Law Student Pro Bono Assistance
Are you currently working on a pro bono case
and need student assistance? Boston area law schools can help.
Listed below are profiles of each law school's pro bono
programs. The list includes:
- Boston College Law School
- Boston University School of Law
- Harvard Law School
- New England Law | Boston
- Northeastern University School of Law
- Southern New England School of Law
- Suffolk University Law School
- Western New England College School of Law
Attorneys are welcome to submit requests to one or more law
schools.
* If you are seeking personal legal assistance, do not contact
these schools. See our Need a
Lawyer? page.
Boston College Law School
Public Interest Programs
Kate Devlin Joyce, Esq., associate director of public interest
programs
(617) 552-4345
probono
As a Jesuit institution, Boston College Law School prides itself
on its commitment to public service. Many BC Law students
participate in pro bono work each year. They do so for leadership
development, academic training, career preparation, and community
service.
The optional Pro Bono Program supports pro bono activities at BC
Law, encourages more students to explore pro bono opportunities and
provides much deserved recognition for those students serving the
community through pro bono work.
If you are interested in having a Boston College law student
work on a pro bono matter, please contact Boston College Law School
at (617) 552-4345 or via e-mail.
Boston University School of Law
Pro Bono Program
Ben Solomon, pro bono senior program coordinator
(617) 353-3141
probono
765 Commonwealth Ave., 13th floor
Boston, MA 02215
Through the BU Law Pro Bono Program, law students dedicate their
developing legal skills to unmet legal needs in the Boston area,
throughout the United States and around the world. The Pro Bono
Program is administered through the Career Development Office,
whose staff advises students about the range of legal pro bono
opportunities and assists in identifying possible placements.
The program is voluntary and enjoys substantial student
participation. Students must pledge to perform a minimum of 35
hours during their three years in law school. Upon completion of
the pledged pro bono hours, students will receive a notation on
their law school transcripts attesting to their participation in
the program and stating the number of hours volunteered.
Participating LL.M. students pledge a minimum of 12 hours for the
same pro bono work.
Pro bono work, for the purposes of the BU Law program, must be
unpaid and not for academic credit. To meet the goals of our
program, student pro bono work should involve the rendering of
meaningful law-related service to persons of limited means or to
organizations that serve such persons or to other organizations
dedicated to underrepresented groups and/or social issues.
For more information on our pro bono program, click here.
Students are available to complete short-term projects and/or
projects that are long term in nature. To find out more about the
program, click here. If your organization or firm is
interested in partnering with our talented students on a pro bono
project, e-mail the BU Pro Bono Program or call (617)
353-3141.
Harvard Law School
Office of Clinical
and Pro Bono Programs
Lee Branson,
assistant director
lbranson
(617)
495-5202
Fax: (617) 496-2636
Austin 102
1515 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02138
The Pro Bono Service Program is a program which requires that all
Harvard Law School students, beginning with the class of 2005,
complete a total of at least 40 hours of law-related public service
pro bono work as a condition for graduation. Our hope is that by
giving back to the community, our graduates will develop a lifelong
professional vision of how they can contribute to the public
good.
Students may work
in programs that offer legal services to persons who cannot afford,
in whole or in part, to pay for services, including non profit
organizations, government agencies, and law firms doing pro bono
work. Summer public interest work funded through the summer funding
program can also count towards the requirement.
Requirements
Work at a law firm
qualifies as long the entire time is uncompensated and all of the
work is on a pro bono case in the public interest or for a client
unable to pay. Since this pro bono requirement is intended to
teach law by experience, the student's work should involve the
application or interpretation of law, the formulation of legal
policy, or the drafting of legislation or regulations. Work should
have an advocacy or representational component. It should not be
primarily clerical in nature.
Eligible tasks
include: assisting an attorney at trial, client and witness
interviewing and investigation, drafting documents, preparing a
case for trial, assisting pro se litigants in court, community
legal education, and research and writing. All work must be
supervised by a licensed attorney or a law professor. Supervision
can be by a lawyer in the organization or by a faculty member at
the law school with an on-site supervisor.
For more
information about Harvard's Pro Bono Program, click here.
To request a
Harvard Law School Volunteer, submit the Placement Organization Registration form by
e-mail, fax, or mail.
New England Law | Boston
Public Service
Transcript Notation Program
Sarah Coffey, assistant director, Career Services Office
scoffey
(617) 422-7228
The Center for Law and Social Responsibility (CLSR) integrates
public interest and socially responsible work into the life of the
school and the daily lives of students. It starts in the classroom.
