The committee has met four times this year and plans to meet once more in October. At the suggestion of the OBA staff the committee undertook the task of drafting Goals and Objectives. While at the time of this writing a final vote has not been taken to approve the goals and objectives, utilizing materials from the Access to Justice Commission, the committee has prepared a draft. The proposed Goals are: ensuring access to justice and encouraging collaboration. Access to justice should not be restricted by lack of income, infirmity, geography, culture, literacy, or language. To accomplish this access, collaboration should be encouraged among courts, attorneys, court clerks, law enforcement and administrative and social service agencies. Objectives to reach these goals include enhanced communication- networking with other committees nationwide through conferences, list serves, publications, and web sites; ensuring the right to effective court appointed counsel; supporting pro bono panels through awards and publicity; supporting limited scope representation; and educating the legal and general community about the ways to access justice. Further objectives include supporting funding for legal aid programs and law school repayment assistance programs to encourage legal service attorneys as well as supporting a statewide lawyer referral system.

Several committee members attended the national Equal Justice Conference in May held in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The conference sponsored by the American Bar Association and the National Legal Aid and Defender Association was a great opportunity to network and to attend workshops on current national initiatives for equal justice. Pro bono medical-legal partnerships, debt forgiveness of student loans for legal services attorneys, judges and self-represented litigants, recruitment and retention of quality legal aid attorneys and civil right to counsel were all topics in workshops attended by committee members.

The committee this year continued to monitor and support equal justice initiatives across the state. The Tulsa County Bar Association lawyer referral service was discussed at several meetings as the committee continues to support some method of making information available to clients across the state that have challenges in retaining attorneys. Tulsa also was the situs for initiatives in establishing a homeless court. The committee recognizes the special needs of homeless clients who face multiple challenges with social and legal implications. The committee continued to move forward on crafting court rules for unbundling or limited scope representation of clients. The committee has also been following an initiative by the Cleveland County Court in conjunction with Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma to establish a pro se guardianship project. Regular reports have been made to the committee by the Oklahoma Child Support Enforcement program on their initiatives to enlarge access to unrepresented clients. This includes a federal grant for an on-line document self help information portal at five pilot work stations.

State law schools have been well represented on the committee and are working on a variety of pro bono projects involving students as well as working to address the issues of school loan repayments. The Oklahoma City University Law School Dean’s summer internship program provides 39 law students with a stipend for living expenses so they can work in the public service sector. This summer, law students researched child support enforcement law issues and worked at child support help desks. The University of Oklahoma College of Law sponsors a pro bono access to justice program where law students perform legal research.

Finally the committee has continued its monthly pro bono article for the Oklahoma Bar Journal supporting and promoting pro bono activities.

Kade A. McClure,
Chairperson