FIPBD 2021

January 14, 2021 marked the second (and first-ever virtual) Financial Institution Pro Bono Day (FIPBD), organized by Corporate Pro Bono (CPBO), a project of PBI, in partnership with 18 financial institutions in cities across the United States and the United Kingdom. Pro bono leaders from the legal departments of these financial institutions, often in partnership with legal services organizations and law firms, organized more than 50 pro bono trainings and opportunities for January 14.

More than 600 volunteers from the financial institutions participated in pro bono events that addressed issues including racial and criminal justice, expungement of criminal records, review of actual innocence claims, review of non-unanimous Jim Crow jury convictions, and research to identify and combat racist laws, driver’s license restoration, immigration and citizenship, estate planning, housing and homelessness, uncontested divorces, transgender name changes, veterans’ benefits, financial literacy, protective orders for domestic violence survivors, advising nonprofits and small businesses, and many more. In total, the events on Financial Institution Pro Bono Day served more than 1000 clients nationwide and in the U.K. Additionally, many volunteers who received training on January 14 will serve additional clients in the coming weeks and months. The barriers to access to justice can be nearly insurmountable for many underserved communities. PBI’s FIPBD showcased legal departments of financial institutions giving back through pro bono legal services to address critical legal needs.

Companies organizing events include American Express, Bank of America, Barclays, Bloomberg, BNY Mellon, Capital One, Citigroup, Citizens Bank, Credit Suisse, Discover Financial Services, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, PNC Financial Services Group, U.S. Bank, Vanguard and Wells Fargo. Other participating companies include AIG, Apple Bank, Bank of Montreal, Bank of the West, Blend, BMO Financial Group, DC Green Bank, Fidelity Investments, Fifth Third Bank, First Republic, Huntington Bank, John Hancock, Key Bank, MassMutual, MFS Investment Management, Navy Federal Credit Union, ORIX, Putnam Investments, and TD Bank. Dozens of firms and legal services organizations have partnered with the financial institution legal departments to make these events possible.

List of Events

National

Tracking Trial Attorneys
On December 2, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments about whether their decision striking down Louisiana’s Jim Crow jury rule, Ramos v. Louisiana, will apply retroactively to people with final convictions. The case will serve as an important test of whether America will continue to condemn the wrongs of the past – while continuing to tolerate their impact on the present. Check out PJI’s managing attorney’s interview with Audie Cornish on NPR’s “All Things Considered.” As the Supreme Court deliberates, PJI is on a tight timeline to find proof for every person who alleges that he, she, or they was convicted based on a Jim Crow jury verdict, and is continuing to research the impact of the Jim Crow jury convictions on Louisiana. Because of hurricanes and careless record practices, many records of non-unanimous jury verdicts are missing. PJI needs help looking on the Orleans Parish docket for the trial attorneys who represented clients at trial, and finding the contact information for these attorneys on the bar association website or elsewhere, so that PJI can call them and ask them if they have records, remember the case, and/or can sign an affidavit about whether the verdict in the case was a Jim Crow jury verdict.

Race Research
On December 2, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments about whether their decision striking down Louisiana’s Jim Crow jury rule, Ramos v. Louisiana, will apply retroactively to people with final convictions. The case will serve as an important test of whether America will continue to condemn the wrongs of the past – while continuing to tolerate their impact on the present. Check out PJI’s managing attorney’s interview with Audie Cornish on NPR’s “All Things Considered.” As the Supreme Court deliberates, PJI is on a tight timeline to find proof for every person who alleges that he, she, or they was convicted based on a Jim Crow jury verdict, and is continuing to research the impact of the Jim Crow jury convictions on Louisiana. PJI has found that 80% of the men and women still serving time in prison in Louisiana as a result of Jim Crow jury verdicts are Black. PJI has some cases where they don’t know the race of an incarcerated person. Using some free resources, PJI would like help researching the race of a list of people with Jim Crow Jury verdicts so they can keep their data up-to-date.

