Specialized Knowledge Can Help Those in Need

There may be a perception that the primary opportunities for pro bono legal service are only for lawyers with an expertise in family law, housing, debt or other issues that are most common for underserved or low-income clients. While there are many opportunities in those areas, there are also countless other ways to provide pro bono service that utilize specialty areas, from intellectual property and immigration law to estate planning and appellate practice. Additionally, in many of these areas, when clients proceed alone, their lack of knowledge can create larger problems for them, their families and the smooth function of the justice system.

Tennessee remains a strong leader in access to justice (ATJ) efforts, including developing and growing successful projects that are being replicated across the state and in other jurisdictions. This strength is also represented by the innovative partnerships and outreach that expand services to previously underserved individuals and families, frequently relying on niche volunteer expertise to be successful. There are many such opportunities, some with local legal service organizations or pro bono projects and others that are examples of individual attorneys finding a connection between needed legal assistance and unique areas of expertise. Those interested in finding out about these opportunities and more can visit the TBA’s “I Want to Do Pro Bono” webpage at www.tba.org/resource/i-want-to-do-pro-bono.

Ways to Use Your Legal Expertise Through TBA Programs

The Tennessee Bar Association (TBA) directly supports a number of projects that are focused on outreach, training and pairing attorneys with clients in need. In addition to the individual clients and communities served, TBA recognizes the value these pro bono opportunities bring to our members.

The Tennessee Bar Association supports 32 sections — specialized groups that focus on a particular legal or practice area. Each of these sections provides its members with a number of resources and activities, from continuing legal education to news, information and advocacy. Recently, more of the sections have added a focus on opportunities for pro bono projects.

While the broader emphasis on pro bono opportunity for TBA section members is relatively new, some sections have a long history of combining section-focused activities with public service. For example, over the past few years, the Entertainment and Sports Law Section has hosted biannual legal clinics for artists, co-sponsored by Volunteer Lawyers & Professionals for the Arts.

The new efforts toward specialized pro bono projects came in part at the suggestion of Family Law Executive Council Chair Deb House, director of development and compliance at Legal Aid of East Tennessee.

“For TBA section members,” House says, “these practice-area-focused projects may provide an initiation to pro bono service, without the worry of being called upon to address a legal issue in an area they do not have experience or interest.”

One upcoming event seeks to connect corporate and in-house counsel with unique pro bono opportunities that are a fit for them. TBA’s Corporate Counsel Section is holding a training and clinic utilizing TNFreeLegalAnswers.org (formerly OnlineTNJustice) to be held Saturday, March 4, in Nashville. The pro bono event will be hosted at the Tennessee Bar Center the morning of the 11th Annual Corporate Counsel Pro Bono Initiative Gala, which follows the day after the section’s annual CLE forum. By scheduling three separate but linked events, the section is hoping to increase overall participation and engagement, with a pro bono emphasis.

Legal Assistance Volunteers for Patent Applicants (LAVPA), is a pro bono program of the TBA that matches patent attorneys with under-resourced inventors and small businesses, to provide pro bono legal services, including the filing of patent applications, and is a great example of how attorneys with a very specific expertise can use their skills to help clients who may otherwise go unserved. The program partners with, and is supported by, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). LAVPA’s mission is to educate inventors about the patent process, provide information and resources about economic development, and match under-resourced inventors and small businesses with attorneys to provide legal services for free.

“Many patent attorneys have wanted to provide pro bono services but have been limited because of their specialty,” Ed Lanquist says. “LAVPA allows us to give back.” Lanquist is managing shareholder of Patterson Intellectual Property in Nashville and chair of the LAVPA Advisory Council.

Garrett M. Hausman, an associate patent attorney also at Patterson Intellectual Property, former patent examiner and LAVPA volunteer, believes “this volunteerism is a great way to promote an attorney’s services within the inventor community, show they care and demonstrate to the inventor community the value of using an attorney. For new attorneys it can be a great way to gain experience in prosecuting patents including client interaction and management.” All patent attorneys, experienced or just starting out, can use pro bono as a way of helping an inventor protect an invention in which the attorney may find interesting or just want to gain more experience.

TBA’s Appellate Pro Bono Project is a partnership between the TBA’s Access to Justice Committee, the TBA’s Appellate Practice Section and Tennessee Alliance for Legal Services (TALS). Started as a pilot in 2011, the project works to provide pro bono representation to litigants appearing in the Tennessee appellate courts who otherwise could not afford counsel. The goals of the project include improving access to justice for low-income litigants in Tennessee’s appellate courts by establishing a qualified panel of appellate attorneys to provide pro bono representation on appeal, as well as increasing opportunities for attorneys with appellate practice expertise to use their skills to serve clients who could not otherwise afford representation and providing an opportunity for senior appellate attorneys to mentor and supervise young lawyers seeking appellate practice experience through pro bono representation.

Currently, the project is seeking to grow the panel of available attorneys, including those seeking mentoring from more experienced attorneys. TBA Appellate Practice Executive Council Chair Edmund Sauer shares that some of his most significant early appellate experience came through pro bono representation.

“The appellate pro bono program not only affords indigent clients with legal representation, but it also gives lawyers an opportunity to handle an appeal, including an oral argument before the Tennessee Court of Appeals,” Sauer, who is with Bradley Arrant in Nashville, says. “This is an especially rewarding opportunity for younger lawyers who seek appellate practice and oral argument experience. My first few appellate arguments as a young lawyer were on pro bono matters. Those opportunities were invaluable in building my confidence as an appellate practitioner.”

Even IP Expertise Can Be Pro Bono

In addition to established projects that help connect attorneys with expertise to clients in need, there are many instances of individual lawyers using their particular skills to connect with organizations or clients that need their assistance.

