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Recent drop in legal aids impacts attorneys' pro bono work

TIFFANY L. PARKS
Special to the Legal News

Published: September 16, 2014

In the face of funding challenges, officials from the Ohio Legal Assistance Foundation have said the state’s legal aids have continued to provide essential, life-changing legal help to those in need through volunteer pro bono attorneys.

Data from the Supreme Court of Ohio’s voluntary reporting of pro bono activities for 2013, found that nearly 70 percent of participating individual attorneys provided pro bono legal services.

The reported figure, 69 percent, is a slight increase from the 2012 data.

Since 2009, the Supreme Court has annually requested that attorneys report pro bono legal services and charitable contributions to Ohio organizations providing legal services to persons of limited means for the preceding year.

More than 1,730 individual attorneys submitted information this year.

In 2013, 1,515 individual attorneys participated.

In a statement noting Ohio’s strong record of pro bono work, OLAF Executive Director Angela Lloyd said the reporting results for 2013 show that Ohio attorneys are continuing to “step up.”

“By donating pro bono legal help to at-need Ohioans, lawyers provide a voice to those who would otherwise not be heard, for legal problems that affect people deeply,” she said.

Most of the pro bono legal services were provided in matters involving family law, employment law, wills and probate and property law.

“Lawyers are the best chance in-need Ohioans have for finding justice,” Lloyd said.

The data indicated that attorneys who took part in pro bono reporting averaged about 30 hours of pro bono legal services in 2013. The value of the reported services topped $13 million.

The information collected through the voluntary reporting is used by the Supreme Court, bar associations and legal aids to improve legal services to Ohioans who cannot afford to hire an attorney for a non-criminal legal problem.

The report noted that reductions in OLAF funding for each of Ohio’s legal aids, related to drops in both civil filing fee surcharge revenues and IOLTA account revenues, have combined with cuts in federal funding to “sharply impact” Ohio legal aid resources.

From 2008 to 2012, Ohio’s legal aids lost almost 30 percent of their attorney workforce and three legal aid offices in Southeast Ohio closed earlier this year.

“A reduction in legal aid resources impacts pro bono legal services because legal aids have to be appropriately staffed and resourced in order to take advantage of what is offered by private practice pro bono attorneys willing to volunteer for brief advice and information clinics or accept cases for extended representation,” OLAF officials wrote.

“Before the case is seen by the volunteer pro bono attorney, the case has been through legal aid intake; screening for income eligibility; referral to the pro bono professional within the legal aid; the recruitment process; and the process of preparing the case for transmission to the volunteer. All these steps require the utilization of trained legal aid personnel.”

The report also noted that anecdotal evidence suggests that many attorneys welcome the opportunity to earn CLE credits through pro bono legal work, as authorized by the Supreme Court effective Jan. 1.

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