New England Law professors teach more than seventy courses on
public interest-oriented topics such as American Indian Law, Sexual
Orientation and the Law, Global Warming Law and Policy, and Mental
Health Issues in the Criminal Process. In tandem with the academic
curriculum, the CLSR has five or six faculty members at any given
time who engage students in actual public service legal work. This
enables students to participate in real-world projects as a part of
their coursework, thus bridging the gap between what is discussed
in the classroom and how the law works in the real world. This
linking of theory and practice means that the study and work of
CLSR students and faculty can have far-reaching effects. Current
projects include the Criminal Justice Project, Environmental
Advocacy Project, Immigration Law Project, Public Service Project,
Women's and Children's Advocacy Project, and the Public Service
Transcript Notation Program.
The Public Service Transcript Notation Program is a program
operated under the auspices of the CLSR. Through this program,
students may earn formal recognition on their official law school
transcript of the public service and pro bono work they perform
while in law school. To obtain the notation, students perform a
minimum of twenty-five hours of eligible legal work on a volunteer
basis.
To find out more about the program, click here. If your organization or firm is
interested in working with New England Law students on a pro bono
project, please contact Sarah Coffey at [e-mail scoffey] or call (617) 422-7228.
Click here for more information about New
England Law | Boston's Center for Law and Social
Responisibility.
Northeastern University School of Law
Jeff Smith, director of external relations,
cooperative legal education
jef.smith
(617) 373-4942
All students must fulfill a public interest
requirement as a condition of graduation. Students at Northeastern
can satisfy this in a variety of ways that would be helpful to
organizations engaged in public interest work or to private firms
and practitioners engaged in important pro bono public interest
work.
Public Interest under Northeastern's public interest requirement
program is defined as employment or service with a government
agency; legal aid, legal services, public defender, victim advocate
or similar agency; an organization or attorney advocating law
reform or performing pro bono legal representation; or any
placement the dominant characteristic of which is service to
underrepresented groups.
Requirements
Students at Northeastern who fulfill the Public
Interest Requirement through the pro bono option must
perform at least 30 hours (total) of uncompensated
legal work in a public interest setting or an approved public
interest pro bono project with a private firm during the
second semester of the first year, second and/or third year of law
school.
All students at Northeastern University School of Law must
successfully complete four full-time legal internships (co-ops) of
at least 35 hrs a week for at least 11 weeks each. These
internships can meet the law school's public interest requirement
if the student is engaged in employment/service with a government
agency, legal aid, legal services, public defender, victim advocate
or similar agency; an organization or attorney advocating law
reform or performing pro bono legal representation; or any
placement the dominant characteristic of which is service to
underrepresented groups.
If you are interested in seeking a
Northeastern Student for either a pro bono project or for
a full-time co-op, please contact Jeff Smith at (617) 373-4942 or
via e-mail.
Northeastern also offers a unique year long
course which introduces first-year students to some of the central
skills of effective lawyering: legal research, objective and
persuasive legal writing, client representation, and critical
analysis of law's relationship to its multiple social contexts. The
course, Legal Skills in a Social Context (LSCC), involves a variety
of instruction including a group project under the supervision of
upper-level teaching fellows and supported by faculty and other
experts. The groups, each known as law offices, plan and execute a
social justice project -- an extensive real-world legal research
project on behalf of a community-based or public-service
organization client.
Beginning in January, each LSSC "law office" participates in a
closely supervised clinical experience, representing and assisting
a nonprofit community-based or advocacy organization in solving a
societal problem involving issues of diversity, the law and social
justice. We encourage all nonprofit community-based or advocacy
organizations to apply to work with LSSC on a social justice
project. We accept applicants on a rolling basis beginning March 1
each year.
The participating organizations, from all over the country,
compete for an opportunity to participate in the LSSC program and
have their legal problem addressed by the law office teams, which
include an upper-level student, a "Lawyering Fellow," who acts as
project manager and a faculty advisor.
Each law office team is responsible for producing a publishable
report detailing its findings with extensive legal and anecdotal
field research. In addition, each law office presents a highly
creative, often multimedia based, oral presentation to client
organizations and the entire LSSC class.
For more information on how to apply to become a social justice
project client, please see the following:
For more information about the LSSC Social
Justice Program contact Professor Susan Maze-Rothstein, director of
the LSSC Social Justice Program, via e-mail.
