The Pro Bono Project: The Year that Was & What’s Ahead
By Kimberly Abbott & Micah Wixom

Last year was very difficult for so many in our community. However, local attorneys did so much to make life better for those in need. At Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada, we saw a huge increase in the number of people seeking assistance, but also saw generous attorneys stepping up to meet the growing needs. Our volunteers helped more clients and contributed significantly more hours than in 2009. We are so incredibly thankful to everyone who supported our work in 2010 in any way.

Cases and hours
In 2010, we matched over 600 new pro bono cases with pro bono volunteer attorneys, our highest number yet! Our volunteers donated more than 16,000 hours of service to people in our community, with December’s hours yet to be reported. In the 10 years since the Project merged with Legal Aid Center, we have placed nearly 4,300 cases with generous attorneys in the community who have donated more than 115,000 pro bono hours to the Project.

Because of the difficult economic times, an area of increasing need in our community is foreclosure prevention. As a result, we expanded our pro bono services in 2010 to include representation in foreclosure mediations. We launched this program with a CLE in April, co-sponsored by the UNLV William S. Boyd School of Law. So far, more than 50 homeowners have received representation by pro bono attorneys throughout the foreclosure mediation process.

Unfortunately, our Children’s Attorney Project (CAP), which represents abused and neglected children in the foster-care system, continues to receive a record number of referrals. We matched 144 new cases with volunteer attorneys in 2010, a significant increase from the 113 cases placed in 2009. Nearly 280 children have been given a voice in the system that makes decisions about their futures. Between our 10 full-time CAP Staff Attorneys and our small army of more than 200 volunteer attorneys, we estimate that we now represent nearly half of the children in the abuse and neglect system. Although we have a long way to go to meet our goal of representing every child, we have made incredible strides over the past 11 years and we are consistently amazed by the dedication and support of our volunteers.

Ask-A-Lawyer and clinic programs
The Family Court Ask-A-Lawyer Program, a joint effort between Legal Aid Center and the Family Court Self-Help Center, had its most successful year. In 2010, volunteer attorneys covered more than 300 Thursday afternoon shifts, providing nearly 950 hours of service to more than 1,400 pro se family court litigants.

After noticing the tremendous need at the Regional Justice Center’s Self-Help Center, in May we launched the Landlord/Tenant Ask-A-Lawyer Program and kicked off the program with a Landlord/Tenant CLE in April, co-sponsored by the State Bar of Nevada. We hold the Landlord/Tenant Ask-A-Lawyer Program at the Self-Help Center every Wednesday and have an attorney available for 15-minute consultations in the morning and afternoon. During 2010, 30 attorneys volunteered at the Program, providing more than 140 hours of service to nearly 350 individuals, who were incredibly appreciative. We’re grateful to Lionel Sawyer & Collins, as they had two attorneys participate in the program every month through 2010. We are looking forward to expanding our Ask-A-Lawyer offerings at the Self-Help Center in 2011. We plan to add a Foreclosure Mediation Ask-A-Lawyer within the first few months of the year.

Two of our pilot projects from 2009 were made permanent in 2010. We continue to partner with the Nevada MicroEnterprise Initiative on our Small Business Project. Last year we held four events, each of which included a seminar on a specific topic, followed by an Ask-A-Lawyer session where small business owners could get one-on-one advice from attorneys in that area. Seminar topics last year included “Legal Considerations Concerning Your Business & Internet, Social Media, and Your Website,” “Basics of Intellectual Property,” “Choosing Your Business Entity & Getting Your Business Started,” and “Employment Law for Small Businesses.” Nearly 70 small business owners received assistance thanks to the 15 pro bono attorneys who participated. We also continued our Homeless Assistance Project, a partnership with Friends in the Desert and UNLV’s Public Interest Law Student Association. During 2010 we held three Ask-A-Lawyer nights at St. Timothy’s in Old Henderson and participated in the Preventing Homelessness Connect. We are especially grateful to the Federal Public Defender’s Office and Ballard Spahr for their commitment to this program. We look forward to planning similar events in 2011. During National Celebrate Pro Bono Week in October, we held our first-ever bankruptcy Ask-A-Lawyer Program. Because the program was a great success, appreciated by the clients and enjoyed by the attorney volunteers, we anticipate expanding the program, likely to quarterly sessions, in 2011. Also that week, five attorneys and four notaries volunteered to assist seniors through the City of Las Vegas Senior Citizen’s Law Project’s event.

