Providing Sustainable Legal Services with Limited Resources: Tips, Tools, and Templates Ellen Reed, Community Services Program Specialist Ana LaNasa-Selvidge, Pro Bono Services Volunteer Manager

Welcome & Introductions  Name  Organization The purpose of this training is to… Provide attendees with templates, resources, and tools to administer a legal clinic. Provide an overview of the volunteer management cycle with an emphasis on recruitment and messaging.

 What have you seen that indicates there is a specific need for a new clinic that isn’t already being met by existing legal services in your area?  What types of legal assistance are in high need in this community? Will you be able to find volunteers with this type of legal expertise?

 Set-up: Envision exactly what you want to create and find ways to provide all the necessary resources.  Administration: Create systems for accomplishing necessary day to day tasks in order to provide essential services and improve the quality of the clinic.  Training and Sustaining Volunteers: Clinics present new challenges to attorneys and support is essential to volunteer retention and providing a high quality of legal assistance.

FUNDING:  Do you have a funding source?  If so, is it enough to provide a staff person for the clinic?  Is your funding adequate to pay for interpreters for clients? INSURANCE  Do you have malpractice insurance? TIME AND PLACE  When and where will this clinic take place?

RESOURCES AT THE CLINIC  Is there computer, printing, and storage access at your location? NUMBER OF CLIENTS/VOLUNTEERS  How many clients to you plan to meet with at each clinic?  Are half-hour appointments with attorneys adequate given the services you plan to provide?

INCOME SCREENING  Will the clinic have income eligibility requirements?  If so, will you actually require proof of income or have an honor system? SCHEDULING THE CLINIC  Who will be scheduling and screening the clients?  Is a walk-in clinic appropriate for your needs? ACCESS  How are you going to accommodate people with barriers (i.e. disabilities, language barriers, and mental health issues)?

What are the administrative tasks that go along with running a clinic?  Managing and creating a volunteer schedule (includes tracking any changes and sending out weekly reminders).  Scheduling appointments.  Setting up interpreters and special accommodations for clients.  Sending out appointment schedules to volunteers.  Dealing with any volunteer complaints or site management issues.  Data entry (post-clinic) to report how many clients were seen and file the paperwork generated at the clinic.  Creating reports for funding sources/overseeing bodies.  Creating/updating any forms or resource material to be used at the clinic.  Recruiting and training volunteers.

What types of resources are needed to provide clients with the basics to address their legal issue?  A file-box at the clinic which contains referral information or access to online referral information.  Court forms for the most common legal issues or access to print court forms from online.  Legal research materials (such as copies of the court rules and RCW’s) or access to the internet for the same purpose.

 What are the different volunteer roles in the Neighborhood Legal Clinics model?  Clinic Assistant: Brings the client schedule to the clinic, welcomes clients, collects and distributes intake forms, sets up each attorney and client meeting, tracks timing of meetings to ensure that all clients are seen, and sets up and breaks down any equipment needed for the clinic.  Volunteer Attorneys: Meet with clients at the clinics.  Scheduling Coordinator: Creates the schedules for the quarter. The scheduling coordinator also tracks and facilitates volunteer trades and changes to the schedule.  Attorney Coordinator: Deals with any legal issues that may come up during the course of running the clinic, including managing concerns with the clinic site and dealing with complaints about the conduct of volunteer attorneys.

 It is valuable to provide CLE or CLE style trainings in different areas of law to volunteer attorneys (especially family law, housing, and consumer law) so that they are able to give legal advice to a wider variety of clients at the clinics; it is also an incentive to retain volunteers if they are able to access free CLE’s.  Attorneys and clinic assistants should have some amount of training dealing with persons with barriers such as mental illness, poverty, language, culture, and disability or medical issues.  It is also important that everyone understands the rules and expectations of the clinic itself (see the [SAMPLE] Clinic Manual for more ideas on developing clinic policies and volunteer expectations).  We recommend having all new volunteers attend an orientation and an initial observation shift (with a training checklist to be completed by the trainer).  Each new attorney volunteer should be observed in turn by an experienced attorney on their first clinic shift.  It is also important to provide information regarding the other legal and social services available in your area so that attorneys and clinic assistants can make appropriate referrals.

 Legal Clinics can be a great model for providing the maximum amount of clients with limited services on a small budget…but they can be very hard to administer without a dedicated volunteer team.

The Volunteer Lawyer Program Manager/Coordinator What Does a VLP Look Like?

What are the tasks involved in managing volunteers or this portion of the program? Brainstorm!

Elements of Managing a Volunteer Program  Planning  Recruitment & Placement  Orientation & training  Supervision & Recognition  Evaluation

Volunteer Involvement Strategy Mission and Vision + Strategic Plan Marketing and Recruitment Screening and Placement Orientation and Training Ongoing Supervision and Management Evaluation Volunteer Management Cycle

 Standards based  Provides a baseline or starting point for program enhancement  Tailored recommendations for enhancing your volunteer program

Why Job Descriptions?  Clarify responsibilities and expectations  Limit liability  Fully use talents & abilities  Foundation for recruitment  Assist in placement, screening, and supervision  Record-keeping

5 Steps to Effective Job Design Step 1: Review mission Step 2: Identify Functions and Tasks Step 3: Identify Skills Step 4: Identify volunteer assignments Step 5: Craft job descriptions

Lets create a job description?

Now what?

3 basic ways to recruit: Warm Body Recruitment When you need a large number of volunteers for a short period time and the qualifications of the task are minimal, you might engage in "warm body recruitment." Targeted Recruitment The targeted campaign requires a carefully planned approach to a small audience. Use this method when you are trying to recruit volunteers that need to have specific skills or not commonly found characteristics. Concentric Circles Recruitment This type of recruitment requires you to identify populations who are already in direct or indirect contact with your organization and then to contact them with your recruiting message.

Speak to Your Audience “When you send a message to the community in general, you often wind up speaking to no one in particular” (Rick Lynch)

Choose Your Target Step 1: Identify your target audience Step 2: What would appeal to them about the position? Step 3: What are some possible barriers? Step 4: What strategies to reach your audience? Step 5: Craft your recruitment messagerecruitment message

Recruitment Message Sell the benefits and share the features of the volunteer positions. Benefit: What volunteering does for the volunteers, such as teaching them a skill, having fun, meeting people, etc. Feature: Descriptive elements of the volunteering, such as when, where, doing what with whom, etc.

Develop A Recruitment Message 1. In your small group, use the Targeted Marketing sheet to develop a recruitment message for your job description 2. Draft a recruitment message for your target audience, selling the benefits and sharing the features

How do you get the message out?  What are some marketing methods you utilize?  What is the most effective marketing strategy?

Volunteer Involvement Strategy Mission and Vision + Strategic Plan Marketing and Recruitment Screening and Placement Orientation and Training Ongoing Supervision and Management Evaluation Volunteer Management Cycle

Wrap-up Start with the evaluation. Take it back for your staff to help evaluate programs. Get a pulse on your volunteers experience. Look at what has been done and who is already doing it, don’t re-invent the wheel. Make this part of your strategic plan or a 5 year plan.

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