Program Offers Legal Services to State’s Neediest
By Marvin Timothy Gray, Director of DVIS/CR Legal Services

Who Are We?

Domestic Violence Intervention Services Inc./Call Rape (DVIS/CR) is a not-for-profit agency providing services to survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault in Tulsa and Creek counties. DVIS provides a wide array of services for survivors of domestic violence, abusive persons, children who have witnessed domestic violence and the community. DVIS, through the attorneys in its Legal Services Department, also provides legal representation to selected high-risk clients who are in potentially very dangerous circumstances in divorce, protective order, name change and other legal proceedings which may affect their safety and security. DVIS/CR Legal Services also provides many hours of counsel and advice to private individuals, other attorneys, domestic violence and sexual assault organizations throughout the state and the region, mental health providers, Native American tribes or members of tribes and public organizations. It provides training to many groups and organizations throughout Oklahoma.

Why Do We Need Pro Bono Attorneys to Help?

So where do pro bono services fit in? Unlike most practices, our staff attorneys are faced with the difficulty of choosing to expend legal representation and services where needed the most. Clients accepted by the program are usually indigent to some degree, at high risk for conflict and danger in their relationships, may possess language or other barriers to communication, may face drug or alcohol abuse issues, may have mental health issues and are struggling from extremely traumatic events that have shaped their lives during the cycles of violence and abuse with which they have been involved. Even so, there are many more clients who present themselves to DVIS/CR Legal Services with not only real legal needs but with complicated legal cases that may already be very confusing and complicated. Our panel of pro bono attorneys frequently steps forward in the very best tradition of the Oklahoma and Tulsa County bar associations and the legal community in general. They take some cases that the four staff attorneys do not have the time and resources to take but take clients desperately needing legal assistance.

What Do Our Pro Bono Attorneys Do?

In the Oklahoma Rules of Professional Conduct, 5. O.S. Chapter 1, App.3-A Rule 6.1 Pro Bono Public Services states:

“A lawyer should render public interest legal service. A lawyer may discharge this responsibility by:

(a) providing professional services at no fee or a reduced fee to persons of limited means or to public service or charitable groups or organizations;”

The DVIS/CR panel of pro bono attorneys provides DVIS/CR clients with many hours of no fee professional services each year. These attorneys take on cases where they are aware that the clients they are being referred have domestic violence and /or sexual assault issues that present a wide range of difficulties and complications to their case, are in need of unusually frequent contact, have ICWA or UCCJEA related issues, have any or all of the issues mentioned above and are indigent, or have no access to potential resources. Some of these attorneys may take on multiple pro bono cases each year and take on yet further cases at extremely reduced fees. Often these attorneys will also provide counsel and advice to clients as well as to the DVIS/CR attorneys, counselors and advocates. In doing so, these wonderful attorneys not only provide services to individual clients but to DVIS/CR’s mission to serve survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault and create positive social change for those living in poverty and trying to escape the violence they have experienced.

Rule 6.1 also continues that a lawyer may render public interest legal service by:

“(b) serving without compensation in public interest activities that improve the law, the legal system, or the legal profession…”

DVIS/CR is not a law firm. Its attorneys are managed in their cases by the director of legal services, also an attorney. But who manages the director? The DVIS/CR executive director provides administrative leadership for all of DVIS/CR programs including the DVIS/CR Legal Services Department. However, supervision in all client-related matters for the DVIS/CR legal services director and the DVIS/CR legal services program come from the DVIS/CR legal services advisory board.

This board is comprised entirely of veteran attorneys from the community, from large law firms, solo practitioners, other public service attorneys and University of Tulsa law professors. These attorneys provide regular guidance and supervision as well as support to the DVIS/CR Legal Services Department. These attorneys all serve pro bono and provide a necessary structure to allow and encourage DVIS/CR Legal Services to provide quality services to the community. The services that these attorneys provide undoubtedly improve the law, the legal system and the legal profession as well as guiding the DVIS/CR attorneys in doing the same.

Pro bono service comes in many packages. Many attorneys in the community provide wonderful support to DVIS/CR that allows clients to be served who simply would not receive legal services otherwise. Donations of time, financial gifts and expertise from community attorneys are essential to continued and improved programs and operations of DVIS/CR, as well as to decreasing the number of those who are not receiving legal services, despite the best efforts of organizations like DVIS/CR Legal Services, Legal Aid of Oklahoma, Neighbor for Neighbor, Spirits of Hope and others.

In the end, it becomes clear to DVIS/CR as well as to our clients and to many others like them in communities all over Oklahoma, in the U.S. and throughout the world: We can’t do without the services that our pro bono lawyers provide. Many tear-streaked faces, large and small, of many different ethnicities and with many diverse and difficult legal issues have been graced with a smile and renewed hope by the work that our pro bono attorneys have done All we can say is thank you.

If you know an organization that should be recognized for its pro bono efforts, please let us know. Submissions should be forwarded to probono@okbar.org or Pro Bono Services Subcommittee, c/o Judith Maute, University of Oklahoma College of Law, 300 W. Timberdell Road, Norman, OK 73019-0701.