In all, nearly 2,000 individuals received counsel and advice through our various Ask-A-Lawyer efforts. Thanks to all of those who give so generously of their times to these programs.

The year ahead
While 2010 was such a busy year and we accomplished so much together, there is still an incredible amount of work to be done. More than half of the kids in the foster-care system still don’t have a voice. Domestic violence victims still need help getting themselves and their children out of dangerous situations. Those most affected by the difficult economic times need help more than ever—stopping garnishments and evictions, filing for bankruptcy, and saving their homes. Those unable to afford attorneys need at least a little bit of guidance as they try to muddle their way through the court system.

We are pleased to begin a new partnership with Nevada Legal Services (NLS). NLS will refer cases in its priority service areas, such as landlord/tenant, tax, and unemployment, to Legal Aid Center’s Pro Bono Project for placement with pro bono attorneys. Legal Aid Center will act as the centralized hub for pro bono work in southern Nevada with the goal of most efficiently using the limited resources of both programs and lessening confusion within the community. We are excited to expand the volunteer opportunities available to our volunteers and at the idea of being able to serve more people in need in our community.

We look forward to growing our existing programs in 2011 and expanding our services to meet additional needs as they arise in our community. We are confident that with your continued support, 2011 can be another record breaking year, in which we assist more people than ever before.

Kimberly Abbott, Esq. is the Pro Bono Project Director at Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada and serves on the Nevada Supreme Court’s Access to Justice Commission. Micah Wixom is the Pro Bono Project’s Volunteer Coordinator. For more information about the Project or to get involved, please contact Kimberly at 386-1070, ext. 137 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or Micah at 386-1070, ext. 168 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

John came to our office this past fall. He had been in the construction industry for 30 years and had never been without a job. Although he was a bit embarrassed, he needed our help. John had three of life’s most stressful events all happening to him at the same time. He had lost his job, the bank was in the process of foreclosing on his home, and his wife of 25 years had just filed for divorce. John put his head on the desk of the attorney speaking with him and said “I have never been unemployed . . . what am I going to do?” and began to weep. Although we are not miracle workers and every problem may not be a legal problem, if we were not here to help John sort out his affairs, John would have nowhere else to go. Unfortunately, John is the new norm for our clientele.

We believe that a community is judged partly on how it treats their poor and disadvantaged members. Because John had a place to go and was able to have a trained legal professional look at his issues and figure out what we could help him with and what he could do for himself, he left in better shape than he had arrived . . . and much less frustrated. He left with an understanding of the process and a plan for dealing with it. And even though John may not have to go to court for his problems, he did have access to legal information, advice, and possibly representation even though he could not afford it. We have become a safety net in our community for those caught up in the legal process and have no funds to hire an attorney.

For those of you who don’t know much about Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada, we are the largest non-profit legal aid organization in Nevada and represent low-income residents at no cost who have civil legal problems in our community. We have been around since 1958 (we changed our name from Clark County Legal Services in 2008) and have a staff of 60 which includes 28 lawyers. As you can imagine, the economic downturn has increased the demand for our services in ways we never imagined and we struggle daily to keep up that demand. We work in three primary areas: domestic violence, child abuse, and consumer fraud. In 2009, we served over 18,000 people and, when our numbers are calculated for 2010, we are certain they will be significantly higher. Part of the increase will be because of the overwhelming success of the Civil Law Self Help Center, which James Berchtold discusses in another article in this magazine. In its first year of opening, over 29,000 people will have sought assistance from that Center. Yes, over 29,000 people, most who have been sued and did not have a lawyer because they could not afford one.

