UNC School of Law’s nationally recognized Pro Bono Program has celebrated over two decades of Carolina Law students assisting attorneys to provide high quality, low cost legal services to individuals in need.
During the university’s spring break, the program offers volunteer opportunities for law students to practice their skills around North Carolina.
Pro bono is short for the Latin term pro bono publico, meaning “for the public good.” Pro bono work uses professional skills to provide services to those who are unable to afford them.
Since its creation in 1997, UNC Law’s Pro Bono Program has connected law students to hundreds of projects with supervising attorneys in public interest organizations, government agencies, non-profits and private practices.
Allison Standard Constance is the school’s Director of Pro Bono Initiatives. She said the Pro Bono Program serves as the connector between students at the law school and the community…all on a volunteer basis.
“Fortunately we are lucky at Carolina Law that there is a culture that folks want to get involved in service and want to give back and use their skills to help meet some of the unmet legal needs in our community, but it’s all voluntary,” Constance said.
She said over the past three years, 100 percent of the school’s graduating class participated in at least one pro bono project during their time in law school.
Projects like the three trips that were conducted earlier this week over UNC’s spring break. Every fall, winter and spring break, Carolina law students volunteering in the Pro Bono Program travel around the state offering up their help and services.
These trips are funded in part by the law school, alumni, and fundraising from students who participate in the program.
This spring break, 11 students went to Morganton, Hickory, and Lenoir offering help with wills and power of attorney documents – five students went to Charlotte to focus on housing and eviction issues – and 12 additional students planned their own trip to Asheville to help veterans with discharge upgrades to get better medical benefits.
(Andrew Coyle ’22, Supervising Attorney Jasmine Plott (Legal Aid of North Carolina attorney and 2019 UNC School of Law grad), and Chennell Coleman ’21 along with one of their clients at our clinic held at First United Methodist Church in Morganton.)
“We have found that using breaks from school is a great opportunity to help students learn more about other communities,” Constance said. “We try to spend a lot of time in other communities beyond the Triangle area but in North Carolina.”
North Carolina has several organizations that provide no cost, legal services to clients. Constance said as they are consistently underfunded and understaffed, she thinks the presence of these student volunteers helps to ease the work burden.
“If you have three attorneys but six pairs of students, you’re able to multiply what those attorneys are able to do,” Constance said.
Outside of the trips around North Carolina, additional volunteer opportunities are provided for students throughout the year – whether it be remote research projects or monthly sessions to craft power of attorney documents for cancer patients at the North Carolina Cancer Hospital.
Constance said this abundance of opportunity helps provide UNC School of Law students with a variety of real-world experiences that will help them down the line.
“That variety allows students to plug in whether they have a career path in a public interest or social justice field or whether they’re headed to a large, private law firm in New York,” Constance said. “That’s something that we really stress at Carolina Law, that pro bono work is for everyone and the students really take that message to heart.”
(Photos courtesy of Allison Standard Constance)
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