A Fraction of a Percent: A Call to Legal Service Providers to Increase Assistance to Community Nonprofits Using Biglaw Pro Bono

Abstract

I believe the Legal Services Corporation is remiss in not encouraging its grantees to focus their attention on assisting low-income, community nonprofits with their legal needs. The Legal Services Corporation (LSC) is one of the largest grantors to legal aid organizations in the country. In 2014, LSC grantees closed a total of 757,983 cases, of which 80,953 of those cases were completed with the involvement of pro bono attorneys. On average, LSC funding amounts to approximately 36.5% of each legal aid organization’s overall funding source. However, LSC has seemed to turn a blind eye to the notion that legal aid to small, low-income nonprofits should be part of the robust assistance provided by its grantees. For example, in its 2014 report, LSC noted that out of 758,689 cases closed; only 290 of those cases consisted of legal assistance to nonprofits. That amounts to 0.00038% of all cases! LSC allows its grantees to provide legal assistance to nonprofits, but it appears that those types of cases are merely an afterthought. There are three distinct reasons this assistance is necessary and logical. First, the low-income, community nonprofits assist the same clients LSC funded legal aid organizations assist. Therefore, to help the nonprofit would be to help the legal aid client. Second, finding meaningful pro bono projects that large firm volunteers are comfortable in handling is difficult. Most of the legal needs of nonprofits involve business transactional work. Helping a nonprofit with its legal needs is oftentimes within the legal knowledge base of large firms who have business transactional departments. Many of the large law firm attorneys may not have experience or a comfort level in helping with family or eviction cases (which often make up the majority of LSC funded organizations’ cases) and therefore find it difficult to volunteer. However, having the option to assist with local, small nonprofits that cannot afford legal representation, will further utilize the large firms’ legal skills in a meaningful way both for the legal aid organization and for the big law firm. Third, working with low-income, local nonprofits will take LSC and its grantees back to its community roots, working in cooperation with and supporting community organizations that create wealth and address other poverty-related problems identified by community members.