Fenwick is proud to partner with California Lawyers for the Arts (“CLA”) to represent members of the creative arts community throughout the state. Through the Lawyer Referral Service, the firm represents clients on a pro bono basis with licensing, copyright, trademark, and a variety of other legal issues.
Through a CLA referral, I have been fortunate enough to work with a client who owns his own music accessories company. In addition to the valuable and transferable skills I’ve gained through the representation, I’ve relished the opportunity to work directly with the client to learn more about his business and help protect and enforce his intellectual property rights.
CLA is a non-profit organization whose mission is to empower the creative community by providing education, representation and dispute resolution. Beyond the Lawyer Referral Service, CLA offers in-person and online educational programs on a variety of arts-related legal issues, ranging from photography and the law to bookkeeping basics for creative professionals. From July 2012 to June 2013 alone, almost 1,000 clients received legal assistance through CLA referrals.
Emily Gische, a UC Hastings College of Law alum, is an associate in the Intellectual Property practice group at Fenwick & West LLP. She focuses her practice on a broad range of trademark matters to support clients in the high technology and life sciences industries. Dedicated to pro bono, Emily has participated in the Justice Bus clinics and the Domestic Violence Limited Scope Representation program, among other projects. While in law school, she was the Executive Articles Editor of the Hastings Law Journal. She competed in the Saul Lefkowitz Moot Court Competition, focused on trademark and unfair competition law, in which her team won the Dolores K. Hanna National Best Brief Award.
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.
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.
A commitment to justice and the needs of the underserved were among the criteria that I used to distinguish between firms when deciding where to spend my 2L summer. Now, as a summer associate at Fenwick & West, I’ve had the opportunity to meaningfully participate in Fenwick’s thriving pro bono program and witness this commitment firsthand.
On June 6, 2014, Fenwick & West partnered with OneJustice and the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF) to provide special education assistance to low-income parents and families in Yolo County, California. Sixteen Fenwick attorneys and summer associates boarded the Justice Bus, which buses volunteers from urban areas to rural and isolated communities to set up free legal clinics. The Justice Bus is one of many ways that OneJustice accomplishes its mission of bringing life-changing legal help to Californians in need.
Fenwick's Justice Bus volunteers arrive in Woodland, California.
Upon arriving at the clinic, I was excited to interact with clients and to work with them to accomplish their goals. At the same time, I was unsure of whether I would be a useful resource because I had no experience with education law. However, after several hours of conversing with clients and relying on DREDF’s expert attorneys, it became clear that our efforts were making a difference.
Summer Associate Taimur Case and Associate Deborah Kang hard at work.
The Fenwick volunteers provided assistance to parents and guardians in various aspects of special education law, including requests for accommodations, development of individualized education programs, and general guidance about student and parent rights under state and federal law. The group served 20 clients, including one client who said the following about the clinic: “Thank you for your help. It is overwhelming dealing with a child’s disabilities when you have to fight for services at the same time. The volunteers and counsel provided a simple, but thorough explanation of the next steps to take. Thank you!”
Summer Associates Victoria Wong, Amanda Baratz, Albert Chen, Jeremy Kazzaz, and Elizabeth Chang.
For clients, the clinic was a source of help in navigating a complex and challenging area of the law. For me, the project demonstrated Fenwick’s commitment to the community and culture of making a difference in the lives of the underserved. I look forward to learning more about Fenwick’s pro bono program this summer, as well as participating in the many pro bono projects available to attorneys and summer associates.
Fenwick’s team of volunteers included Associates Betsy White, Deborah Kang, Helen Li, Kelli Newman, and Ronnie Solomon, and Summer Associates Albert Chen, Amanda Baratz, Andrew Xue, Ari Haber, Elizabeth Chang, Jennifer Cho, Jeremy Kazzaz, Taimur Case, Victoria Wong, Yousef AbuGharbieh, and Zach Lerner.
Victoria Wong, a 2L at the UC Davis School of Law, is a summer associate in the Corporate practice group at Fenwick & West LLP. She is a senior articles editor of the UC Davis Law Review. Victoria previously chaired the Filipino Law Students Association, and served as Professional Development Chair for the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association. Last summer, she externed for the Hon. Justice Louis Mauro of the California Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District. As an undergrad at UC Berkeley, she interned at the Alameda Superior Court and volunteered at The Suitcase Clinic to coordinate legal services for the homeless. Victoria enjoys binge-watching TV shows, mini-golfing, and spending time with her fiancé, Eric.
Everyone takes their skills for granted at times - especially lawyers. We're surrounded by other lawyers and highly-skilled professionals, so it's easy to forget that our training and experience have provided us with abilities that other people lack - and yet may desperately need. Pro bono service can be a reminder that people outside of the legal and business communities value what we can do. And that can motivate us to put our skills to more diverse, inclusive, and transformative uses.
I remember the first time I volunteered with the housing eviction defense clinic at the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley. I doubted my ability to help anyone facing eviction. I had no experience beyond a couple hours' study beforehand! I waited in the lobby as anxiously as I imagined my clients would, holding their eviction papers in hand. How on earth could I be of any use?
