The New York City Family Court Legal Services Project

Since Fall 2006, over 1,200 low-income families have been helped by an innovative pro bono project run by the New York City Family Court. The project is administering a much-needed jolt to a system overwhelmed by unrepresented litigants and a lack of resources.

The premise is as simple as the impact is great. Attorneys from major law firms and in-house legal departments ' specially trained by court personnel ' provide one-on-one sessions for unrepresented litigants lasting from about 30 minutes to an hour on a variety of legal issues. Approximately half of the clients seek advice about child support while the rest ask questions relating to paternity, visitation, custody, guardianship and other issues. Once the one-time session concludes, the representation ends and the volunteer attorney moves onto the next litigant. Over the course of a day, an attorney can help up to a dozen litigants in what is best described as legal triage.

Why the Need?

Why the need for triage? The numbers speak for themselves. Of the 101,715 new support and paternity petitions filed throughout New York City during a recent year, approximately 90% of the litigants were unrepresented. In the same year, there were 67,203 new custody, visitation and family offense petitions of which approximately 75% were unrepresented. Those staggering numbers, however, only begin to tell the story. Significantly, while the number of family court petitions has skyrocketed over the past 15 years, the number of family court judges has remained the same ' exactly the same. By one estimate, that leaves a typical family court judge with about seven minutes per proceeding. Nobody can reasonably dispute that the current level of judicial resources devoted to the thousands of unrepresented, low-income litigants on issues vital to the safety and security of their families is anything but a terrible flaw in our system of justice that needs to be addressed immediately.

This situation has not been lost on Judge Joseph Lauria, who is in charge of the New York City Family Court, and who has been charged with doing the most with the least. Indeed, repeated calls to the State Legislature ' year after year ' by Chief Judge Judith Kaye for increased resources for family court has fallen on deaf ears. It is in this context, as part of his effort to address the growing needs of the unrepresented and broaden pro bono efforts in his court, that Judge Lauria reached out to the private sector, and initiated the legal services project. Starting in Brooklyn with attorneys from five law firms and Citigroup, the project has grown rapidly and is now in both Brooklyn and Manhattan, involving 15 law firms, Citigroup and Bank of America. There are plans to expand the project to the other three boroughs as the list of firms continues to grow.

Success of the Project

The project has taken off for a number of reasons. The time required from each individual attorney is modest ' as little as a few hours a month ' and does not entail bringing any work back to the office. Yet, even with this limited commitment, the attorneys make a big difference. Walking into the session, a client, often with much at stake, typically has little understanding of the law, and is almost always disorganized. Walking out of the session, a client has a better sense for what to say in court, what to bring to the next proceeding, and what relief is available. There is no question that the litigants are in a better position after speaking with a volunteer attorney than they would have been in the absence of legal advice.

For those interested in initiating a project similar to the one in New York, the following is critical:

• A strong commitment from the highest reaches of the court. This must include the court's willingness to devote scarce resources to the project. In short, a project of this kind should be executed in direct partnership with the court.
• A meaningful training program. In New York, volunteer attorneys complete seven hours of training conducted by judges, referees, magistrates, and family law practitioners. olunteers also sit in on court proceedings before meeting with clients.
• A court attorney on site. This attorney, employed by the court, must be experienced in all aspects of family law and practice in order to supervise the project, screen the litigants and answer questions raised by the volunteer attorneys. The court attorney should also maintain a library of legal and social services resources for the litigants. In short, having a court attorney available provides the volunteer attorneys (who typically have no family court experience) with a certain comfort level as they provide the advice court personnel are prohibited from dispensing. This comfort level ' also furthered by adequate training ' helps keep attorney attrition rates low.
• A commitment to the project from each participating law firm (not simply from each individual attorney). In New York, the firms are responsible for staffing certain days and are committed to the project for at least a year.

Conclusion

These one-time, limited pro bono representations are no substitute for increasing judicial resources and access to counsel. The project does, however, provide hope to a number of litigants who otherwise would have no access to legal advice. More fundamentally, the project is training dozens of attorneys from big firms not only in the substantive aspects of family law but in the rough and tumble, real-life challenges facing low-income New Yorkers in Family Court. In so doing, the pro bono work here is not as much about the individual case as it is about building momentum for change.

Bill Silverman is a shareholder in the New York office of Greenberg Traurig, LLP.