Southern New England School of Law
Pro Bono Program
Leslie Becker Wilson, Esq., pro bono program administrator and
assistant dean of Career Services and Alumni Relations
[e-mail lwilson]
(508) 998-9600 ext. 168
Fax: (508) 995-8542
333 Faunce Corner Road
Dartmouth, MA 02747
Integral to the mission of Southern New England School of Law is
the belief that all lawyers have a social and professional
obligation to serve the neediest members of their communities
through pro bono service. It is the hope of the dean and the
faculty that every graduate of the law school will do all that he
or she can to make the law more accessible to all. Consistent with
these principles, the law school strives to provide substantial
opportunities for student participation in pro bono
work.
To encourage student commitment to perform pro bono work, both
while in law school and in their subsequent legal careers, the law
school has implemented a Pro Bono Program. In addition to
developing and strengthening students' commitment to pro bono work,
the Pro Bono Program will provide vital community services to the
SouthCoast.
The central feature of the Pro Bono Program will be the provision
of law related pro bono opportunities for interested students in
their second, third and fourth years of law school. Qualified pro
bono work must be uncompensated work performed for an approved
project or organization for which a student does not receive
academic credit. To demonstrate completion of qualified pro bono
work, a student must maintain a log of hours and work
performed.
If your organization or firm is interested in having a Southern
New England School of Law student work on a pro bono matter, please
contact Leslie Becker Wilson, Esq., pro bono program administrator
and assistant dean of Career Services and Alumni Relations, via e-mail or call (508) 998-9600 ext. 168.
Suffolk University Law School
Rappaport Center
for Law and Public Service
Michelle Harper,
Esq., Director of Public Interest and Pro Bono Programs
mharper
(617) 573-8644
Fax: (617)
305-1681
120 Tremont St.,
Suite 110
Boston, MA
02108
Suffolk University
Law School is committed to the principle that members of the legal
community and those aspiring to enter the legal profession have an
obligation to assist in providing legal services to persons of
limited means, and to individuals, groups or causes that are
under-represented in the legal system. Through our voluntary
Pro Bono Program, Suffolk University Law School seeks to foster in
every member of the law school community - including faculty,
administrators, staff and law students - a moral and professional
obligation to ensure access to justice for all members of the
community.
In furtherance of
this principle, Suffolk University Law School challenges all
incoming law students to complete at least 50 hours of law-related
volunteer work before they graduate. By participating in
Suffolk's Pro Bono Program, students have the opportunity to give
back to the community by helping underserved clients or groups and
participating in work to improve the law, while also gaining
practical experience and building a network of professional
contacts.
Student pro bono
work is defined as law-related assistance to lawyers providing work
without fee, or at a substantially reduced fee, to persons of
limited means or to charitable, religious, civic, community,
governmental and educational organizations in matters that are
designed primarily to address the needs of persons of limited
means; or law-related assistance to lawyers providing work at no
fee or substantially reduced fee to individuals, groups or
organizations seeking to secure or protect civil rights, civil
liberties or public rights, or charitable, religious, civic,
community, governmental and educational organizations in matters in
furtherance of their organizational purposes, where the payment of
standard legal fees would significantly deplete the organization's
economic resources or would be otherwise inappropriate; or
participation in activities for improving the law, the legal system
or the legal profession.
To count as pro
bono, students may not receive pay or credit for their work. In
addition, students must be supervised by an attorney and Suffolk
Law students may not use 3:03 certification to perform pro bono
work.
For more
information about Suffolk's Pro Bono Program, please contact
Michelle Harper via e-mail.
Western New England College School of
Law
Career Services
Sam Charron, assistant director and public interest
coordinator
scharron
(413) 782-1416
A commitment to
the public interest is embedded in the culture and curriculum at
the Western New England College School of Law. WNEC students enjoy
numerous opportunities to give back to their community and gain
legal experience through activities such as public interest
externships, clinics, alternative spring break and pro bono
work.
Pro Bono work must
be carried out under the auspices of a government or 501(c)(3)
not-for -profit organization. Students must be supervised by a
licensed attorney and cannot receive pay or academic credit for
their work. Pro bono work must be substantive in nature-
placements seeking students for clerical work will not be
considered.
If you would like
to have a Western New England College School of Law student work
with your organization, please contact Sam Charron, assistant
director and public interest coordinator, Career Services at (413)
782-1416 or via e-mail.