The Legal Services Corporation’s Board will be in Little Rock on January 30th and 31st for its quarterly meeting. The Legal Services Corporation (LSC) is the largest funder of civil legal aid organizations in the nation, distributing federal funds allocated by Congress. As part of its meeting, the LSC will host a series of public events to honor pro bono service and discuss solutions to the justice gap.
This quarter’s featured AR Free Legal Answers volunteer is Paul Bowen. Paul is an attorney and freelance writer in Little Rock. In 2019, he answered sixty one questions, more than any other volunteer in that year! When we asked Paul what motivates him to do pro bono, he cited his faith.
2019 was a banner year for AR Free Legal Answers. The year started with a grant from the Arkansas Bar Foundation to help us let Arkansans know about Free Legal Answers. With that grant we printed printed 10,000 brochures and throughout the year we distributed them at courthouses, shelters, and libraries across the state. That effort paid off with a 53% increase in the number of questions answered by our volunteer attorneys, compared to 2018.
During the fall semester, students at the University of Arkansas School of Law and William H. Bowen School of Law participated in clinics to help low-income Arkansans with their legal questions. Students worked with volunteer attorneys to provide answers to legal questions that had been posted on AR.freelegalanswers.org. The questions were posted by Arkansans who could not otherwise afford legal help. Volunteers answered questions covering a wide variety of legal problems from divorce and custody to landlord-tenant issues.
Volunteer attorneys from around Arkansas have answered over 140 questions from pro bono clients so far this year on AR.freelegalanswers.org. This mid-year performance is the best since the site launched in 2016. If the trend continues, volunteers will set a new full-year record for the most clients helped through the site. The number of volunteers […]