I've since learned otherwise. At the clinic, volunteer lawyers help clients draft answers to complaints for unlawful detainer. It's not complex litigation - it's a matter of filling out forms. But for the clients, those forms are as daunting as just "filling out" a motion for summary judgment. Whether they know it or not, the volunteer lawyers - even if they have no experience with housing law - are skilled at assimilating relevant information, navigating rules and procedures, and paying attention to detail.
And that can make the difference between someone staying in their home or facing homelessness.
I've also volunteered with Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto, where I recently assisted a woman in answering a complaint for non-payment of debt. She spoke little English and did not know what the alleged debt was for. As we quickly discovered, she may have been a victim of identity theft. With the help of a Spanish-speaking volunteer, we drafted a form answer to a state court complaint neither of us had ever seen before.
No prior experience? Sure.
No skills? I don't think so.
Law is a strange profession. I remember realizing during law school that, as a future business litigator, my "clients" would largely be other lawyers working in-house. And as a young associate, there's even a feeling that my "clients" are partners and senior associates. When you're surrounded by people who are simply better at what you do than you are, it's easy to lose sight of your potential to contribute to the outside world. It's too easy to grow pessimistic. Pro bono has been a reminder to me that I've acquired useful skills and that we inhabit a world very much in need of them.
Zach Miller, a graduate of UCLA School of Law, is an associate in the Litigation practice group at Fenwick & West LLP. His practice is focused on resolving intellectual property, contractual, and employment disputes in the high technology and life science industries. Committed to pro bono, he has assisted the Animal Legal Defense Fund, the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, and a local environmental nonprofit. As a law student, Zach served as an Employment Litigation Law Clerk for the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office. Before law school, he worked at a public policy organization where he advocated on behalf of Silicon Valley companies on issues ranging from cyber-security to health care reform. Zach is an avid hiker, backpacker, and backyard-gardener.
Fenwick & West and Facebook have been teaming up at the monthly Legal Aid of San Mateo County’s Share of Cost Clinic to help low-income seniors and disabled adults qualify for affordable health care coverage. Seniors and disabled adults with incomes just above the federal poverty level typically come to the clinic after receiving a notice that they will now be responsible for paying a major share of the cost of their medical services before the California Medical Assistance Program (Medi-Cal) will provide any health coverage. Clinic attendees are often very worried and are unsure how to interpret the complex rules of Medi-Cal coverage.
Under Medi-Cal, seniors and disabled adults with monthly incomes that rise above $1,203 ($1,621 for couples) are forced out of the Medi-Cal Aged and Disabled Federal Poverty Level program and into Medi-Cal’s Medically Needy Share of Cost program. That first program covers substantially all of the client’s medical services, while the Share of Cost program covers far less. Under the Share of Cost program, low income adults are expected to cover food, housing, and other non-medical living expenses on $600/month ($934 for couples). Beyond this “maintenance need” amount, the rest of their monthly income is required to go to payment of medical bills to meet their share of the cost of their medical care. Medi-Cal will only begin to cover their medical bills after they have accrued enough medical expenses themselves in a month to meet this share of cost amount. For low income adults with substantial medical issues or frequent care needs, this requirement can be devastating.
As a result, seniors and disabled adults often come to the clinic facing the likely prospect of having to simply do without any medical care, even though they are dealing with problems like diabetes, cancer, severe mental disabilities, dementia, or other problems for which skipping treatment is life threatening. At the clinic, our teams sit down with each client, listen to their concerns, review their paperwork, and try to help them find a workable solution that will allow them to get affordable health care coverage.
Fenwick's Share of Cost Pro Bono clinic volunteers: Ayyappa Vemulkar, Andrew Hilger, Antonia Sequeira, Frank Yang and Greg Hopewell
In recognition of our contributions to seniors and disabled adults, earlier this month the Legal Aid Society jointly awarded Fenwick and Facebook the Guardian of Justice Award for our longstanding partnership and contributions to the Share of Cost clinics. Fenwick and Facebook have been participating in those clinics for years, and have jointly donated a total of 627 hours of pro bono legal assistance since the beginning. For both of our legal teams, this program has been an extremely rewarding opportunity to work together and use our legal skills to interpret the Medi-Cal rules and provide much needed help to low-income individuals.
Antonia Sequeira, a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, is an associate in the Intellectual Property practice group at Fenwick & West LLP. She focuses her practice on patent prosecution, counseling, analysis and litigation. Her technology focus includes medical and biotechnology device, digital health/health IT, laboratory automation, bioscience, biopharmaceutical, software, and Internet areas. Before school, Antonia worked in diverse medical environments, including in a clinical laboratory as a certified phlebotomist. A former researcher on the Drosophila Genome Project at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Antonia has experience in DNA sequencing techniques, bioinformatics tools, and high-throughput laboratory automation.
Search
About the Blog
At Fenwick & West, we are proud of our commitment to the community and to our culture of making a difference in the lives of individuals and organizations in the communities where we live and work. We recognize that providing legal services is not only an essential part of our professional responsibility, but also an excellent opportunity for our attorneys to gain valuable practical experience, learn new areas of the law and contribute to the community.
Follow via RSS
