Talk Justice, an LSC Podcast: How Pandemic Innovations Improve Pro Bono Services

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WASHINGTON—Experts discuss innovations in pro bono services prompted by the pandemic on the latest episode of LSC's “Talk Justice” podcast released today. LSC President Ron Flagg hosts the conversation with guests Adam Heintz, director of pro bono services at Legal Services NYC, and Steven Schulman, pro bono partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP and former president of the Association of Pro Bono Counsel (APBCo). Their discussion, inspired by APBCo’s recent report,highlights the valuable lessons that legal services providers and their pro bono partners should carry on post-pandemic to expand access to justice.

Heintz recalls that in the initial period of adaptation to working remotely, things shifted radically—not just in operations, but in the volume of unmet need.

“It's hard to overstate the desperation of our client population during that time,” Heintz says. “We saw this incredible influx of new clients, many of whom had never been eligible for our services before—but so many people who are paid hourly lost their jobs, had limited access to resources to be able to make up for that loss of income [and] were just desperate to find food for their children, desperate to keep a roof over their heads, desperate to access medical care during a pandemic.”

Legal Services NYC began to rely on their hotline more than ever, and soon found that in many cases they were able to provide effective, convenient services online and over the phone.

Working through the pandemic, Schulman’s focus began to shift when an attorney representing survivors of domestic violence pointed out that her clients much prefer virtual court, as it allows them to feel more secure since they don’t have to share a room with their abuser.

“That really opened my eyes that there may be things that we want to do after the pandemic ends that we did only because of the pandemic,” Schulman says.

This interaction, paired with the extraordinary changes he saw legal aid providers making to carry on serving their communities, gave Shulman inspiration for the APBCo report.

“The ingenuity of legal aid organizations in reaching out to their client populations just kind of blew me away,” Schulman says. “I mean everything from using Ring doorbells to communicate with clients who had no other way of accessing help and needed to be physically distanced but could actually come and talk to somebody through that little portal, to Legal Aid of the Bluegrass taking laptops out into rural communities so that people could communicate back with lawyers in the cities.”

The pandemic gave legal aid providers a new perspective and stressed the importance of considering each client’s needs, abilities and preferences, Heintz explains. He says this approach has greatly improved client retention, and going forward, offering people a choice is vital.

“We really have tried to take to heart giving clients the power to make the decision about what form of contact works best for them, and that means not being stuck on one type of technology or one platform, but instead being open to a range of platforms.”

Talk Justice episodes are available online and on Spotify, Stitcher, Apple and other popular podcast apps. The podcast is sponsored by LSC’s Leaders Council. Future episodes of the podcast will explore how consumer debt collection is reshaping the justice system and new data on America’s justice gap.