The Pro Bono Service Program is growing, with the addition of new opportunities to serve the community in more ways than ever.
The law school has launched an unprecedented partnership with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health and Philadelphia Legal Assistance to provide free legal service to patients at a public health center in West Philadelphia.
Although medical-legal partnerships are popping up across the country, the law school’s collaboration with PLA and the Philadelphia Department of Public Health is the first of its kind in the city, Public Interest Director Karen Pearlman Raab explains.
The partnership literally brings legal services to the patients, Pearlman says, adding that attorneys from PLA supervise the students in their work.
The partnership is making legal services far more accessible to city residents, says 2L Nick Kline, who provided training to social workers and nurses to help them “spot issues” that loom for individual patients. Kline is delighted to be gaining insights about designing policies and practices that make the health care system and legal services operate more efficiently.
In the meantime, the experience of referring clients to an array of fantastic but busy attorneys has already given Kline valuable skills in writing emails that are short and to-the-point
Pro Bono Services are expanding in other directions as well. Estate planning services students have offered to patients at the University’s 11th Street Clinic for several years are now also being provided at the Mantua Community Center, which are the temporary headquarters for the law school’s new Community Lawyering Clinic. There, students are also providing community-based intake services for clients of PLA, which is located in Center City. Students are also working with the Philadelphia Criminal Record Expungement Project, co-founded by alumnus Mike Lee, ’09.
Pearlman credits alumna Pam Bagdis, ’13, the first recipient of a Public Service Fellowship to be based at the law school, with helping her to get the new projects started and running smoothly.
The school has also laid the groundwork for a Divorce Advocacy Project, which will help reduce a backlog of cases languishing in legal limbo after being resolved in principle through the Good Shepherd Mediation Program.
Even after an agreement is reached, “you still need a judge’s order, and there is a lot of paperwork,” Bagdis says. “Many people never make it official.”
The Divorce Advocacy Project is slated to start operating in the winter, with attorneys from Dechert and from Blank Rome representing each party in the divorce, assisted by students.