As a Circuit Rider, I am used to travel.  But in the last few months, Pennsylvania tested even my endurance.  But the trips to the Keystone State were worth it!  The state is both big and taking big strides on both their client and advocate statewide websites.  A key to their success has been the tremendous effort devoted to planning, stakeholder cultivation, and outreach by the project coordinators.

In December 2003, I visited the "City of Brotherly Love" for the soft-launch of PALawHelp.org, timed to coincide with a series of pre-scheduled meetings of the state’s public interest legal community.  The timing ensured we would get the most “bang for the buck” in terms of outreach and new stakeholder recruitment. 

We kicked things off with a web site demonstration of PALawHelp.org for the Philadelaphia public interest law community held at the Philadelphia Bar Association, and also spoke about the upcoming advocate site planning process.  That was followed by a presentation at the Pennsylvania Legal Services Project Directors Corporation Meeting and a preliminary planning meeting for the advocate site at the Philadelphia Bar Association.  That was a brainstorming session with leaders from the PA Bar Association and the major Philadelphia pro bono programs.  Thanks to strong state support efforts, Pennsylvania was able to produce an impressive orientation packet with the web site’s branding.  In addition, a grant from The Pennsylvania Bar Trust and Insurance Fund has enabled Pennsylvania to continue to develop a strong branding strategy for its advocate site.

The following day additional presentations were made of the PALawHelp.org site at a meeting of the Philadelphia Bar Public Interest Section, and at the Pennsylvania Legal Services Board meeting.  The presentation at the Public Interest Section meeting also resulted in additional resources being offered to the PALawHelp.org site by the Disability Law Project of Pennsylvania.  Hank Leone, the project’s coordinator, and I met for lunch with the directors of public interest programs at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Temple Law School.  Our discussion centered on possibilities for student involvement in the project.  Since Penn's curriculum has a mandatory public service component, we felt it was a perfect fit.  Out of those initial meetings, Pennsylvania is designing a program in which law students will be paired with participating law firms to develop content for the advocate site.   

Several months later, in May 2004, I returned to Pennsylvania and was amazed at how much progress had been made in just a few months toward rallying the public interest legal community in support of the advocate site.   I was invited by the Pennsylvania State Bar to speak on a panel about online legal resources at their Pro Bono Conference, part of the larger State Bar annual conference, held in Hershey, "The Sweetest Place on Earth."   Panelists Sylvia Hahn, director of Lackawanna Pro Bono, Inc. and Joe Sullivan, pro bono coordinator in the Philadelphia office of Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis LLP, spoke enthusiastically about the positive impact of both the client and advocate on their work.  Hank demonstrated both the client and advocates sites and as a group we discussed ways that private attorneys could become involved in the development process.  I loved the conference bags distributed and emblazoned with the PAprobono.net URL!

As I mentioned, Pennsylvania has worked diligently to build a strong foundation for this project.  They have gone to great lengths to broker strategic partnerships, have made the project visible through continued outreach, and have tracked down funding and content leads at every turn.  As a result, their project enjoys statewide support, involvement and recognition.  Their client site materials are authored by a representative selection of legal services providers, and reflect a wide variety of the client community’s legal needs.  Looking ahead to the development of their advocate site, several law firms from around the state have already volunteered to help develop content for various substantive areas.  Finally, Pennsylvania has been able to raise funds for this project jointly from sources such as PLS, the State Bar, state government, and the Pennsylvania Bar Trust, among others. 

In sum, it is no small feat that the project is well on its way to becoming an integral component of the statewide delivery model!


Note: Christie recently accepted a new position at a PR firm that specializes in working with nonprofit clients.  We will miss her and wish her well!