The North Carolina Pro Bono Resource Center joins the ABA and the legal community in a national celebration of attorneys\u2019 pro bono contributions.\u00a0 In 2014, North Carolina volunteer attorneys provided 18,000 hours of pro bono legal services worth more than $3.6 million.\u00a0 We have much to celebrate, but a great demand remains. 80% of the civil legal needs of people living in poverty in North Carolina are unmet.\u00a0 There is only one legal aid attorney for every 13,170 eligible North Carolina residents, compared to one private attorney for every 562 people in the state.<\/p>\n
North Carolina Rule of Professional Conduct 6.1 calls on all lawyers to provide legal services to those who are unable to pay. As law students, we learned this in our Professional Responsibility courses, by participating in our schools\u2019 pro bono programs, and by watching and modeling ourselves after our mentors.\u00a0 These days, we are also reminded of this aspirational goal by watching attorney characters take on pro bono cases on television.\u00a0 Yet, unlike the sets of \u201cThe Good Wife\u201d or \u201cSuits,\u201d the day-to-day challenges of balancing work and life responsibilities are not easily navigated off-screen.\u00a0 Pro bono opportunities do not always fall in our laps at the exact moment we are ready to serve.\u00a0 They are certainly not timed, like on television, so that you know you can file, argue, and win a motion for summary judgment tomorrow.\u00a0 And pro bono projects, clients, and the legal issues they present, will not come in neat little packages that can be resolved in an hour of television.<\/p>\n
On April 1, 2016, the North Carolina Equal Access to Justice Commission launched the North Carolina Pro Bono Resource Center<\/a><\/u>. While pro bono work might not be as quick or easy as it is portrayed in a scripted drama, the goal of the Resource Center is to address barriers to volunteering to increase pro bono participation statewide. The Resource Center\u00a0is one of only a handful of statewide pro bono resource centers in the country.<\/p>\n To assist lawyers in fulfilling their professional responsibility to provide pro bono legal services, the North Carolina Pro Bono Resource Center partners with legal aid organizations, local bars, law schools,\u00a0community groups, and others, to develop new\u00a0projects to help address unmet legal needs. The Resource Center also operates ncprobono.org<\/a><\/u>, a clearinghouse of pro bono volunteer opportunities.<\/p>\n The reality is that pro bono attorneys are needed now more than ever to help narrow the access to justice gap for low-income individuals and others shut out of the justice system.\u00a0 Legal aid providers in our state are facing extreme financial challenges as the client demand for their services increases. In the absence of full funding for legal aid providers so that every low-income individual with a civil legal problem has access to a lawyer, the Pro Bono Resource Center plays a vital role in recruiting pro bono attorneys to support these organizations.\u00a0 Currently, there are nearly thirty available pro bono projects listed on our website, ncprobono.org<\/a><\/u>.\u00a0 These projects range in time commitment, geographic location, skills to be utilized and developed, and subject matter.\u00a0 Training opportunities are also listed on ncprobono.org<\/a><\/u>.<\/p>\n Individual attorneys willing to engage in pro bono work are critical to the success of the North Carolina Pro Bono Resource Center.\u00a0 It is encouraging to meet lawyers who take on pro bono cases from legal aid providers or who participate in pro bono clinics that their firms sponsor.\u00a0 If you are one of those attorneys, congratulations and thank you!\u00a0 If you are not, please visit ncprobono.org<\/a><\/u> or email Sylvia Novinsky, director of the Pro Bono Resource Center, at sylvia@ncprobono.org<\/a><\/u> so we can find something that interests you.<\/p>\n The NC Pro Bono Resource Center looks forward to continuing the conversation of how private attorneys can help address unmet legal needs.\u00a0 But for now, let\u2019s celebrate our profession and our pro bono work!<\/p>\n