Judges’ Bench Book About Sex Trafficking Survivors
Survivors of sex trafficking are from our most marginalized populations – survivors are disproportionately Black women and girls and most survivors have suffered homelessness. Many survivors have been convicted of prostitution and other crimes while their traffickers remain free. Survivors are wrongfully labeled as defendants, even though they were victims controlled by their traffickers. Instead of being offered help, these survivors are channeled through the criminal justice system. When they finally escape their trafficker and the system, their convictions prevent them from obtaining housing, employment, and other resources they need to rebuild their future. The WAVE Foundation’s goal is to create a bench book (a judicial reference guide) so that judges are aware of the impact of convictions on sex trafficking survivors, the racial equity implications, and the trauma suffered by survivors. With this education, WAVE hopes that judges will be able to identify and assist survivors, and be able to conduct more trauma-informed courtrooms. This will be a truly innovative project as it will be the first bench book of its kind in Washington State and nationwide.

Racist Laws Research Project
This project is dedicated to deepening the understanding of intersecting components of systems that create and perpetuate disadvantages for Black communities and other communities of color, while identifying the advantages for white individuals and communities. We are exploring how racial inequality impacts banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions so that it can develop an action plan and launch initiatives, programs, and educational resources to help the industry move towards racial justice and combat disparity. This research project focuses on exploring that inequality and how to address it.

National Veterans Legal Service Program Clinic
Individual client meetings were conducted on January 14th to complete intake for participants.

International Compendium of the Laws Related to Human Traffic and Modern-Day Slavery
Teams of 3-5 lawyers took a particular country that has English as its official language and began the process of identifying and pulling together all of the resources, laws, statutes, and regulations that they could find related to the specific trafficking/slavery issues identified in the compendium outline and then begin, time permitting, to fill in the sections of the compendium related to that country.

Boston, MA

Written Information Security Program (WISP) Clinic
This clinic assisted nonprofit organizations with creation or review of Written Information Security Program (WISP) materials.  Massachusetts law requires any corporate entity operating in the Commonwealth that handles residents’ personal information to develop and enforce a WISP.

Project Citizenship Remote Clinic
This clinic assisted legal permanent residents with filling out their applications to become naturalized U.S. citizens. The benefits to citizenship are many, including the ability to obtain a U.S. passport and the opportunity to have greater access to better-paying jobs. The client engagement begins and ends on the date of the clinic.

California

Conservatorship Intake Clinic
For this year’s Financial Institution Pro Bono Day, the Legal Department’s Southern California region partnered with Bryan Cave and Bet Tzedek for a conservatorship intake clinic. This year’s clinic was conducted primarily over the telephone. Volunteers screened conservatorship applicants, and where, appropriate, assisted the applicants with their supporting paperwork and declarations.

Clean Slate Clinic
A single-afternoon clinic that assisted individuals with old criminal convictions who might be eligible to have their records cleared. People with a record face significant barriers to employment, and other basic necessities like housing, even when the record is old or relatively minor, so this type of pro bono assistance can make a profound impact on an individual’s life.

Charlotte, NC

Driver’s License Restoration Clinic
The project is focused on restoring driver’s license privileges for low-income clients who cannot afford to pay traffic fines and fees and whose driver’s license is suspended as a result. Volunteers worked in teams to screen records and draft advice letters to assist low-income clients who were requesting advice through ncfairchance.org.

Chicago, IL

Records Expungement Clinic
Fighting the effects of systemic racism can start with expunging convictions that stand in the way of access to better opportunities. Bank of America, Chapman and Cutler LLP, and Legal Aid Chicago joined together to draft expungement petitions for clients in Cook County who deserve a fresh start.

Veterans Credit Repair Workshop
Credit repair educational program.

Prairie State Legal Services — Hotline
The telephone counseling hotline receives many calls from low-income Illinois residents, and volunteers ensure that essential legal services are provided to as many people as possible. Working with Dinsmore & Shohl, volunteer attorneys returned calls to clients that have called the hotline and have been prescreened for legal services.

Cincinatti, OH

Ohio Justice Policy Center — Beyond Guilt
Working with Dinsmore & Shohl, the Beyond Guilt pro bono attorneys work with full time staff of the Ohio Justice & Policy Center on the first stage of screening of prisoners seeking assistance and judicial release. The volunteers reviewed the applications, court records, sentence length and amount served, prisoner records on education rehabilitation and good behavior, and applicable legal standards to make a preliminary determination of whether any of the applicants would be viable candidates for assistance under the Beyond Guilt criteria.

