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| | 237 Main Street |
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Without the help of pro bono attorneys, hundreds of low-income Erie County residents with significant legal problems will not receive the legal help they urgently need this year.
Existing legal assistance programs cannot handle the volume of need in our community. A 1989 state-wide study commissioned by the New York State Bar Association concluded that only 14% of the legal needs of the poor are currently being met. Since then, the two biggest funders of civil legal services for the poor have reduced their funding across the board. They are the federally funded Legal Services Corporation (LSC) and the NY Interest on Lawyer Accounts Fund (IOLA) (IOLA's funding was reduced due to the drop in interest rates). By doing your pro bono work through VLP, you will assist VLP in documenting the amount of pro bono work being done in Erie County while assisting clients who would otherwise go without the help of an attorney.
Every effort is made to tailor our procedures to suit the needs of volunteers, so that referrals may be made in a manner which will avoid undue disruption of a volunteer attorney's schedule.
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