, the North Carolina Rules of Professional Conduct adopted Rule 6.1, which states that “every lawyer has a professional responsibility to provide legal services to those unable to pay. A lawyer should aspire to render at least fifty (50) hours of pro bono publico legal services per year.” North Carolina lawyers who report 50 or more pro bono hours in any given year are recognized by the Supreme Court of North Carolina and inducted into the North Carolina Pro Bono Honor Society. Learn more here: https://ncprobono.org/honorsociety/.
The North Carolina State Bar also offers Pro Bono Practice status to inactive and out-of-state lawyers to complete pro bono legal assistance through a nonprofit legal services corporation. To register, complete the Pro Bono Forms that can be found here: https://www.ncbar.gov/for-lawyers/forms/.