By: dmc-admin//September 15, 2008//
At the YWCA in Wausau, citizens can play bridge, take yoga classes and drop their kids off for daycare.
But once a month, local residents also can get free legal advice and enjoy a cup of coffee or two.
Since 2005, the pro bono legal program Legal Grounds has offered people a chance to solicit free legal advice in a comfortable atmosphere, rather than a courthouse clinic.
“There is no stigma of walking into a law office or a court,” said attorney Brynne D. McBride, who co-founded the program with her twin sister Erin. “It makes attorneys a lot more approachable.”
While the McBrides and other attorneys acknowledge the importance of court-based clinics, they also say the emergence of localized neighborhood programs provide an attractive alternative for pro se litigants, as well as volunteers.
Multi-Purpose Visit
One of the key elements to a successful community clinic, Brynne McBride said, is incorporating the opportunity for legal advice into everyday activities.
In its first year, Legal Grounds was held at the T.B. Scott Public Library in Merrill and teamed with Starbucks, which supplied the free coffee for visitors. But it moved to the YWCA in order to accommodate more visitors and partnered with local coffee house Allister Deacon.
“We could catch clients on the way to and from daycare and it was convenient because it’s located across the street from city hall,” said McBride, who along with her sister turned Legal Grounds over to Wisconsin Judicare Inc. last year.
Current facilitator, attorney Kimberly Haas, said the program continues to be held the first Wednesday of every month with one volunteer attorney fielding questions about family law, landlord-tenant or utility matters, while enjoying a cup of joe.
On average, five people attend the two-hour session each month and Haas hopes to expand the program to surrounding areas.
“Since the only Judicare office is in Wausau, I’d like to make it a traveling coffeehouse,” said Haas, who added that its neighborhood roots might make it an easy sell to similar-sized locales or larger cities.
Haas and Judicare are planning to start a new free clinical program in October, working in conjunction with the Salvation Army shelter in Stevens Point.
Sizing up the Need
Milwaukee attorney Rachel A. Schneider of Quarles & Brady, LLP, is also an advocate of community clinics, but she said one size does not fit all when it comes to that approach.
“I think in a city the size of Milwaukee, the Legal Grounds concept is a little impractical,” said Schneider, who noted that the community need will likely dictate the type of pro bono services required.
In February, Marquette University Law School and Quarles & Brady partnered with The Council for the Spanish Speaking Inc., to offer a volunteer legal clinic for residents of Milwaukee’s south side.
The weekly Wednesday-night clinic at the council building draws on the local Hispanic population. Schneider says the program even provides interpreters for citizens during the sessions, which have been well attended.
“People come and see people they know from the community,” Schneider said, indicating that the relaxed setting is less intimidating for them, as well as the attorneys.
Especially for law students from both Marquette and the University of Wisconsin Law School, who volunteer for the neighborhood clinics, because Schneider says volunteers need the same comfort level as visitors.
In Dane County, the UW Law School coordinates an ongoing community clinic called the Neighborhood Law Project. Program director Marsha M. Mansfield said the community clinic, which operates out of the low-income Villager Mall area, assigns “student attorneys” to cases involving evictions or Food Stamp sanctions.
While the clinic refers questions about family or criminal law issues to outside attorneys, Mansfield said the specialized nature of the program contributes to its popularity.
“Our appointments are almost always full every week,” said Mansfield.