The News

Neighborhood Legal Services Association Launches the Lawyers On Loan Project

Professional legal services will be available to more low-income clients in the region with the introduction of a new program from Neighborhood Legal Services Association.

Two well-established Pittsburgh law firms, Dickie, McCamey & Chilcote, P.C. and Thorp Reed & Armstrong, LLP, will help Neighborhood Legal Services Association (NLSA) launch the inaugural "Lawyers on Loan Project.” Each firm will provide a full-time, experienced attorney to work shoulder-to-shoulder with NLSA, in providing comprehensive legal services to low-income clients, victims of domestic violence and the elderly.

Dickie, McCamey & Chilcote and Thorp Reed & Armstrong will staff the Project with two attorneys–one from each firm–who will be “loaned” to NLSA for one year to work as full-time associates.

NLSA is a private, non-profit Pennsylvania Corporation established in 1966 to provide free legal services in civil cases to low-income clients. Currently the NLSA staff attorneys, who serve low-income individuals in Allegheny, Butler, Beaver and Lawrence counties, are working at maximum capacity. Due to budget cutbacks since the 1980s, NLSA now only has one office in each of the four counties (reduced from more than 12 offices in the four counties). While the NLSA staff of experienced attorneys has dramatically decreased due to funding cuts, demand for their legal services has increased substantially over the same period.

On October 4, 2004, the Project attorneys, Linda Varrenti Hernandez, an associate at Dickie, McCamey & Chilcote, and Jennifer Aitken Schnore, an associate at Thorp Reed & Armstrong, reported for duty to assist NLSA lawyers in providing legal services to individuals who could not otherwise afford such services.

While they will work full-time in the NLSA's offices, the lawyers will remain as associates in their respective firms with access to all the firm’s resources—a significant added benefit for NLSA. This program is unique, as no other law firm across the country has dedicated experienced attorneys in this manner and for this period of time to a local legal aid organization.

"This program is one of the first programs of its type and magnitude in Pennsylvania," said Esther F. Lardent, member of the Board of Directors of the Pro Bono Institute at Georgetown University Law Center.

“We want to expand upon the high quality legal services we provide, and the Lawyers on Loan Project will help to accomplish that goal,” NLSA Executive Director Robert Racunas said. "Studies by both the American Bar Association and the Pennsylvania Bar Association estimate that less than one in five low-income persons receive the legal aid they need. We hope that other law firms will follow the leads of Dickie, McCamey & Chilcote and Thorp Reed & Armstrong and sign on to this signature project in future years.”

The program coordinators are NLSA Board President and Thorp Reed & Armstrong partner, Mark F. Nowak and Board of Directors member and Dickie, McCamey & Chilcote shareholder, Maria Greco Danaher. Ms. Danaher also heads the NLSA Board’s Pro Bono Task Force, which originated the Project.

The goal of the Project is to create an ongoing program involving other law firms who, it is hoped, ultimately will provide lawyers to assist NLSA by donating the time of an experienced associate for a one-year period of full-time work. Local law firms interested in obtaining additional information about the Project should contact Pam Dalton-Arlotti at 412-586-6104.