A report released in late November shows Eastern Shore attorneys leading the state in providing pro bono legal services to their communities. The “Current Status of Pro Bono Service Among Maryland Lawyers” was compiled by ANASYS, Inc., for the Maryland Administrative Office of the Courts, and is based on 2012 data.
Maryland courts established a goal of 50 hours or more of pro bono service each year for full-time attorneys, with an emphasis on assistance to people of limited means. Lawyers certified to practice in the state are required to report annually on their pro bono activities. For reporting purposes, the state is divided into Eastern, Western, Southern, Central and Capital regions.
Sandy Brown, Executive Director of Mid-Shore Pro Bono, expressed her pride in what the report reveals about the volunteer efforts of Eastern Shore attorneys. “Overall, we have some of the state’s most generous lawyers here on the Mid-Shore, in terms of the time they donate to people who need legal assistance,” she said.
The Eastern Region leads Maryland in full-time lawyers providing at least some pro bono services, with 75.1 percent, just ahead of the Western Region’s 75.0 percent. Rural areas show more pro bono participation than the more populated Central and Capital regions. Queen Anne’s County has the highest attorney pro bono rate at 81.8 percent, with Talbot County coming in third statewide at 81.0 percent.
When it comes to meeting the 50-hours-a-year goal, Eastern Region attorneys further outpace their counterparts in the rest of the state, with almost 37 percent of the region’s full-time lawyers offering at least 50 hours of pro bono service in 2012, compared to the runner-up Western Region’s 32.8 percent and 22.2 percent for the state as a whole.
Talbot County attorneys lead Maryland with 48.8 percent meeting the 50-hour goal, a number that has increased over each of the past two years. Of the five counties in Mid-Shore Pro Bono’s service area, three others join Talbot in the state’s top ten for meeting the goal, with Queen Anne’s County ranked fifth, Caroline sixth and Dorchester tenth. Kent County ranked sixteenth out of the 23 counties and Baltimore City.
Overall, lawyers certified to practice in the state of Maryland reported slightly lower rates of pro bono activities from the previous year. However, the Eastern Region posted increases in 2012, both in percentages of those providing pro bono services and percentages of those meeting the 50-hour goal.
With regard to the type of pro bono services provided, the report showed almost 58 percent of the Eastern Region’s attorneys offered assistance to individuals of limited means in 2012.
While Mid-Shore Pro Bono also offers some specialized services without regard to the client’s income, its primary mission is to provide access to free or reduced-fee civil legal services to low-income individuals, connecting those in need of assistance with attorneys willing to provide pro bono time.
The report demonstrated the success of the organization’s efforts. Of the hours Eastern Region lawyers provided to individuals of limited means, more than 30 percent was on cases that came from a pro bono or legal services organization such as Mid-Shore Pro Bono, the highest percentage in the state.
With ongoing economic issues still affecting homeowners and their mortgages, the report placed special emphasis on the Foreclosure Prevention Pro Bono Project (FPPB), a program coordinated by the Pro Bono Resource Center of Maryland to help homeowners who need legal counsel in the foreclosure process.
It showed the Eastern Region having the second highest percentage of lawyers providing FPPB assistance, at 6.4 percent, and Talbot County ranking third statewide, at 10.3 percent. Attorneys provide assistance to homeowners in distress through Mid-Shore Pro Bono’s Foreclosure Clinic and Foreclosure Prevention Workshops.
Brown applauds the pro bono efforts of the lawyers with whom her organization works and encourages the rest of the community to add its support. “We always have known that our Eastern Shore attorneys are amazingly generous with their time, both to our clients and to Mid-Shore Pro Bono itself,” she said.
“It’s exciting to have this validated and demonstrated in numbers for everyone to see. However,” she added, “to ensure our doors remain open to provide this much needed service, we still need our community’s financial support.”
The full report offers additional information and refinement of the data by size of firm, type of law practiced and other criteria.
It may be found online at www.courts.state.md.us/probono/pdfs/probonoreport2012.pdf.
For more information or to make a donation, call Mid-Shore Pro Bono at 410-690-8128 or visit www.midshoreprobono.org.
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Cyndy Carrington Miller, Public Relations Consultant
410-770-9410, 443-521-2330 (cell)
January 6, 2014
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