The recently released 2013 Report by the Task Force to Expand Civil Legal Services in New York provides encouraging results and yet sobering news on the continued efforts to close the access to justice gap. Increased civil legal services funding is undoubtedly making a difference by allowing civil legal service providers to serve more clients. In 2013, tens of thousands of New Yorkers obtained essential assistance and had their lives changed with the help of a lawyer. Despite the heroic efforts of civil legal service providers and increased funding in New York’s judiciary budget, a substantial justice gap persists. The great majority of low-income New Yorkers still do not have access to a lawyer to assist them in matters relating to the essentials of life—housing, access to health care and education, family matters, and subsistence income—and 2.3 million civil litigants in our state’s courts remain unrepresented.1 To further address the justice gap, we must continue to look for untapped legal resources, and the judiciary and the courts must continue to break down the barriers that hinder attorneys from contributing their efforts to alleviate the crisis in civil legal aid.
One such untapped resource is the population of in-house lawyers employed in New York who are licensed to practice in other states. While these out-of-state in-house attorneys often have decades of relevant experience and an array of applicable legal skills, in the past they have been precluded from providing legal services out of the bounds of their corporate or in-house employment. To investigate this issue, I appointed the Advisory Committee on Pro Bono Service by In-House Counsel and appointed my Court of Appeals colleague, Senior Associate Judge Victoria A. Graffeo, as chair of the Committee. The Advisory Committee worked together to recommend rule changes and strategies to enable in-house attorneys to provide pro bono legal services on behalf of the poor in New York.
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