As the COVID-19 outbreak continues to disrupt life in the U.S., bar associations are turning to legal tech to help streamline their attorney intake process to keep pace with the growing demand for pro bono services.

Today the American Bar Association announced its partnership with Paladin, Clio and LegalZoom to launch the ABA's pro bono portal to connect interested attorneys with pro bono opportunities.

Through a portal, lawyers can view pro bono opportunities listed by legal service organizations, explained ABA Disaster Legal Services vice director Amanda Brown. Attorneys interested in a matter submit their bar number and general contact information, and the legal service organization reaches out to them. Brown said she anticipates pro bono work concerning unemployment and other government benefits, housing, domestic violence and consumer law issues.

The portal was created by Paladin with funding from case management platform Clio and legal services platform LegalZoom, Brown and the companies confirmed.

To be sure, Paladin is no stranger to the pro bono world. The platform is leveraged by law firms and legal service organizations to create and share available pro bono matters and simplify viewing and signing up for volunteer work,

Likewise, connecting vast amounts of attorneys to pro bono work isn't new for the ABA Disaster Legal Services. However, it became apparent that it wasn't feasible to manually track attorneys' pro bono interests during current circumstances, Brown explained.

"Our existing mechanisms were fine through spreadsheets and working locally with partners and social media to recruit people. But the public health crisis really put a microscope on how we were doing things, how inefficient it would be with 50 states all at one time," she said.

Recent successive disasters also demanded a quicker and larger scale response, Brown added. 

Indeed, in March, while COVID-19 caused many states to issue stay-at-home mandates, two 175 mph tornadoes caused 25 deaths and significant property damage in central Tennessee and ongoing earthquakes roiled Puerto Rico as it rebuilds after 2017′s destructive Hurricane Maria.

The new Paladin-developed tool will be used for COVID-19, Tennessee and Puerto Rico pro bono matters and is Disaster Legal Services' "long-standing new way to recruit volunteers and match them to service providers," Brown announced.

Like the ABA, the New York State Bar Association has also leveraged legal tech to quickly answer urgent demands stoked by COVID-19, said the state bar's president and Greenberg Traurig shareholder Hank Greenberg.

Originally, the NYSBA intended to deploy pro bono attorneys to assist after COVID subsided, Greenberg said. But a request from the governor's office to help New Yorkers gain unemployment benefits and appeal denials shifted the NYSBA's focus, Greenberg explained.

The association reached out to Clio CEO and co-founder Jack Newton, with whom the association worked previously, and Newton suggested they also work with Paladin, Greenberg said. Roughly three weeks after the initial suggestion from the governor office's, the NYSBA launched an unemployment insurance relief intake and pro bono attorney form. 

The form was created through Clio Grow, Clio's client intake software, which the NYSBA uses to pair participants to an attorney listed on Paladin. (Clio noted neither the NYSBA and ABA partnerships were funded through its $1 million disaster fund announced in March.)

Greenberg confirmed the Clio-Paladin formula will be used for other COVID-19-related pro bono offerings, including domestic violence and creditor disputes.

"It's unique and unprecedented in its scope and that is all predicated on a technological platform that in itself, in its sophistication, is something we haven't seen before and it's a breakthrough. Now that we have this template we are going to use it with other practice areas," he said.