Pro Bono Resources

Legal Aid Events for Veterans

Stand Down Veteran’s Outreach 11/18/11

KLS held an event for veterans in Kansas City and also one in Topeka at the VA Hospital in the month of December. Thirty veterans were served during the Kansas City event and another twenty one were served at the Topeka event . It was a day of amazing resources for the Veterans.

(L-R) Veteran Client, Patricia Thomas, and Leland Cox.

Stand Down events are held nationwide and veterans are able to obtain clothes, medical attention, legal services, benefit information, hot meals and even haircuts.  To be able to give something back to the many people that have served our country is very humbling.  KLS and our volunteer private attorneys plan on making this an ongoing form of Pro Bono outreach to the many veteran service members throughout the state.  The events will be partnered with the Stand Down event coordinators and KLS will also continue to provide our Honoring Our Heroes events such as the one held at the Topeka VA Hospital.

(L-R) David Kirk, Veteran, Veteran & Family, William Schmidt

We would like to thank all the volunteers for making these events so successful.  

Pro Bono Heats Up in Pittsburg, Kansas!

A document and legal advice clinic was held at the Homer Cole Community Center in Pittsburg, Kansas on July 22, 2011. With the help of five volunteer attorneys, 21 persons were able to obtain help through our Pro Bono efforts. Fifteen documents were prepared onsite and nine persons received legal advice.

Left: Pro bono Attorney William Schmidt works with a client in Pittsburg.

Back row left to right: Eric Rosenblad, KLS-Pittsburg Managing Attorney; Geoff Clark, William Schmidt, Marilyn Harp, KLS Executive Director, Vincent Cox.  Front row left to right: Constance Peebles, Raye Ann Tucker, KLS-Pittsburg Staff Attorney, Melissa Doeblin.

Other Pro Bono News

The Kansas Legal Services - Kansas City field office held a clinic Friday, June 24, 2011, where 36 pro bono documents were drafted.  Nineteen pro bono clients were helped. Twelve private attorneys attended the free CLE training.  Of those twelve, ten stayed to help in the clinic and two will assist with pro bono document preparation cases in the future.

Kansas Legal Services plans to continue these clinics throughout the state. The picture above features a volunteer attorney assisting one of the clients helped in the June Senior Document Preparation Clinic. 

Goal for 2011

We set a goal for volunteer attorneys to serve 1,000 clients in 2011.

We also plan to hold ten statewide outreach clinics, providing document preparation and advice to low income persons.  

We have had such wonderful support of private attorneys, the Kansas Bar Association and members of the Kansas Association for Justice to hold these events throughout the state.  So far we have held clinics for:

• Habitat Homeowners and members of the Argentine neighborhood in Kansas City, 
• Residents of the Homeless Shelter in Wichita and 
• Residents at Senior Citizen apartments in Topeka. 

The community response has been very good. Participation by volunteer attorneys has been tremendous!  We have found willing volunteers for each of the events we held. 

We would appreciate more involvement of volunteer attorneys, either by telephone or in-person, helping persons with online forms through a monthly scheduled clinic. 

Kansas Elder Law Hotline Handbook

This elder law handbook was created to assist staff and volunteers helping with the Elder Law Hotline. It was last fully revised in August, 2000. It contains questions and answers on a wide variety of topics frequently handled by the hotline. The Handbook is available for download here.

The Handbook is currently under additional revision. Use caution when referring to numbers or other information that may have changed. Also, if you copy the handbook, check frequently for updates. If you notice incorrect information, email noltem@klsinc.org.

KLS 2011 PAI Involvement Plan

The Private Attorney Involvement Plan for 2011 is available for download below. We care about our volunteers and would like your input and suggestions regarding this plan.  We welcome your comments.  Please contact Marilyn Harp, harpm@klsinc.org, or Becky Wyre, wyreb@klsinc.org, with your ideas.

KLS Pro Bono Application

Here is an application to sign up for pro bono cases. You can also tell us the number of and types of cases you prefer.

KLS Pro Bono