Since Fall 2006, over 1,200 low-income families have been helped by an innovative pro bono project run by the New York City Family Court. The project is administering a much-needed jolt to a system overwhelmed by unrepresented litigants and a lack of resources.

The premise is as simple as the impact is great. Attorneys from major law firms and in-house legal departments ' specially trained by court personnel ' provide one-on-one sessions for unrepresented litigants lasting from about 30 minutes to an hour on a variety of legal issues. Approximately half of the clients seek advice about child support while the rest ask questions relating to paternity, visitation, custody, guardianship and other issues. Once the one-time session concludes, the representation ends and the volunteer attorney moves onto the next litigant. Over the course of a day, an attorney can help up to a dozen litigants in what is best described as legal triage.

Why the Need?

Why the need for triage? The numbers speak for themselves. Of the 101,715 new support and paternity petitions filed throughout New York City during a recent year, approximately 90% of the litigants were unrepresented. In the same year, there were 67,203 new custody, visitation and family offense petitions of which approximately 75% were unrepresented. Those staggering numbers, however, only begin to tell the story. Significantly, while the number of family court petitions has skyrocketed over the past 15 years, the number of family court judges has remained the same ' exactly the same. By one estimate, that leaves a typical family court judge with about seven minutes per proceeding. Nobody can reasonably dispute that the current level of judicial resources devoted to the thousands of unrepresented, low-income litigants on issues vital to the safety and security of their families is anything but a terrible flaw in our system of justice that needs to be addressed immediately.

This situation has not been lost on Judge Joseph Lauria, who is in charge of the New York City Family Court, and who has been charged with doing the most with the least. Indeed, repeated calls to the State Legislature ' year after year ' by Chief Judge Judith Kaye for increased resources for family court has fallen on deaf ears. It is in this context, as part of his effort to address the growing needs of the unrepresented and broaden pro bono efforts in his court, that Judge Lauria reached out to the private sector, and initiated the legal services project. Starting in Brooklyn with attorneys from five law firms and Citigroup, the project has grown rapidly and is now in both Brooklyn and Manhattan, involving 15 law firms, Citigroup and Bank of America. There are plans to expand the project to the other three boroughs as the list of firms continues to grow.

Success of the Project

The project has taken off for a number of reasons. The time required from each individual attorney is modest ' as little as a few hours a month ' and does not entail bringing any work back to the office. Yet, even with this limited commitment, the attorneys make a big difference. Walking into the session, a client, often with much at stake, typically has little understanding of the law, and is almost always disorganized. Walking out of the session, a client has a better sense for what to say in court, what to bring to the next proceeding, and what relief is available. There is no question that the litigants are in a better position after speaking with a volunteer attorney than they would have been in the absence of legal advice.

For those interested in initiating a project similar to the one in New York, the following is critical:

• A strong commitment from the highest reaches of the court. This must include the court's willingness to devote scarce resources to the project. In short, a project of this kind should be executed in direct partnership with the court.
• A meaningful training program. In New York, volunteer attorneys complete seven hours of training conducted by judges, referees, magistrates, and family law practitioners. olunteers also sit in on court proceedings before meeting with clients.
• A court attorney on site. This attorney, employed by the court, must be experienced in all aspects of family law and practice in order to supervise the project, screen the litigants and answer questions raised by the volunteer attorneys. The court attorney should also maintain a library of legal and social services resources for the litigants. In short, having a court attorney available provides the volunteer attorneys (who typically have no family court experience) with a certain comfort level as they provide the advice court personnel are prohibited from dispensing. This comfort level ' also furthered by adequate training ' helps keep attorney attrition rates low.
• A commitment to the project from each participating law firm (not simply from each individual attorney). In New York, the firms are responsible for staffing certain days and are committed to the project for at least a year.

Conclusion

These one-time, limited pro bono representations are no substitute for increasing judicial resources and access to counsel. The project does, however, provide hope to a number of litigants who otherwise would have no access to legal advice. More fundamentally, the project is training dozens of attorneys from big firms not only in the substantive aspects of family law but in the rough and tumble, real-life challenges facing low-income New Yorkers in Family Court. In so doing, the pro bono work here is not as much about the individual case as it is about building momentum for change.

Bill Silverman is a shareholder in the New York office of Greenberg Traurig, LLP.