Dallas, TX

Dallas Volunteer Attorney Program Virtual Clinic
General intake clinic for low income clients with a focus on civil cases such as family law matters, landlord tenant disputes, etc.

District of Columbia (metro area)

Citizenship Application Assistance Clinic

KIND Program Introduction
Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) is the leading national organization that works to ensure that no refugee or immigrant child faces immigration court alone. KIND’s DC/VA office provided an overview of the issues facing unaccompanied immigrant children, KIND’s pro bono opportunities, and the support KIND offers its pro bono attorneys.

Small Business Advice Legal Clinic
The D.C. Bar Pro Bono Center, in partnership with the DCRA Small Business Resource Center, hosted 45-minute remote legal consultations for small business owners.

Schedule H Training and Clinic
Legal Counsel for the Elderly (LCE) has hundreds of clients who may be eligible for a D.C. tax credit of up to $1,000, which is available to low-income residents with high housing costs. Seniors who subsist entirely on Social Security may not need to file an income tax return, but they could get $1,000 to help pay for rent or property taxes by filling out the D.C. Schedule H tax form in the 2021 tax season. Helping low income seniors with this tax credit is especially important this year as many have been impacted by the pandemic and D.C.’s moratorium on evictions may end around the time that checks would be issued as a result of the tax credit. Volunteers helped low-income D.C. seniors fill out this straightforward form.

Uncontested Divorce Clinic

Volunteers helped clients in need in the areas of family law, name changes, expungements, and estate planning. Estate Planning is the greatest need that does not require full representation. The clients were in person on site, while volunteers called in via video call.

Uncontested Divorce Clinic

Remote Citizenship Clinic

London, England

Employment Training
Training session on Employment Law aimed at both charities/social enterprises.

Privacy Training
Training session on GDPR aimed at both charities/social enterprises.

Mid-Atlantic Region

Mid Atlantic Innocence Project – File Review
MAIP dedicates their services to helping innocent people who were wrongfully convicted for crimes they did not commit in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington DC. Since its inception in 2000, MAIP has helped exonerate or release 38 innocent men who served a combined total of 742 years in prison. As they mark their 20th year, they’ve partnered with law firms to embark on a new pro bono project to complete a review of their successful exoneration cases. We are excited to announce that two of those law firms (McGuire Woods and Troutman Pepper) have invited Capital One to be a part of their teams.

Teams of approximately four to six people (with a mix between Capital One associates and law firm associates) were responsible for reviewing all case materials and assisting with the preparation of the final memo, which summarizes a team’s assessment. Both attorneys and non-attorneys were welcome.

New Jersey

Uncontested Divorce Clinic
​​​Volunteers virtually assisted low-income clients with preparing and assembling the pleadings and other documents necessary to file for divorce in New Jersey.  NJ Legal Services has a large backlog of clients needing assistance due to COVID-related court closures, and the assistance is invaluable to clients and the organization.

New York, NY

Doing Business Online Virtual Clinic
Volunteer attorneys provided small business owners with a legal check-up on their websites and simple, personalized privacy policies and terms of service. It is our hope that these basic policies will help protect clients’ digital businesses and make them feel more confident about their compliance with the law as it relates to their ever-increasing online business activities. Start Small Think Big (SSTB) and Cleary Gottlieb provided a comprehensive one-hour CLE/training session to participating attorneys prior to the morning consultations.

Elderly Project: Estate Planning Document Drafting and Execution Clinic

All Virtual Green Card Clinic
Volunteers assisted with drafting of Green Card application and discussions with clients about gathering necessary supporting documents. Involvement in the months following the Clinic to finalize the application and collect supporting materials is optional for financial institution volunteers.

Clinic for Entrepreneurs
NELP is a City Bar Justice Center pro bono initiative which aims to empower low-to-middle income micro-entrepreneurs in the NYC community. Small teams of volunteer attorneys (3-5) met with entrepreneurs to advise on a wide range of commercial legal questions including corporate formation, contracts, and intellectual property, all in an effort to help the entrepreneurs start their businesses on sound legal footing. As this was an intake clinic, the scope of the representation was limited to the two-hour window allotted.

