Last week, some colleagues and I were honored to meet with several outstanding lawyer-leaders who sat down with us to talk about technology and the delivery of pro bono legal services.
Our civil legal aid and pro bono programs in Georgia have enjoyed the support of Pro Bono Net, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing access to justice through innovative uses of technology and increased volunteer lawyer participation. At the urging of Pro Bono Net, we — the State Bar of Georgia Pro Bono Project and the Pro Bono Partnership of Atlanta– decided to convene a roundtable of large law firm and corporate legal department lawyers to present them a picture of our community’s current technology assets (which are many) and to discover how we and they might better use technology to improve volunteer lawyer recruitment, enhance the placement of pro bono cases, and strengthen volunteer lawyer support for case work and training.
We were extremely pleased with the roundtable discussion with lawyers representing firms and corporate counsel programs like Alston & Bird LLP, UPS, Cox Enterprises, Turner, Troutman Sanders LLP and more. Representatives from many of our public interest programs attended and participated in the discussion.
We will be reviewing the many discussion notes and continuing dialog with the roundtable participants to help ensure that our civil justice community and our volunteer lawyers develop the communication tools needed to talk about pro bono technology and implement solutions that benefit services and clients.
