Alcoa Foundation, local corporations team to fund pilot project
By Barbara Kern and Jeff Heeter
For The Lawyers Journal
Sept. 14, 2007—The Pittsburgh Pro Bono Partnership and Neighborhood Legal Services Association recently announced the development of a pilot signature project made possible through a matching grant from the Alcoa Foundation. The Reduced Fee Referral Assistance Project is designed to provide pro bono legal assistance to NLSA clients involved in custody trials, an area in which such assistance has not historically been available.
Although most custody cases settle at the conciliation stage, some require a full custody trial and resulting court order for resolution. Prior to the establishment of the Reduced Fee Referral Assistance Project, there was no project or clinic that could provide pro bono representation if a client needed to proceed to the trial level. NLSA clients could receive a reduced fee certificate, which would enable them to obtain the services of a family law attorney who had previously agreed to take reduced fee referrals from NLSA. Unfortunately, even at those greatly reduced rates ($70 per hour), most NLSA clients could not afford to engage an attorney for a full custody trial, which might involve one or two days of trial in addition to preparation time, court-mandated psychological testing, and other costs.
The Reduced Fee Referral Assistance Project will ensure that qualifying low income individuals have access to this final step in the child custody legal process by subsidizing payments of up to $2,000 to attorneys who participate in NLSA’s reduced fee referral program. Those attorneys must agree (i) to submit their bills to the program for payment; (ii) that the maximum that they can receive from the program is $2,000; and (iii) that payment from the fund will constitute full payment for their representation, and they will not charge the client any additional fees. The amount of this subsidy was determined by a panel of experienced family law and NLSA attorneys, using the current hourly rates from the NLSA reduced fee referral program.
“This creative project is notable as the first of its kind for the partnership in two respects. First, it is a pro bono project whose goal will be achieved entirely through financial contributions. Second, the project has been funded solely by contributions from corporations and corporate legal departments in the Pittsburgh area,” said Jeff Heeter, chairman of the Administrative Board of the Pittsburgh Pro Bono Partnership. The original $10,000 Alcoa Foundation grant has been matched by donations from CBS Corporation, Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania, Duquesne Light Company, Highmark, H.J. Heinz Company, United States Steel Corporation, and Westinghouse Electric Company LLC.
According to Robert Racunas, NLSA executive director, “Representation for our clients in these kinds of cases is among the most difficult to obtain. This project makes major inroads into providing them with desperately needed representation.”
The Reduced Fee Referral Assistance Project complements the Custody Conciliation Project, another recent Pittsburgh Pro Bono Partnership Signature Project. That program endeavors to ensure that no low income party will have to attend a custody conciliation without benefit of counsel. Administered by Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott, the Custody Conciliation Project has enlisted and trained attorneys from nine other Partnership member organizations to provide limited appearance representations at custody conciliations. The Reduced Fee Project therefore caps a targeted pro bono effort in the family law area unlike any other in the country.
NLSA has informed all family law attorneys currently on its reduced fee referral list of the Reduced Fee Referral Assistance Project. Because it is not anticipated that the number of custody trials will exceed the capacity of these attorneys to provide representation, only those attorneys will be eligible to participate in the pilot project.