Naturalization Application Clinic
In partnership with City Bar Justice Center and Fragomen, volunteers met with clients seeking to complete naturalization applications virtually, walked through a series of application questions with them, and discussed potential issues with their eligibility to naturalize.  The clinic included a 1-hour training before the client meetings.

Virtual Pro Bono Clinic: Financial Compliance Check-up for Nonprofits
Partnering with the Lawyers Alliance for New York, clinic volunteers (open to attorneys and non-attorneys) assisted nonprofit clients by reviewing financial disclosures and related corporate governance documents and procedures. The focus was on nonprofits whose mission is to support social and racial justice efforts in New York City. Following a training and orientation meeting on Zoom, volunteers were assigned to provide a consultation to a participating nonprofit organization, using an assessment tool provided by Lawyers Alliance.

Non-Profit Waivers and Releases for Remote Programs and Activities

Excellence Through Ethics
Citi partnered with Junior Achievement to host a career panel and virtually teach high school students at The Community Health Academy of the Heights (CHAH) about ethics in everyday life and in the workplace.

VLA Legal Clinic
During the private appointment, volunteer attorney(s) responded to inquiries about arts-related legal matters.  In the past, artists presented issues in the following areas: exploring alternatives for starting for-profit and not-for-profit business entities; an artist who has been offered a contract may seek assistance in understanding its basic terms or an artist may ascertain whether her intellectual property rights are being infringed.

Transgender Name Change Clinic
Volunteers helped low-income transgender clients secure legal name changes. Obtaining a legal name change is essential for transgender clients, so that they can be treated with respect from employers, government agencies, hospitals, and more. But the name change procedure in New York is intimidating for many clients, and requires approval by a judge.  During remote client meetings, volunteers spoke with clients, analyzed documents, drafted the petition, and advised clients about the name change process.

Philadelphia, PA

SeniorLAW Center Clinic
At this clinic, volunteers connected via telephone with seniors to assist with advance life planning. Volunteers prepared simple wills, healthcare and financial powers of attorney, advanced healthcare directives, living wills, and provided related counseling.

Nonprofit Formation Training
Attendees learned how to help local nonprofits incorporate and file for tax-exempt status at our 90-minute virtual training, and were then matched with a client prior to the training or volunteer on future available nonprofit cases. Volunteers were welcome to team up with colleagues to work on cases in pairs.

Pittsburgh, PA

TLDEF Name Change Clinic
Attendees learned how to petition for a name change for transgender clients in Allegheny County, PA.

Guardian Angels Medical Service Dogs Legal Consultation Panel
General training/counseling to individual clients who had questions about rights/obligations in relation to their service dogs.

DACA Renewal Clinic
Volunteers helped current DACA recipients renew for two years their protection from deportation and authorization to work in the US.

Wills Clinic for Cancer Patients
Volunteers helped cancer patients draft wills and other advance directive documents. In-house lawyers were paired with Reed Smith lawyers in working with the clients.

Richmond, VA

Maggie Walker Community Land Trust
Maggie Walker Community Land Trust allows people to purchase the improvements on a parcel of real property that is held in trust by Maggie Walker in order to make the housing more affordable and to make home ownership a possibility for more people. Volunteers helped clients review land leases to understand terms and responsibilities.

Protective Order Training
This program showed volunteers how to represent survivors of domestic violence in seeking protective orders. The training was led by staff from Central Virginia Legal Aid Society (“CVLAS”) and McGuireWoods who explained how to prepare to represent a client in a protective order hearing against the client’s abuser. Volunteers will then be supported and mentored in opportunities to undertake future pro bono representation of these clients through a program partnership with CVLAS. The pandemic has created an increase in the need for volunteers in this area.

St. Louis, MO

Estate Planning Clinic
Client meetings on healthcare power of attorney, advance directives, and beneficiary deeds.

Tampa, FL

Texas

Estate Planning Clinic
Assisting people who have fines or other legal barriers file pleadings in order to obtain driver’s licenses. Some cases will have hearings scheduled for future participation.

Virginia

CancerLINC Wills Clinic
A virtual clinic that provided wills, advanced medical directives, and powers of attorney to cancer patients and their families

* denotes a Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge^® signatory
** denotes a Corporate Pro Bono Challenge^® signatory
† denotes a Law Firm Pro Bono Project^® member