2024 CPBO Pro Bono Partner Awardee

The VLP is the first project of its kind in New Jersey. The partners created the VLP because they identified a gap in existing legal services for veterans in New Jersey, 5.4% of whom live below the poverty line, and 34% of whom are age 75 or older. The partnership’s objective is to address these wealth, demographic and access-to-justice gaps for New Jersey’s veterans by providing them with pro bono legal services to address their critical legal needs.

Since the launch of the VLP, 160 attorneys and 15 staff volunteers have collectively dedicated over 2,038 hours to handle 697 legal matters, providing pro bono legal services valued at $760,637. The in-house participation from PSE&Gin this partnership includes 38 attorney volunteers (76% of the lawyers in the department) and nine legal staff volunteers, who have handled over 300 legal matters, totaling more than 600 hours of pro bono legal services, valued at $245,335.

The partners launched the Military Legal Assistance Program, now known as the VLP, in 2014 with a monthly by-appointment clinic focused on criminal records expungement, driver’s license restoration, and child support. The partners then expanded the project in 2017 to offer two legal clinics every month on a broader array of issues. The partners also scaled up the project by inviting other legal departments and law firms to volunteer, which significantly increased the capacity of the project to serve more veterans every month.

During the pandemic, the VLP pivoted to offer virtual clinics to serve veterans with compromised immune systems and other limitations. In 2022, VLP began offering holistic legal check-ups at the East Orange VA Medical Center, in addition to offering the limited-scope clinics.

In 2023, the VLP piloted a new child support modification clinic in recognition of the immense need for support in this area. The clinic uses a “rolling” approach where volunteers can provide limited-scope support to veterans who are working pro se on their child support modification applications in between clinics, so that veterans do not need to wait for the next scheduled clinic to receive services.

Many veterans have received life-changing services from VLP volunteers. For example, pro bono volunteers have helped veterans  fight eviction and stay safely in their homes; to obtain expungement of their criminal records allowing them to move on with their lives; to restore their driver’s licenses and get back on the road; to gain peace of mind by drafting healthcare directives, powers of attorney, and wills; and by right-sizing child support obligations through modification of child support orders. Many clients have received multiple services through the VLP. 

In addition to donating their time and resources through pro bono volunteering, PSE&G, Gibbons, and McCarter & English provide financial support to VLJ, which bolsters the strength of both the legal services organization and the VLP.

The partnership also participated in the 2023 EmPOWERing Pro Bono Day, a day of pro bono legal service for electric and gas utilities that PBI’s Corporate Pro Bono project coordinates.

Congratulations to PSE&G, Gibbons P.C., McCarter & English, LLP, and Volunteer Lawyers for Justice for creating and sustaining an impactful initiative, that has evolved for over a decade, to assist New Jersey’s veterans with their civil legal needs.

About PSE&G

Public Service Electric & Gas Co. is New Jersey’s oldest and largest gas and electric delivery public utility, as well as one of the nation’s largest utilities. PSE&G is the 2022 Edison Award recipient from the Edison Electric Institute. PSE&G has won the ReliabilityOne^® Award for superior electric system reliability in the Mid-Atlantic region for 22 consecutive years. For the second consecutive year, PSE&G is the recipient of the ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year award in the Energy Efficiency Program Delivery category. In addition, in 2023 J.D. Power named PSE&G number one in customer satisfaction with residential and business electric service in the east among large utilities.

PSE&G is a subsidiary of Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG), a predominantly regulated infrastructure company founded in 1903 that is headquartered in Newark, New Jersey. One of New Jersey’s largest employers, PSEG’s 12,500 employees power the lives of 2.4 million electric customers and 1.9 million natural gas customers in the Garden State. PSEG has long had a key role in fueling New Jersey’s economy and supporting the state’s quality of life. PSEG carries forward a proud tradition of dedicated service that has continued over more than 120 years.

About Gibbons P.C.

With offices in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Washington, DC, and Florida, Gibbons has been recognized nationally for its work as well as regionally. The New Jersey Law Journal has awarded Gibbons a “Litigation Practice of the Year” designation five times in recent years, in the employment and labor law, class actions, products liability, and commercial litigation categories and with the overall “General Litigation Practice of the Year” honor. The Commerce and Industry Association of New Jersey and COMMERCE magazine awarded Gibbons the highest honor in the “Caring for Children” category of their “Companies That Care” Awards program for the firm’s pro bono work representing children with disabilities who have been denied special education services by their school districts. And in 2021, the Litigation Section of the American Bar Association honored the firm with a John Minor Wisdom Public Service and Professionalism Award, which recognizes, among nominated firms nationwide, “those who have made outstanding contributions to the quality of justice in their communities, ensuring that the legal system is open and available to all.” Gibbons has been certified as a great workplace by the independent analysts at the Great Place to Work^® organization.

About McCarter & English, LLP

McCarter & English, LLP delivers innovative solutions to clients nationwide. Fortune 100, mid-market, and emerging growth companies rely on McCarter to handle their cutting-edge transactional, intellectual property, and complex litigation matters. Clients benefit from the firm’s relationship-driven approach, deep understanding of their businesses and legal needs, lean and efficient service model, and determination to help them move their businesses forward. McCarter’s award-winning pro bono program is committed to serving those in need and dates back to the firm’s founding nearly 180 years ago. In 2023 we spent more than 3% of the firm’s billable hours providing meaningful pro bono services, with the majority of our lawyers taking part. For more information, see www.mccarter.com/firm/pro-bono [mccarter.com].  

About Volunteer Lawyers for Justice

Volunteer Lawyers for Justice (VLJ) is an award-winning, comprehensive nonprofit legal services program based in Newark, New Jersey, with a statewide reach. VLJ’s mission is to ensure access to justice for people experiencing poverty. The Newark-based organization ensures fair access to the legal system through partnerships with corporations and hundreds of volunteer attorneys. In 2023, VLJ’s work impacted over 4,200 people—including 1,644 children—and its volunteer attorneys donated nearly $2 million in free legal services. To learn more, please visit www.vljnj.org. 

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About the CPBO Pro Bono Partner Award
Corporate Pro Bono (CPBO), a project of Pro Bono Institute, created the CPBO Pro Bono Partner Award to recognize innovative pro bono collaborations of in-house legal departments with law firms and public interest organizations. Pro bono partnerships that include at least one in-house legal department with one or more law firms and/or public interest organizations are eligible. The CPBO Advisory Board selects the award recipients.

The award honors legal departments and the organizations with which they partner in the provision of legal services to those in need. The award recipients are departments, law firms, and public interest organizations that have demonstrated an impact in their community through their partnership project, shown substantial involvement in the project by in-house lawyers, made tangible steps toward sustaining the relationship among the partners, developed innovative substantive or structural approaches in support of the partnership’s effort, and addressed a critical legal need or assisted a particularly vulnerable community or target population.

Over the years, the impact and innovation of the projects supported by the award recipients have been tremendously important both in the projects’ ability to address the legal needs of the communities being served and in the role the partnerships have played in supporting and furthering pro bono work, especially within the in-house community. Through these partnerships, legal departments, law firms, and public interest organizations have devised programs that contribute to the legal profession’s efforts to close the justice gap and that create strong legacies of effective pro bono service.