Tennessee Justice Center’s “AskJane!” is an innovative eligibility tool designed to effectively screen uninsured people for public health benefits. At its beginning, it faced complex intellectual property challenges that threatened to defeat the project. Fortunately, TJC had volunteer support from a skilled intellectual property attorney, Alex MacKay, who shepherded the project through to implementation.

Alex MacKay

MacKay’s practice at Stites & Harbison in Nashville focuses on transactional and litigation matters involving intellectual property, including trademarks and copyrights. While there have been occasional opportunities to use her expertise, most of MacKay’s extensive pro bono work has been in the area of family law and other more typical issues that present at legal clinics and through referral from the Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands. However, last year, her skilled knowledge proved indispensable in the development and protection of software that will benefit thousands of vulnerable Tennesseans.

AskJane! is used to effectively screen the uninsured for public health benefits. Eligibility rules for TennCare (Medicaid), the Children’s Health Insurance Program and premium tax credits are so complex that the Tennessee Supreme Court described them as “almost unintelligible to the uninitiated.” TJC staff have decades of collective experience in this area of the law and AskJane! was conceived as a means of making TJC’s expertise broadly available to attorneys, volunteers, social service agencies and health care providers, so they can connect uninsured Tennesseans to public health benefits.

However, AskJane! faced complex intellectual property (IP) problems that threatened to defeat the project and that TJC staff were not equipped to resolve. Those challenges included negotiation of the software adaptation contract, product licensing and platform user agreements, as well as copyright and trademark considerations. MacKay provided extensive legal guidance, much of it over nights or weekends to meet deadlines, as she shepherded the project through the IP labyrinth. MacKay also helped TJC anticipate post-development legal issues, including maintenance and technical support, that helped TJC formulate a development strategy for AskJane! in future years. Ultimately, MacKay donated $40,000 of pro bono legal services to this project, but the value to low-income Tennesseans was “priceless” according to TJC Executive Director Michele Johnson. Thanks to MacKay, AskJane! will enable thousands of uninsured families, in all 95 counties, to enroll in coverage. It will enable countless more to retain their TennCare benefits by successfully navigating the state’s daunting eligibility redetermination process.

When the concept for AskJane! was brought to the TJC board of directors, MacKay immediately volunteered her legal services to the project. “To think I can offer my skills as an intellectual property attorney to help the TJC with AskJane! motivates me even more,” she says, explaining that her motivation for being involved was driven by her desire to further the mission.

MacKay’s work with AskJane! enables TJC to scale up its use of pro bono attorney volunteers to advocate for the uninsured. The tool will equip attorney volunteers to take on health insurance eligibility cases that would otherwise require expertise that they lack. MacKay’s donation of her time and talents provided a benefit TJC could not have afforded, and without which the AskJane! project could not have succeeded.

Using International Family Law Knowledge

International family law situations may involve crisis and a need for very specific expertise and skills connecting with clients. Nashville attorney Rebecca McKelvey Castañeda at Stites &?Harbison does in fact work exclusively in family law, but she also has an emphasis in international family law, especially parental child abductions from country to country. Her expertise also includes cases brought under the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction and the International Child Abduction Remedies Act.

Rebecca McKelvey Castañeda

Castañeda was honored with the TBA’s 2015 Harris Gilbert Pro Bono Volunteer of the Year Award for work that drew directly upon her exceptional expertise, including service through the International Child Abduction Attorney Network, where she often receives referrals for those in need, but who may not qualify for legal aid and cannot afford an attorney. She has also represented unaccompanied minor children being detained by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE). In all of these cases, Castañeda works hard to overcome cultural barriers to connect with her clients in cases that may involve many months of intense work.

“My firm encourages me to care and contribute and to spend a portion of my time providing pro bono legal aid,” Castañeda says. “My mentors like Charlie Warfield, Gregory D. Smith and Judge James G. Martin III empowered me with the space, time and abilities to take on this kind of work.”

Partnering to Share Immigration Expertise

Immigration Law is a complex field; skilled practitioners possess highly specialized knowledge and must have expertise with sometimes ambiguous interpretations of law. Last summer, Tennessee Justice for Our Neighbors (JFON) sought volunteer assistance with a complicated case representing a group of Hispanic men who were victims of a serious crime and possibly eligible for U visas. The U visa is set aside for victims of certain crimes who have suffered mental or physical abuse and are willing to assist law enforcement and government officials in the investigation or prosecution of criminal activity.

Matt Pietsch

JFON’s Legal Director Adrienne Kittos has years of experience with this special visa, but she was already carrying an enormous caseload. Fortunately, Middle Tennessee attorney Matt Pietsch was looking for a volunteer opportunity to support the community he grew up in while also brushing up on his Spanish skills. Pietsch is a solo practitioner and is of counsel at Reforma Law. His practice area includes immigration law, and he has experience appearing before the Executive Office of Immigration Review and the Board of Immigration Appeals. The pro bono case with JFON gave him the chance to gain some additional experience with U visas under the supervision and assistance of Kittos, an expert in her field, while also increasing JFON’s capacity of service. Pietsch and Kittos worked together, sharing expertise to help their clients onto the pathway to citizenship.

You Can Use Your Expertise to Help

There are countless opportunities for pro bono service across the state, including many for lawyers seeking to develop, utilize or mentor another using a particular area of specialization or expertise. In most cases, additional training and support are available. Sometimes, attorneys seek to provide pro bono service in settings outside their usual practice areas, but for those looking to connect their expertise with need, there are many ways to do that.

LIZ TODARO is the Tennessee Bar Association’s access to justice coordinator. She received her law degree from the City University of New York. Members of the TBA’s Access to Justice Committtee contributed to this article.