Our largest area of work has become family law and within that larger framework our work with abused children is our biggest department and is still our biggest need. In 1999, we created our Children’s Attorneys Project where we represent kids in foster care who have been abused and neglected. We follow the ABA model of representation in this program, which is a traditional attorney-client relationship, rather than a “best interest” model. We started off with one attorney in 1999 and now have ten attorneys who represent about one-half of the children in foster care. These efforts are supplemented by about 250 pro bono attorneys. We recently represented three children who desperately wanted to stay together. The system found an adoptive home for two, but not the third. The children asked us to let the court know how much they wanted to remain together. After filing a motion and presenting oral arguments, the court ordered that the children be kept together. Six months later, a new foster family adopted all three children. Without our representation and immediate court action, these children might have lost their siblings, but instead had a very joyous outcome.

The next largest department is our Domestic Violence Project. This program began in 2001 with a grant from the United States Department of Justice. We now have five attorneys who represent primarily victims of domestic violence, but also some clients who really need a lawyer like those who are Spanish speaking only. Within this unit, we also work with battered immigrants and help them receive lawful status under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). We work closely with the domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers, and the police department and do our part to make sure that victims can live a life free of violence, which often includes obtaining protection orders, divorce decrees, and custody orders.

Consumer fraud has become rampant during this downturn in the economy and unscrupulous behavior of some collection companies also hits our clients. Our Consumer Rights Project helps those who are victims of consumer fraud and most recently, includes those going through bankruptcy and foreclosure. We now have seven attorneys working in this department, and we see really unbelievable things come through our doors. One startling example was a man, actually a senior citizen, who was being evicted from his condominium after an alleged foreclosure. He had tried to call the law firm in California to explain that he wasn’t in default, but they wouldn’t take his calls. It turns out that the law firm handling the eviction out of California used the wrong condominium number and they were supposed to be evicting the person next door. If we had not been there, this man undoubtedly would have lost his home.

We also have a 12-year partnership with the William S. Boyd School of Law at UNLV where first and second year law students teach free community legal education classes in the areas of divorce, custody, guardianship, bankruptcy, small claims, and foreclosure mediation. Anyone from the public, regardless of income, can attend these two-hour classes where they learn the basics of any of these areas of law. Law students are supervised by either an attorney from Legal Aid Center or the law school. Since their inception, over 36,000 people have attended these classes. Last year, Vegas PBS partnered with us and filmed our Bankruptcy class and that is now on our Web site. Vegas PBS just finished filming the Small Claims class and by the time of this publication, that should also be available on our Web site. We are trying to increase access to needed information during this digital age at a time when folks seem to need this information more than ever.

Finally, our program where we partner with local attorneys, including members of the Clark County Bar Association, is our Pro Bono Project. Legal Aid Center and the Pro Bono Project merged in 2000 so it would be easier for clients to access these services. We recruit attorneys to represent clients on a pro bono basis in all of the areas of law we practice in, but also in areas we don’t, such as estate planning, probate, and adoption. Since the merger of the two organizations, we have placed over 4,200 clients with pro bono attorneys and over 116,000 hours have been donated by volunteer attorneys.

Our story continues into the next decade. Currently, we don’t see any end in sight for the demand for our services and won’t until the unemployment rate begins to fall. But we promise, as always, we will continue to work hard to meet the demand.

Lynn Etkins, Esq. is the development director for Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada and has had this position since 2004. She was the pro bono project director for Legal Aid Center from 2001 to 2004. Lynn was the director of the Nevada Supreme Court Access to Justice Commission from 2006 to 2007 and is licensed to practice law in California and Florida.