Public Service and the College of Law

by Randal Minor, Esquire

When Dean Fisher approached me recently about doing an article informing Bar members about the state of the public service program at the College of Law I jumped at the opportunity. Since the establishment of the public service program in 1994 the Bar has been a crucial partner in many of our efforts. Lawyers have donated many hours supervising law students in our in-house projects providing free legal services to needy individuals and groups around the State. Members of the Bar also have helped with trainings and the development of manuals and other support materials for our student volunteers. Many lawyers have been generous in providing financial support for the program.

Each year the College of Law challenges students to engage in public service while at the College of Law. The College's public service program is a purely voluntary effort. Students do not receive academic credit or financial incentives for their participation. Regardless, each year many of our students take time from their busy class schedules to provide hundreds of hours of free legal assistance to the poor, to nonprofit organizations, and to a variety of government agencies. They do so because they recognize the need in their community and because it is the right thing to do. Through our students' efforts many are helped who might otherwise go without legal assistance. For our students' part, they receive valuable practical experience, but perhaps more importantly they learn something about our profession's ethic of pro bono service.

The Appalachian Center for Law and Public Service is charged with the task of developing and coordinating public service opportunities for students at the College of Law. Funding for the Appalachian Center comes from a variety of sources, including the West Virginia Legal Services Plan, IOLTA funds, private donations, and an annual appropriation from the West Virginia Legislature. While not an exhaustive list, the following offers examples of some of the public service activities performed by our students:

Family Law Project: Law students, working with private attorneys, faculty and Appalachian Center staff, staff pro se divorce clinics and provide pro bono representation in domestic violence cases, adoptions, divorce, custody and support cases. Students prepare pleadings, interview and prepare witnesses, assist in all hearings, and, when eligible under the 3^rd Year Practice Rule, represent clients at trial. The Project has helped obtain final orders of divorce, financial support, and some measure of protection for hundreds of clients since the Project began in 1994.

Wills Project: Students are paired with pro bono attorneys to provide legal assistance to senior citizens and other needy individuals seeking help with wills, living wills, and medical and durable powers of attorney. The lawyer-student teams interview clients and draft the requested documents. Because many clients are home-bound, the students and their supervising attorneys frequently travel to the client's home for interviews and execution of the documents.

Nonprofit Project: This year, for the first time, the Appalachian Center will offer a project for nonprofit organizations in West Virginia seeking assistance in incorporating or obtaining 501(c)(3) recognition from the IRS. Students, working with lawyers, will assist in preparation of articles of incorporation, by-laws, and the necessary IRS forms. Through the Nonprofit Project the College of Law hopes to extend a helping hand to groups throughout the State.

Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA): CASA is a community-based program whose volunteers are appointed by Circuit Courts to investigate and report regarding the best interests of children in abuse and neglect cases. Law students have been volunteering with the local CASA chapter since 1994.

Volunteer Law Clerks: Volunteer Law Clerks is a student-run program providing legal research and writing for judges throughout West Virginia. This program has been a resource for West Virginia courts for many years, even prior to implementation of the public service program at the College of Law.

Teen Court: The Monongalia County Teen Court, another community-based program, brings juvenile offenders into a court environment wherein traditional roles of prosecutor, defense counsel and jurors are filled by the teen's peers. This year, for the first time, law students in the Marlyn E. Lugar Trial Advocacy Association will act as mentors for teenagers serving as prosecutors and defense counsel, assisting them in case preparation and at the trial.

In addition to the above projects, many law students at the College of Law also volunteer with judges, family law masters, prosecutors, the attorney general's office, and any number of other state agencies and nonprofit organizations addressing legal needs in West Virginia.

While I am proud of what we have accomplished over the years in the public service program, I should point out that the Appalachian Center is only one part of the public service effort at the College of Law. For example, for many years now the Public Interest Advocates has funded 16 public interest fellows who spend their summers working with legal services providers and other nonprofit organizations throughout West Virginia. The College's Clinical Law Program has been providing free legal assistance to indigents since 1979. Though the efforts of Professor Joyce McConnell and with the financial help of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, two law students spent the 1999 summer break working with victims of domestic violence in a shelter in McDowell County. For the past two years, students in Prof. McConnell's Gender and the Law class have worked on clemency appeals for victims of domestic violence convicted of killing their abusive spouses or partners. And these are but a few of the other public service activities going on at the College of Law through the efforts of our faculty and students.

One of my personal pleasures in working in a law school setting is the sense of rebirth and new beginnings occasioned by the start of each new school year. I enjoy meeting the new students and hearing their stories about why they came to law school. I am always struck by how many mention their desire to use the law to make a difference, by their desire to return to their communities and address perceived injustices or to simply make their communities a better place for everyone. While I am not so naive as to believe public service is the only thing that motivates an individual to pursue the law, I do believe that we should nurture that desire to work for the public good whenever and wherever we find it. I very much view the public service program as one way of doing that.

Before I close, I would like to take this opportunity to thank those members of the Bar who have played some part in helping to instill in our students an appreciation for our profession's ethic of public service. With your help, I believe our students will go on to be better lawyers, better professionals, and a credit to us all.

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