A Silicon Valley Solution to the Access to Justice Problem

Fenwick & West Receives 2014 Beacon of Justice Award for Virtual Pro Bono Project

By: Julia Ushakova-Stein, Associate, Mountain View

Access to justice is hard to come by for those living in poverty. And for the impoverished who live in rural and isolated communities, getting legal assistance is nearly impossible. Fenwick & West and its partners sought to change that.

In May 2014, the National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) announced that Fenwick was selected to receive the prestigious 2014 Beacon of Justice Award honoring law firms that have created and implemented innovative strategies to improve life outcomes for low-income individuals. Fenwick received this award for its work with DLA Piper, Cisco, and the Pro Bono Project of Silicon Valley (PBP) in integrating virtual technology into the pro bono clinic model, bringing legal aid to rural communities.

The Beacon of Justice Award winners are selected by criteria assessing increased access to representation through the utilization of groundbreaking and original ideas, tools, and technology to create new delivery models and initiatives that provide significant pro bono representation. The winners advance policies and practices that provide pathways to justice and opportunity, while also enhancing the representation provided to clients. Specifically, the virtual pro bono project (VPBP) was selected for its successful and resourceful use of online services to provide legal aid and connect low-income individuals with pro bono attorneys.

Due to distance, lack of convenient public transportation options, and inability of busy attorneys to commute to remote areas, providing legal assistance to far-away clients was, to put it mildly, challenging. Yet, these far-away clients, many of whom live in poverty, desperately needed legal aid. So in 2012, Fenwick, Cisco, PBP, and DLA Piper banded together to come up with a solution - they created the VPBP.

The VPBP bridges the accessibility gap between attorneys and their clients by combining elements of a traditional pro bono clinic with web conferencing technology. Potential clients in need of legal assistance visit select Santa Clara County libraries in the San Francisco Bay Area for one of eight free monthly clinics, where they are matched with volunteer attorneys. Using WebEx, the attorneys "meet" with clients virtually to provide advice and referrals from the comfort of their offices or homes.

In the 4 ½ months between full roll-out of the VPBP in August 2013 and the end of 2013, volunteers from Fenwick, DLA Piper, Cisco, and other law firms donated close to 200 hours of their time to the virtual clinics! Several legal services nonprofits in California have since followed in our footsteps and are piloting their own virtual clinic programs.

Brian Lahti, a Fenwick litigation associate who has been involved with the VPBP, said the following of his experience: “The virtual pro bono clinic is both rewarding for the attorney and necessary for rural communities. The use of technology allows us to reach individuals and communities with great needs and that have little resources otherwise available. From the attorney’s side the technology allows you to form the very important connection with the client necessary to provide an efficient service, while still maintaining your other obligations.”

Here in Silicon Valley, we're all about using technology to build connections and solve problems.

Julia Ushakova-Stein, a graduate of the UC Berkeley School of Law, is an associate in the Tax practice group at Fenwick & West LLP. She focuses her practice on U.S. tax planning and controversy matters, with an emphasis on international tax planning and restructurings, M&A (inbound and outbound), and transfer pricing. A staunch supporter of pro bono, Julia sits on the firm's Pro Bono Committee and regularly provides pro bono services to various nonprofits. While in law school, she served as the Supervising, Development, and Executive Editor for the Berkeley Business Law Journal.