By Talia Soglin*
After spending the day assisting low-income seniors in Napa with estate planning, helping to walk them through the morass of paperwork that involves end-of-life legal choices, Fenwick associate Ari Fink called his mother to check that she had her own papers in order. “Do you have a will?” he asked her. “Do you have an advanced healthcare directive?”
These were some of the questions that came up in Fenwick’s most recent Justice Bus pro bono effort on June 29. Fink, a second-year tech transactions associate, traveled to Napa as part of a group of 15 Fenwick associates and summer associates to provide legal aid to seniors at the City of Napa Senior Activity Center. The group traveled via the Justice Bus, which transports teams of lawyers and law students to isolated and rural California communities in a program run by the San Francisco legal nonprofit OneJustice.
Fenwick attorneys have been involved with OneJustice’s Justice Bus Project since 2007. The Justice Bus offers free one-day legal clinics to military veterans, immigrants, seniors and low income families. (Read more in our latest pro bono and community impact report.)
Pro Bono Project Helps Napa Seniors with Financial and Healthcare Decisions
Partnering with OneJustice and Kristi Lesnewich of Bay Area Legal Aid in Napa, the Fenwick team assisted 22 seniors with end-of-life legal issues, including the planning of wills, powers of attorney and advanced healthcare directives.
Fink said the work the associates did was both practical and crucial—hence his urge to call his mother. “It’s important to have the legal documents in place that communicate to your loved ones what you would like done with your body and possessions if you find yourself in a position where you cannot make these decisions yourself.”
The Fenwick team assisted seniors with issues such as planning for body and organ donation and designating agents for both financial and healthcare decisions in the case of incapacitation.
Sloka Tankala, a UC Hastings second-year and Fenwick summer associate who participated in the trip, said she found the experience gratifying, and emphasized the responsibility she feels comes with having the unique skill set of a law student or attorney.
It wasn’t her first Justice Bus trip: Tankala, who also spent her prior summer at Fenwick, participated on a trip last year focused on naturalization. There, she assisted a woman who was facing a “pretty complicated” naturalization situation, as she had left the country for six months to care for an ailing son.
Cremeithius Riggins, a fellow summer associate and second-year at UC Berkeley, echoed Tankala’s sentiments, saying it was meaningful “to pick up a seven-page document that has an impact on somebody’s life.”
Fink emphasized how important pro bono work is in areas outside of big urban centers. “In a bigger city, you have your choices of paid legal services and you even may have choices for free legal services,” he said. “But in more remote places some individuals find they have no option at all.”
Connecting with Clients
Several of the summer associates bonded with their clients.
Riggins said his first client reminded him of his own great-grandmother. “We had a special connection,” he said. “We probably stayed and talked for about 15 minutes longer than the actual process of filling out the paperwork, but that’s just how much we were enjoying each other.”
Fink reflected on how during just one day he and the Fenwick team felt they had been able to help with end-of-life plans for clients who otherwise may not have had the benefit of free legal advice.
“A little bit of effort in one day has the potential to give someone comfort and security,” Fink said.
*Talia Soglin is a corporate social responsibility assistant at Fenwick.
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