RWU students exceeding pro-bono requirement
Saturday, October 07, 2006
- Organization: Providence Business News
The Roger Williams University Ralph R. Papitto School of Law requires students to complete 20 hours of pro-bono work before they graduate. Last year, the students averaged nearly 50 hours.
Liz Tobin Tyler, the director of public service and community partnerships at the school's Feinstein Institute for Legal Service, and a lecturer in public-interest law, sees that as a good omen for the students' professional future.
"I think for all law students to have some kind of pro-bono experience means they are going to carry that with them, and we hope it instills the value to give back to the community when they are in private practice," she said. "I think that happens for most students. We have a fairly large number of students at Roger Williams that go into public-interest law."
Roger Williams has required pro-bono work since 1997, putting it among the minority of law schools around the country that do so.
"It was a decision by the administration and faculty to try to prepare students for a career commitment to public service," said Michael J. Yelnosky, associate dean of academic affairs at the law school, where he is also an associate professor. "That is a mission of this law school. Our faculty is very involved in doing pro-bono work, and the institution is infused with it."
Students have a wide array of choices to fulfill the pro-bono requirement, from the relatively simple task of helping low-income people apply for the earned-income tax credit - which last year yielded nearly $60,000 for the students' clients - to helping people awaiting deportation at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, by seeking legal ways to halt their deportation.
Kate Aquirre, who graduated this year with nearly 70 hours of pro-bono work on her résumé, went to Roger Williams specifically to prepare for nonprofit work. She's now employed at Christian Social Services in Fall River, helping families with immigration issues.
For students who aren't already on the public-service path, she said, the school's pro-bono requirement could be a turning point.
"It gets students who wouldn't otherwise be exposed to the nonprofit area involved," Aquirre said. "They get a taste of what it's about, and it could change their career path. "I would have done it anyway, but some students need an excuse."
Apparently, according to a 2005 study by the Feinstein Institute for Legal Services, so do some large law firms.
The study, financed by the Rhode Island Foundation, was intended to assess the amount of work private lawyers in the state were doing pro bono.
Only about 10 percent of those surveyed responded. But their responses showed that most of the state's limited quantity of pro-bono work was being done by solo lawyers or those in small firms, and predominately, by those who had been lawyers for more than 21 years.
"The survey showed the larger firms have a more difficult time doing pro bono - and the reason why is that they're not experts in the areas where low-income people need legal assistance," said Eliza Vorenberg, director of the Pro Bono Collaborative Pilot Project, which was established in January at Roger Williams, also with a Rhode Island Foundation grant.
"The hours are unpredictable," she added, "and that can really interfere with particular attorneys and the whole firm. They could take a family law case and give it to an associate, expecting it will take 50 hours, and they could end up doing 200 hours of work on that case."
To make pro-bono work more manageable, Vorenberg said, the Pro Bono Collaborative is bringing together large law firms, community-based organizations and law students, to provide pro-bono legal assistance on a project-by-project basis.
"We design the projects so they have a limited number of hours, are predictable and somewhat flexible," she said, "and we train the lawyers and the law students on what the case entails."
So far, three law firms have signed on. Partridge Snow & Hahn is working on a special-education advocacy project; Brown Rudnick Berlack Israels is assisting organizations trying to create more affordable housing; and Edwards, Angell, Palmer & Dodge is working on the street-law project, which teaches urban youth about their rights and the laws that affect them.
The program is modeled after the Pro Bono Initiative in Chicago, with a few slight changes to make it more beneficial to law students, Vorenberg said.
"Instead of law firms working with legal-services organizations, we're looking at community organizations, because Rhode Island doesn't have the number of legal-services organizations that Chicago does," Vorenberg said. "And the Pro Bono Collaborative adds the law students."
Liz Tobin Tyler, the director of public service and community partnerships at the school's Feinstein Institute for Legal Service, and a lecturer in public-interest law, sees that as a good omen for the students' professional future.
"I think for all law students to have some kind of pro-bono experience means they are going to carry that with them, and we hope it instills the value to give back to the community when they are in private practice," she said. "I think that happens for most students. We have a fairly large number of students at Roger Williams that go into public-interest law."
Roger Williams has required pro-bono work since 1997, putting it among the minority of law schools around the country that do so.
"It was a decision by the administration and faculty to try to prepare students for a career commitment to public service," said Michael J. Yelnosky, associate dean of academic affairs at the law school, where he is also an associate professor. "That is a mission of this law school. Our faculty is very involved in doing pro-bono work, and the institution is infused with it."
Students have a wide array of choices to fulfill the pro-bono requirement, from the relatively simple task of helping low-income people apply for the earned-income tax credit - which last year yielded nearly $60,000 for the students' clients - to helping people awaiting deportation at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, by seeking legal ways to halt their deportation.
Kate Aquirre, who graduated this year with nearly 70 hours of pro-bono work on her résumé, went to Roger Williams specifically to prepare for nonprofit work. She's now employed at Christian Social Services in Fall River, helping families with immigration issues.
For students who aren't already on the public-service path, she said, the school's pro-bono requirement could be a turning point.
"It gets students who wouldn't otherwise be exposed to the nonprofit area involved," Aquirre said. "They get a taste of what it's about, and it could change their career path. "I would have done it anyway, but some students need an excuse."
Apparently, according to a 2005 study by the Feinstein Institute for Legal Services, so do some large law firms.
The study, financed by the Rhode Island Foundation, was intended to assess the amount of work private lawyers in the state were doing pro bono.
Only about 10 percent of those surveyed responded. But their responses showed that most of the state's limited quantity of pro-bono work was being done by solo lawyers or those in small firms, and predominately, by those who had been lawyers for more than 21 years.
"The survey showed the larger firms have a more difficult time doing pro bono - and the reason why is that they're not experts in the areas where low-income people need legal assistance," said Eliza Vorenberg, director of the Pro Bono Collaborative Pilot Project, which was established in January at Roger Williams, also with a Rhode Island Foundation grant.
"The hours are unpredictable," she added, "and that can really interfere with particular attorneys and the whole firm. They could take a family law case and give it to an associate, expecting it will take 50 hours, and they could end up doing 200 hours of work on that case."
To make pro-bono work more manageable, Vorenberg said, the Pro Bono Collaborative is bringing together large law firms, community-based organizations and law students, to provide pro-bono legal assistance on a project-by-project basis.
"We design the projects so they have a limited number of hours, are predictable and somewhat flexible," she said, "and we train the lawyers and the law students on what the case entails."
So far, three law firms have signed on. Partridge Snow & Hahn is working on a special-education advocacy project; Brown Rudnick Berlack Israels is assisting organizations trying to create more affordable housing; and Edwards, Angell, Palmer & Dodge is working on the street-law project, which teaches urban youth about their rights and the laws that affect them.
The program is modeled after the Pro Bono Initiative in Chicago, with a few slight changes to make it more beneficial to law students, Vorenberg said.
"Instead of law firms working with legal-services organizations, we're looking at community organizations, because Rhode Island doesn't have the number of legal-services organizations that Chicago does," Vorenberg said. "And the Pro Bono Collaborative adds the law students."
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