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Earlier this year, the UNM law school was invited to join the Law School Consortium Project, a collaboration of law schools designed to provide post-graduation support to lawyers who go into solo and small-firm practices. Often these graduates share a desire to provide affordable legal assistance to low and moderate-income clients, but just as often they need help getting started and maintaining an economically viable and satisfying practice.

The UNM law school's clinical program seemed like a perfect fit.

Last summer, Project Director Deb Howard traveled to Albuquerque to help bring the UNM law school into the mix. She met with faculty and lawyers who already provide pro bono services to the school's clinic. At a luncheon and reception, she, the lawyers and Clinic Director Antoinette Sedillo Lopez discussed how the school's resources could best be used to aid small-firm practitioners, who often want to focus on public service work.

The clear consensus was that domestic relations, consumer and workers compensation were areas of great unmet need for legal services. This need is particularly acute for individuals of low and moderate income and for mono-lingual Spanish speakers. 

Dean Robert Desiderio noted that this situation provides an opportunity for the law school to extend its service and education mission beyond graduation through free continuing legal education for solo and small-firm practitioners in these areas. Joel Cruz-Esparza of the state Attorney General's Office said his office would assist in organizing a program for practitioners who represent clients in consumer cases. He pointed out a need for lawyers to represent clients in consumer cases.

"I want the clinic to work with the legal community more closely," says Sedillo Lopez. "I imagine my clinical teaching will change as a result of what the practitioners say."
She plans to develop the UNM Access to Justice Practitioner Network by offering free CLE and other law school support to lawyers who have volunteered to accept pro bono and reduced-fee case referrals from the clinical law program.

"Everyone who has volunteered to support the clinic has demonstrated their commitment to work on the unmet need in the community," she says. "The law school wants to support them and expand the network."
In addition to providing quality legal service to an under-served population, Howard believes UNM's involvement in the consortium will benefit the law school in a number of ways.

"It's a wonderful way to support alumni, it's a great recruitment vehicle, not to mention providing positive public relations for the law school," she says. "It also can improve the curriculum by serving as a constant laboratory." 
Each of the founding schools in the consortium has developed its own unique practitioner network in response to the needs of its own community. The founding members still part of the project are City University of New York School of Law, University of Maryland Law School and Northeastern University School of Law.

"In all projects, there is moral support along with technical and educational support," says Howard. "Statistics show that only 10 percent of law school graduates join large firms. So many people go to law school with their sole mission of serving the public. Our goal is for this project to allow them to do so."

In addition to the UNM law school, four other law schools joined this year, building a nationwide network of law schools working toward supporting their graduates, while ensuring equitable access to justice for low and moderate-income clients.

"The goal is to transform the idea of law practice so lawyers would be community leaders," says Howard.

The project was initially funded in 1999 by the Open Society Institute, established by the Soros Foundation to promote the development and maintenance of open societies around the world.