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Tiffany M. Graves
ABSTRACT: The COVID-19 pandemic forced legal services organizations across the United States to examine how they deliver services to low-income clients and to adjust their methods to ensure they could meet the ever-increasing need for pro bono legal services. Before the pandemic, few legal services organizations had the technologies in place to serve clients remotely. Over time, however, these organizations began making the necessary adaptions to serve their communities. The shift to remote operations required legal services organizations and volunteer attorneys to consider innovative approaches to reach and engage with clients—a result that has arguably transformed the delivery of pro bono legal services for the better.
This essay is informed by interviews with legal services attorneys who documented the changes their organizations made to continue serving clients in the pandemic. It offers recommendations for the adaptions legal services organizations and volunteer lawyers should maintain after the pandemic experience to benefit the clients they serve and increase access to justice.