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State Bar & Bar Associations

Dec. 31, 2024

The California Pro Bono Portal: Volunteering made easy

Despite the staggering unmet civil legal needs of low-income Californians, highlighted by the State Bar of California's 2019 Justice Gap Study, the launch of the California Pro Bono Portal in 2024 offers a transformative, community-driven platform to connect volunteer attorneys with vetted legal services organizations.

Jenni Gomez-Haddad

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According to the State Bar of California's Justice Gap Study from 2019, legal aid organizations fully served only 30% of the low-income Californians who approached them for help with civil legal problems. California State Bar, California Justice Gap Study: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Californians, Executive Summary, pp. 13-14 (2019), available at https://www.calbar.ca.gov/Portals/0/documents/accessJustice/Justice-Gap-Study-Executive-Summary.pdf.

Moreover, the study inferred that the sector would need an additional 8,961 full-time legal aid attorneys to fill the service gap and fully resolve these problems. The State Bar will release an updated report in 2025, but staff shared in a public meeting that the numbers have not improved. We are vastly under-funded and under-resourced to meet the civil legal needs of low-income Californians.

While the numbers are depressing, fortunately California has the largest bar in the nation with nearly 200,000 active licensees. We have enough people power to help bridge the access gap, and we have a long history of commitment to pro bono service. Volunteers are so critically important to our civil justice system that legal aid leaders sponsored a mandatory pro bono reporting bill, AB 2505, in 2024. Beginning in 2026, most active licensees will be required to report their pro bono and reduced fees services performed in the prior year. Volunteer attorneys can and should play a key role in addressing the unmet need; yet many do not know where or how to start.

Searching for volunteer legal opportunities has never been easier with the launch of the California Pro Bono Portal in January 2024. The Portal (www.calprobono.org) is a statewide platform aimed at simplifying the matching process between interested pro bono volunteers and approved legal services organizations (LSOs).  The volunteer opportunities posted on the Portal have been vetted by organizations as appropriate for pro bono assistance.

Formal efforts to develop the current Portal started right before the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the pandemic's impact on initial targets, California-based LSOs, law firms, law schools, support centers and others continued to provide feedback through multiple channels, emphasizing the resilience and commitment to launching this important initiative. In fact, the pandemic arguably made the idea of a Portal more widely accepted among California attorneys as they became more comfortable with remote work and the use of various technologies.

The current Portal integrates years of collective feedback to create a user-friendly experience tailored to the needs of prospective volunteers and LSOs. After an individual or entity registers for the Portal online, they will receive an approval email and can then immediately post or browse opportunities using the platform.

Since launch, LSOs and host networks have posted more than 300 opportunities - for case handling, clinic work, intake, community outreach, and providing translation and interpretation services - with more than 180 volunteer submissions through the Portal. The uptake is actually higher because LSOs have reported that potential volunteers contacted them directly after learning about opportunities on the Portal.

The Portal is not responsible for providing or ensuring malpractice insurance coverage or any professional responsibility compliance or adherence with relevant laws. The LSOs and volunteers must discuss these points separately from the Portal and adhere to the Portal's terms of service.

Portal Developer A2J Tech, a public benefit corporation focused on increasing access to justice for all through technology, continues to tweak and add functionalities based on user feedback. Notably, volunteers can track hours in the Portal, which is of particular interest to California bar-licensed attorneys in light of AB 2505's mandatory reporting requirement. There are more changes planned for this year.

The Portal is a community-grown, collaborative effort and has received promotion and marketing from the State Bar of California, the California Lawyers Association, the Legal Aid Association of California (LAAC), the California LSC Project Directors Association, OneJustice, and the Pro Bono Training Institute, elevating its profile as an important pro bono resource. We are always open to ideas for improvement.

As with any new initiative, continued success depends on readers, like you, to register and use the California Pro Bono Portal at www.calprobono.org. More importantly, please keep coming back to check out opportunities as the Portal expands. Many efforts take a village, and this is no exception. Let's work together to close the ever-increasing justice gap and bring legal access to vulnerable Californians.

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