From database to dedication
Linking lawyers with good causes
By Brian R. Marron
How can business lawyers find meaningful pro bono opportunities? And be assured that they will be helping a cause that they believe in? The answer? An intermediary.
Over the past few years, there has been a significant movement toward the "privatization" of many community services. Many governmental programs set up to meet the needs of the poor have been ended or cut back significantly. Private, nonprofit organizations are forming and expanding to fill this void.
Nonprofit organizations in the Richmond, Va., metropolitan area are making significant contributions in such areas as housing, child-care assistance, spousal and child abuse, substance-abuse counseling and rehabilitation, community advocacy and indigent health care. These nonprofit organizations are often complex, multi-faceted organizations. Many of these organizations are underfunded and unable to retain counsel to address challenging legal matters.
The Greater Richmond Bar Foundation, in partnership with the Pro Bono Committee of The Bar Association of the City of Richmond, developed the Pro Bono Clearinghouse to provide a functioning link between emerging nonprofit organizations within the community and the vast pool of legal talent in the Richmond metropolitan area. The mission of the Clearinghouse is to help nonprofit organizations find appropriate legal counsel.
A beneficial byproduct of this program is to provide a meaningful pro bono opportunity to lawyers with nonlitigation practices who otherwise might not be able to do pro bono work within their areas of expertise.
The Clearinghouse solicits volunteers from law firms, in-house legal staffs and government to find lawyers with expertise in such areas as corporations, real estate, finance, employment and intellectual property. The Clearinghouse maintains a database of volunteers, categorized by firm, years of experience and areas of expertise. The recent purchase of malpractice insurance will allow corporate and government lawyers to feel more comfortable volunteering for Clearinghouse work.
The Clearinghouse has been publicized to nonprofits by strategic alliances with other organizations, the distribution of pamphlets and word of mouth. The nonprofits tap into the Clearinghouse by completing a questionnaire, describing the nonprofit and its mission and other characteristics and identifying the problem or issue for which legal assistance is sought.
The reason the program has been successful is that the Clearinghouse plays an active role in making the connection between the lawyer and the nonprofit. When the Clearinghouse is contacted by the nonprofit, the staff searches its database to identify qualified lawyers who have the expertise to address the nonprofit's specific needs. The staff then begins contacting those lawyers to determine if the lawyer is interested or if there is a personal or professional reason why the lawyer could not provide legal services to the requesting nonprofit.
Once a qualified and willing lawyer is found for the representation, the Clearinghouse contacts the nonprofit to identify the lawyer. The nonprofit then contacts the lawyer directly.
From the perspective of the nonprofit, this system works well, because they know that they will be contacting a lawyer who already knows something about them and their problem and is willing to help. The system works well for the lawyers, because they know that they will not be getting "cold calls" from nonprofits as a result of volunteering to be included in the database. An otherwise willing volunteer might have some difficulty doing pro bono work for a nonprofit whose mission runs contrary to the lawyer's beliefs.
This system has produced almost universal satisfaction with the nonprofits and the volunteers. The follow-up calls placed to the nonprofits about two weeks after the match is made have revealed productive interaction between lawyer and client. The case closure forms completed by the lawyers, likewise, reveal a good deal of productive and satisfying work.
The best way to gain an appreciation for the work of the Clearinghouse is through a study of several pro bono cases, handled by Richmond lawyers as Clearinghouse volunteers. Three cases are described below:
- The after-school care center — One of the first cases referred by the Clearinghouse was the transfer of control of an after-school care center. We received a call from an elderly woman who had devoted her life to providing after school care to at-risk children. This program allowed many inner-city mothers to go to work knowing that their children would be cared for until evening. Without this program, some mothers could not work, while others would have been forced to leave their children without care for some part of the day.
When the woman called, she knew her health was failing. She had found someone to take over her center and wanted to be sure that the matter was handled properly. When we received the call, we searched the database and located a corporate and tax lawyer who was willing to help. The woman was able to find counsel and arrange the transaction before she lost the ability to care for the children. The transfer was made without interruption in the operation of the center.
- Advocacy association — An association devoted to advocacy for free clinics came to us with a list of needs, while they searched for an in-house lawyer. Among the needs was the review of their employee handbook. After searching the database and calling a few lawyers, we were able to find an employment lawyer willing to devote significant time to the project. The employee handbook was revised to comply with current laws.
- Health-care provider — The Clearinghouse was contacted by a nonprofit primary care center for needy families. The specific legal question that they posed related to the confidentiality of certain patient information. The Clearinghouse searched its database for health-care lawyers and contacted a lawyer who was willing to help with the problem. The lawyer was able to resolve, very quickly, a problem that could have caused significant problems for the nonprofit or its patient.
There are certain common threads in all of these cases. In each case, the nonprofit is faced with a significant legal challenge not unlike those faced by their for-profit counterparts, such as arranging a merger, dealing with employment matters and patient confidentiality in the preceding examples. Unlike their for-profit counterparts, it is very difficult for nonprofits to locate and retain counsel with the right expertise.
In the examples above, only lawyers with the correct expertise were contacted and only when we found a willing volunteer did we share the name of the lawyer with the nonprofit. When the call to the lawyer was made, the nonprofit representative knew that they would be greeted by a willing volunteer who was interested in helping to solve the problem.
In each of the cases cited above and in most others, we receive review forms from the nonprofits and case closure forms from the lawyers, indicating a high degree of satisfaction with the results and the experience. Examples from the nonprofits include: "There is no way to thank you for this generosity;" and "As a small association with limited resources, we appreciate this service very much." A typical response from the lawyer volunteers is "enjoyable work, client very helpful and appreciative."
The way the program has run so far, we alternate between needing more volunteers and needing more cases. We are getting better at getting the word out to lawyers and nonprofits. We are also getting referrals from groups that we have already helped.
The success of the Clearinghouse is owing to the hard work and ingenuity of the Pro-Bono Committee of the Richmond Bar Association and the board of directors of the Bar Foundation. The formation and management of the Clearinghouse has required a significant time commitment by members of the Pro-Bono Committee. The Bar Foundation board has provided significant leadership, as well as a ready vehicle for fundraising.
The Clearinghouse is located within the offices of the Richmond Bar Association. The efficiency of this arrangement has allowed the Clearinghouse to minimize costs. Most of our needs — such as office space, supplies, computer hardware and basic phone service — are provided on a cost-sharing basis. The Clearinghouse also shares an employee with the bar association. She has acted as the coordinator for the Clearinghouse, while performing various tasks in the bar office.
The Clearinghouse served as a model for a similar program in Northern Virginia sponsored by the Young Lawyers Section of the Virginia State Bar Association. We continue to collaborate with them as they become operational. We hope that the Clearinghouse project will serve as a blueprint for future pro-bono projects in Virginia.
Marron is a principal at Cantor, Arkema & Edmonds, P.C., in Richmond, Va. His e-mail is brianm@cantorarkema.com.
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