Law School Consortium Project Description

In 1997, four law schools launched the Law School Consortium Project.[1]  It was conceived as an experiment to design, evaluate, and promote programs that extend the educational and professionalism missions of law schools beyond graduation to provide training, mentoring, and other support to solo and small-firm lawyers. By helping this segment of the legal profession develop economically viable and professionally satisfying practices, the Project ultimately seeks to increase the availability of quality legal services for low and moderate-income individuals and communities. 

The Project’s founding members felt the Project would address a number of important concerns:  

• access to quality “low bono” (affordable) legal services for low and moderate-income individuals and communities;           
• the dearth of guidance and services for solo and small-firm lawyers to help them provide quality legal services and handle ethical and practice dilemmas; and 
• the large number of law school graduates who enter law schools aspiring to work for the public interest, but, upon graduation, find themselves debt-ridden or unable to obtain one of the scarce public service positions.

The Project has demonstrated that by supporting solo and small-firm practitioners who share a desire to provide affordable legal assistance, law schools can enable them to have satisfying and economically viable careers while serving the needs of low and moderate-income individuals and communities.  In supporting these practitioners, law schools are able to expand the field of public interest practice by providing students with employment options that enable them to develop public interest practices that serve underrepresented individuals and communities and allowing students to engage in work about which they care deeply.

The Project is premised on the belief that helping solo and small-firm practitioners provide high quality legal services is vital because of the crucial role they play in the legal community.  In light of the limited funding for, and restrictions on, legal services organizations[2] and the decline in pro bono participation by large law firm attorneys,[3] solo and small-firm practitioners are essential sources of legal services to low and moderate-income individuals and communities.  ABA studies have documented that seventy-five percent of low-income persons who utilize lawyers receive assistance from private attorneys rather than from legal services organizations.[4]  These studies also report that eighty percent of the legal needs of low-income persons remain unmet.[5]  The founding member schools thought building networks among typically isolated solo and small-firm practitioners would connect them with each other, as well as resources and services,[6] and thereby augment the success of their practices and enable them to provide quality legal services to individuals and communities who otherwise have no access to such services.

• build networks of solo and small-firm practitioners who can learn from and support each other;
• contribute ongoing training and education needed by recent graduates to provide quality legal services;
• provide practitioners with mentoring in substantive law;
• modify curricula based on their experiences with solo and small-firm practitioners to better prepare the large number of law graduates who ultimately enter solo and small-firm practices; and
• educate students and graduates on innovative legal services practices.

The results of this experiment demonstrate that the concept of law school-supported networks of solo and small-firm practitioners is both valuable and viable.  The creation of these networks has had a significant positive impact on solo and small-firm practitioners and increased access to legal services for low and moderate-income individuals and communities.  In turn, these networks benefit the participating law schools as well by:

•  exposing students at participating law schools to valuable role models, an understanding of performing public service work in a private practice setting, access to valuable internship and other practice opportunities to which they might not otherwise be exposed, and entrée into an established community of practitioners upon graduation; and
• providing faculty at participating law schools with important data about the realities of law practice, the needs of their graduates, current trends in the legal profession, especially the impact of technology, and law practice management, all of which can be incorporated into their law school's curriculum and faculty scholarship.

As we face the ever-increasing gap between those who can and those who cannot afford legal services, we must find ways to expand the legal services delivery system in new and innovative ways beyond attempting to increase the number of attorneys who provide pro bono services.  Creating and supporting practitioner networks and participating in the Law School Consortium Project is a way for law schools to support an important alumni constituency, improve the professionalism and quality of legal services provided by solo and small-firm practitioners, and provide access to justice for low and moderate-income individuals and communities.