On September 14, 2012, the New York State Court of Appeals adopted 22 NYCRR § 520.16 - a 50 hour Pro Bono Requirement for admission to the New York State bar.
The challenge for an Australian lawyer who recently passed the NY Bar exam is finding a public charity with the legal resources to provide a supervising attorney to meet this pro bono requirement.
Further, charities often only have a few qualifying pro bono hours available, therefore acquiring the 50 hours becomes a challenge in itself.
There a more than 200 attorneys connected to The Australian Community who are licensed to practice law in New York State. Many are keen to assist other Australian attorneys with this pro bono requirement, but are concerned that they may not have the time to provide supervision during work hours.
The Australian Community has developed a successful program to connect Supervising and Pro Bono attorneys. By leveraging our internal SharePoint portal, attorneys can remotely communicate and collaborate throughout the 50 hours, satisfying all requirements of 22 NYCRR § 520.16.
I recently had the opportunity to supervise a pro-bono assignment for The Australian Community and it was a very rewarding experience. It is always nice to give back and in particular, to give back to my own community. Moreover, it was a seamless and efficient process with a minimal amount of hours expended, which can also be performed outside of business hours and without impacting billable hour requirements. I would welcome the opportunity to work with The Australian Community again and encourage others to do so as well.
Trisha Sircar, Partner Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP
Convenience
All communications, notes and document revisions are managed through SharePoint. Moreover, the Supervising attorney can conveniently review the work product of the Pro Bono attorney outside of normal work hours.
Control
In fact, the first Supervising and Pro Bono attorneys to go through our program were given instructions not to communicate outside of SharePoint, thus demonstrating that attorneys do not even need to be located in the same time zone to participate in our Pro Bono program.
Unfortunately, we do not have enough Supervising attorneys to meet the demand, and we have waitlisted a number of Pro-Bono attorneys.
If however, you have a U.S. admitted colleague who is willing to participate as a Supervising attorney, please complete the form below to start the process.
If you would like someone to speak with you to discuss participating as a Supervising attorney, please email admin@aucommunity.org or call the office on 646 249 1741.
As we use a virtual model, the Supervising attorney does not need to be physically present in New York.
Feedback from Supervising attorneys is that they spend between five (5) and eight (8) hours of total time reviewing the work product and communicating with the Pro-Bono attorney, during the 50 hours.