NW Lawyer - September 2014

NWLawyer | SEP 2014 38 by Bina Hanchinamani Ellefson

T he ink on her bar acceptance letter was barely dry when Tristin Sullivan-Leppa dove into her first experience doing pro bono, serving veterans, and providing family law assistance at the WSBA Call to Duty Day of Service. “Being a new member of the WSBA, it felt so awesome to be able to learn about an area of law and then be able to turn around and apply it to a real-life situation,” says Sullivan-Leppa. Only a few weeks after the Day of Service, Sullivan-Leppa accepted her first job as an attorney with the Washington State Division of Child Support. She shares, “I felt so much more confident walking in the first day knowing that I had a little experience in child support.”

Call to Duty Initiative

The WSBA Call to Duty informs, inspires, and involves volunteer attorneys in meeting the legal needs of veterans. The initiative has three main components: 1) an online pledge where volunteers agree to serve the legal needs of veterans in one or more ways this year; 2) free monthly Lunch and Learn webinars, where attorneys can log onto their computers over the lunch hour and hear about veterans’ issues, veteran-focused volunteer opportunities, and resources nationwide; and 3) two semi-annual Day of Service events, based on an innovative pro bono service model where the WSBA partners with a state volunteer lawyer program for a day-long event. As part of this model, volunteers attend free continuing legal education trainings on cultural competency and substantive law in the morning and put their education into action through legal consultation and pro se assistance in afternoon clinics that serve low- to moderate-income veterans and their families.

Day of Service

On a sunny Saturday after Memorial Day, 53 volunteer attorneys kicked off the initiative’s first Day of Service on the campus of Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma. The WSBA partnered with the Tacoma Pierce County Bar Association’s Volunteer Lawyer Service Program (TPCBA VLSP) for the event. In its role as a partnering agency, TPCBA VLSP identified the venue, helped narrow down the discrete legal issue of focus for the clinic, recruited and screened clinic clients, helped staff the Day of Service, and coordinated post-clinic client follow up.

The morning of the Day of Service, Northwest Justice Project’s Veterans Project
attorneys, Adam Chromy and Leo Flor,
trained volunteers on how to work with
veterans in culturally competent ways.
Their sessions included sobering details,
such as the fact that 22 veterans commit
suicide each day or the fact that 20 per-
cent of post-9/11 veterans are living with
a traumatic brain injury.

After being briefed on some of the unique legal and non-law-related challenges faced by veterans, volunteers attended one of two educational tracks, on either parenting plans or child support, conducted by family law lawyers: solo practitioner Larry Couture and Sarah Richardson, division chief of the Family Support Unit at the Pierce County Prosecutor’s Office. At lunch, volunteers reviewed their notes, networked with other volunteers, and found their assigned partners for the afternoon clinics.

After lunch, these teams of partners
served in clinics, applying what they
learned in the morning by assisting veter-
ans and families of veterans with their par-
enting plan residential schedules or child
support worksheets. In total, volunteers
worked on 24 parenting plan residential
schedules and child support worksheets.
Lindy Laurence, paralegal and vol-
unteer coordinator for TPCBA VLSP,
helped staff the Day of Service. She de-
scribes her experience that day: “The
legal clinic was inspiring. This was the
first time a CLE has ever been paired
with a legal clinic, and the feeling in that
room was incredible. Hearing the hum
of many voices advising clients, witness-
ing the relief on clients’ faces as they got
answers and direction, and the sense of
satisfaction the attorneys expressed at
being able to address the client issues,
was so energizing — simply fantastic!”
Laurence recognized the value of
holding such an event. “One client shared
that he’d called eight other places and we
were the only one able to help him,” she
explains. He told her appreciatively, “You
even sound excited to do so!” After the
Day of Service, TPCBA VLSP continued
to assist Day of Service clients with long-
term needs. Laurence went on to explain
that “other clients have returned for ad-
ditional services, and have expressed
surprise at the breadth of services our
program offers — we’ve helped clients
from this event get access to bankruptcy
advice, landlord–tenant advice, and
helped some get a will in place. Other