Helping During The Pandemic And Beyond

Practising Law Institute (PLI) is known for providing CLE for attorneys, but did you know that pro bono is a big part of the nonprofit’s mission? In addition to offering an array of programs aimed at helping attorneys represent pro bono clients effectively, PLI provides pro bono scholarships and Memberships to support the essential public service work of the legal profession.

Especially during the pandemic, PLI’s Pro Bono team has worked to raise awareness of the great need for pro bono representation, with training on a variety of topics to make it easy for attorneys to pursue the type of work that aligns with their interests.

“The pandemic has only increased the need for pro bono,” says Toby J. Rothschild, Of Counsel to OneJustice and retired general counsel of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, and a frequent speaker at PLI’s pro bono ethics programs. “The economic collapse created great hardship and significant legal issues for low-income and disadvantaged people. There will be a huge increase in evictions, debt collection issues, and other legal areas that pro bono attorneys can help address.”

As part of its participation in Pro Bono Week, October 24–30, 2021, PLI is offering three new One-Hour Briefings of interest to attorneys at firms, corporations, and legal services organizations. Visit PLI’s website for complimentary access to these programs during Pro Bono Week:

Vicarious Trauma and Resilience: Creating Space to Care for Yourself and Your Clients

Vicarious trauma, or secondary trauma, is a risk for legal professionals and others who work with survivors of trauma, including domestic violence. In this Briefing, expert practitioners from Sanctuary for Families, Her Justice, and Shobana Powell Consulting will help you understand how to identify vicarious trauma and the steps you and your organization can take to address it.

The Briefing will help define vicarious trauma and how it intersects with systemic oppression; its impact on you and your clients, colleagues, and organization, and how to address it; vicarious resilience; and forms of organizational support.

Your Organization Has Made a Commitment to Anti-Racism, Now What?!

In this One-Hour Briefing, Kimberly Jones Merchant, Director of the Shriver Center on Poverty Law’s Racial Justice Institute, addresses how legal aid and public interest organizations can operationalize their commitment to race equity.

Current events have highlighted the problem of systemic racism and the need for diversity, equity and inclusion within organizations – even those that serve underrepresented communities. While establishing a commitment to equity and injustice is an important first step, it takes knowledge and effort to put this commitment into day-to-day practice. This Briefing discusses a framework to assess an organization’s readiness to engage in antiracist practice and provides a foundation for developing a successful racial equity action plan.

Ethical Issues in Working with Pro Bono Clients in 2021

Some pro bono clients can present ethical issues for attorneys that differ from those presented by fee-paying or contingent fee clients. Lawyers sometimes face difficult questions about defining who the client is, communication with clients, clients with diminished capacity, conflicts with fee-paying clients, and many others. Representation of nonprofit organizations also can present difficult ethical issues not faced with most for-profit organizations.

In this One-Hour Briefing, Toby Rothschild will discuss some of these ethical issues – including those presented by practicing remotely. “After all my years in legal aid, the justice gap has not disappeared,” Rothschild says. “It has only grown larger. Handling pro bono matters is one way attorneys can help meet this huge need.”